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The need for self-directed learning for professional development drives an increase in the delivery of easy to use 'just-in-time' resources that respond to the often-dynamic workplace and work culture. This is especially important in the era of globalisation, when the number of employees, who are culturally diverse, increases each year. Most medium and large companies operate in an international environment, and this is due to the expansion of international enterprises with branches in various countries that requires cooperation with foreign clients, and the employment of foreign nationals in their companies. In order to guarantee the effectiveness of workings in companies, there is a need for continuous education in the aspect of the cultural diversity. This paper explores micro-learning, which focuses on delivering brevity through bite-sized learning units or short-term learning activities. Learning content in this case can take many forms, from text to interactive multimedia. These contents are often created on demand, which can sometimes be less contextualised and pedagogically informed. Based on a case study of the need for training on cultural risks in multi-cultural organisations, this paper focuses on the design of mini-games as playful learning resources for supporting an online learning platform that has been developed as a response to this training need. Fifteen mini-games have been developed to complement eight main topics related to cultural risks and to promote reflection, practice and the self-assessment of knowledge acquired through the platform. The main eight topics represent the risk areas identified that include cultural awareness, understanding different cultures, communication, learning styles, hierarchy, team-working, qualities in the working place, and stereotypes through a survey carried out with personnel (n=154) from multi-cultural organisations across five countries - Cyprus, Italy, Latvia, Poland, and the UK. The discussions include unpacking the mapping of pedagogical and gameful design considerations based on Arnab et al.'s (2015) Learning Mechanics-Game Mechanics Mapping (LMGM) model. The paper also discusses the findings from the testing of the online platform across 5 countries including 166 participants (two-step testing). The insights provided will be valuable to researchers, practitioners, designers, and developers of micro-learning resources.

This paper provides an analysis of the literature on transnational education to identify the key challenges and success factors for the sustainable operation of transnational higher education (TNE) programmes as perceived by key stakeholders. Probing the stakeholders' perspectives and applying a systematic approach, this study analyses 227 English-written articles retrieved from the Web of Science database published from 2000 to 2021. Key challenges identified include difficulties in managing the TNE programmes, ensuring quality assurance, adapting the curricula to the local contexts, accommodating offshore students' learning styles, creating studying environments for TNE students equivalent to those in the home institutions, ensuring preparedness of the academic staff, and facilitating the knowledge transfer in the host countries. The analysis also highlights six factors for the sustainable development of TNE programmes, including the effectiveness of the operations, the internationalization of the curricula, the transnational experience of the students, the development of the transnational staff, the existence of a proper regulatory framework in the host countries, and the development of a global systematic data collection for quality assurance. In addition, the evidence collected suggests that while the transition from domestic into a foreign programme can be rewarding, it demands appropriate planning and implementation.

Given that a large proportion of Master's students in UK universities are from mainland China, we sought to quantify the extent to which their approaches to learning (AtL) and epistemological beliefs (EBs) differ from those of non-Chinese students, and how these differences affected first-semester grades. To this end, we surveyed a large cohort of Master's students (n = 564, 65.3% Chinese) at a UK Business School at the beginning of an academic year to minimise influences that might change attitudes towards AtL and EBs. Primary data on AtL and EBs were collected using two standard survey instruments, along with data on social class, prior attainment, and nationality. This unique combination of measures, controls and large sample size allowed for an analysis that was more comprehensive than previous studies. Our findings showed that achievement among Chinese students was unrelated to AtL but was associated with EBs and social background. For example, when controlling for other factors, Chinese students who had confidence in their learning ability achieved higher grades, while non-Chinese students who perceived knowledge as certain underperformed. Moreover, Chinese students whose fathers held lower status jobs achieved significantly higher grades when controlling for other characteristics.

This study explored if adolescents' style of decision-making is related to the sex composition of their friendship groups. Using data on 13,413 members of the Millennium Cohort Study at ages 11 and 14 years, we explored reciprocal associations between decision-making, measured with the Cambridge Gambling Task, and own-sex and other- or mixed-sex companionship. Cross-lagged models showed that girls whose friends at 11 were mainly girls showed better quality of decision-making, more risk adjustment, shorter deliberation time and less delay aversion at age 14, compared to girls in mixed-sex or other-sex friendship groups at 11. For boys, having predominantly male friends was associated only with more risk adjustment. Conversely, decision-making style at age 11 did little to predict keeping own-sex company at age 14. It appears that same-sex friendships may help develop better decision-making in adolescence, but only for girls.

The global population of students pursuing studies abroad continues to grow, and consequently their intercultural experiences are receiving greater research attention. However, research into long-term student sojourners' academic development and personal growth is still in its infancy. A parallel mixed method study was designed to investigate the academic adjustment of international Chinese students who had studied in the UK for more than three years. Using interview data collected from both Chinese students and British teachers and questionnaire data collected from a wider sample of the Chinese students, the researcher examined the relationship between their academic, psychological, and social adjustment and provided a more holistic view of Chinese students' intercultural adaptation process. The results showed that the big challenge for the Chinese students during their early adjustment was to deal with the different perceptions of teaching and learning within their own culture and within the culture of their host country. Changes were found in their language ability, learning approaches, and sense of self over time. In particular, social support and their agency as a learner played an important role in their academic development.

With the increasing demand for STEM professionals, together with many of the current STEM professionals approaching or already gone over retiring age, there is a current shortfall which is now an urgent requirement to be addressed by Western countries as so much of activities and life in general is increasingly technology dependent. Actions that are currently being taken to address this shortfall in the UK by academic establishments, organizations and professional bodies are considered in this paper. Some of these include those actions that are directed at encouraging a better gender balance in the future as well as those involving actions to attract students to be aware of STEM from an early age to supporting women returning to the STEM profession. Parts of our research examines the learning and studying approaches adopted by some of the learners, their levels of attainment and attitude to learning to use technology and using technology to improve their learning. The paper reports on the developments and improvements from some of these initiatives and activities implemented. Some of these actions include details of competitions from primary to postgraduate students, women only training sessions, online support groups for STEM women, ranging from technical to career and social issues, and details of CAS (Computing At School) support for teachers, both face to face and online, currently with over 30,000 CAS participants. In conclusion the paper reflects on a roll out of some of these activities and potential impact on enhancing interest and uptake of STEM subjects by both the young and older learners and across diverse levels of education.

"Although" is a frequently used subordinating conjunction in English. However, non-nativeness is often observed in Chinese EFL learners' "although" output during pedagogical practice. This paper aims at exploring the characteristics of Chinese EFL learners' "although" employment in Chinese EFL learners' writing. The study is a corpus-based analysis launched under the analytical framework of contrastive interlanguage analysis. The interlanguage hypothesis lays the theoretical foundation of the present study. Texts from two corpora--the Chinese learner English corpus [CLEC] and the "arts and humanities" disciplinary group of the British academic written English corpus [sub-BAWEC]--are analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively with the help of concordance software Antconc 3.2.1 and statistics program PASW Statistics 18. Based on the findings, conclusions are drawn as follows: 1) Chinese EFL learners tend to underuse "although" and produce mono-structural "although" clauses in their writing. Nevertheless, they share similar preference on deciding "although" placement in clauses with native English speakers; and 2) Factors such as interlingual difference between English and Mandarin Chinese, pedagogical neglect in English classrooms and different cognitive styles influence Chinese EFL learners' "although" employment.

Research suggests that individual differences in additional language learning may play a more important role in taxing situations when learners are confronted with unfamiliar or difficult tasks. However, studies to date have mostly focused on second language (L2) learners/bilinguals, while individual differences within multilingual populations remain under-researched. Working with university-level multilingual adults, we compared the effectiveness of traditional instruction (familiar) and concept-based instruction (unfamiliar) to teach the past tense/aspect distinction in Spanish. Learners were pre- and post-tested on their knowledge of the target structure and assessed on language learning aptitude, working memory capacity, verbal-imagery cognitive style and attitudes. While both treatment groups demonstrated significantly improved metalinguistic knowledge, we found no statistical differences between the two groups in terms of knowledge gained or attitudes, and individual differences in cognitive ability were not associated with observed gains. This set of results indicates that the cognitive individual differences measured seemingly no longer played a significant role in these multilinguals' performance in the instructional conditions examined. In addition, neither language learning experience nor typological closeness between known languages had any significant impact. We propose that extensive experience with explicit language instruction may have led to a levelling effect, as previously observed in L2 learners.

This study examined whether thinking style mediated relationships between belief in conspiracy and schizotypy facets. A UK-based sample of 421 respondents completed the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCBS), Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences Short (O-Life), and measures indexing preferential thinking style (proneness to reality testing deficits and Need for Cognition). Path analysis revealed direct and indirect relationships between Conspiracy Beliefs and schizotypy facets. Unusual Experiences had a direct effect on Conspiracy Beliefs and predicted Reality Testing and Need for Cognition. Preferential thinking style mediated the schizotypy-belief in conspiracy relationship. This pattern of results (higher experiential-based processing and lower Need for Cognition) was consistent with intuitive thinking. Introverted Anhedonia and Impulsive Nonconformity predicted Reality Testing and had indirect effects on Conspiracy Beliefs. Finally, Reality Testing predicted Conspiracy Beliefs, whereas Need for Cognition did not. These results confirm that cognitive processes related to thinking style mediate the schizotypy-conspiracist beliefs relationship.

This four-country study compares business students concentrating in marketing, accounting and finance (AF), and management with respect to five motives: lifestyle aspirations, reputational effects, relative ease of completion, career outcomes, and developmental skills. We find that, except for the developmental skills motive, the importance of different motives varies with concentration choice. Lifestyle aspirations and relative ease of completion motives tend to be generally more important to marketing than AF and management concentrators, while career outcomes are more important to AF concentrators compared with marketing and management concentrators. Comparing marketing students in the United States to their counterparts elsewhere, those in China are significantly less attracted to lifestyle aspirations, reputation, and career outcomes, while those in the United Arab Emirates show no significant differences in career outcomes or reputation compared with those from the United States. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of variations in cognitive styles of concentrations, cultural norms, and market forces between tight and loose societies, with implications for managers of educational institutions.

This study explored the perceptions and experiences of a group of students enrolled in an online course in Economic Evaluation. A mixed methods approach was adopted for the data collection, and thematic analysis was used to synthesize the data collected and highlight key findings. The participants identified several positive and negative perceived attributes of online learning, many of which are well documented in the literature. In addition, after exposure to the course, participants reported several factors that affected their learning experience on this course, some of which have not yet been reported in the wider literature. The five main factors affecting learning on this course include: 1) pace of learning in an online environment, 2) learning style, 3) immediacy of feedback, 4) method of content delivery, and 5) issues around navigating content. These findings could help improve online teaching practice and learning quality in future courses.

This paper presents findings from a doctoral study, which investigated effective methods for teaching social sustainability within product design courses in British and Irish universities. This paper explores approaches for encouraging students to explore the social aspects of sustainable product design through workshops specifically designed to foster deep learning through collaboration, discovery and critical reflection. The importance of deep learning is reflected in both the sustainable design education (O'Rafferty et al., 2008, Griffith and Bamford, 2007) and education for sustainability literature (Warburton, 2003) as important to an understanding of the holistic and complex nature of sustainability. Three "Rethinking Design" workshops were designed and developed as part of the doctoral main study to introduce students to the wider social aspects of sustainability and these were conducted in five universities in Britain and Ireland. The workshops were developed to foster principles that encourage students to adopt deep learning methods, taking into account the specific learning preferences of the current generation of students to enhance motivational factors such as relevance, appropriate teaching materials and opportunities for collaborative learning. The workshops were tested amongst 150 undergraduate and postgraduate students and found to be successful in fostering deep learning by facilitating learning through discovery, critical reflection, peer learning and creativity leading to an exploration of design thinking solutions.

There are currently a wide range of Higher Education Industrial Design courses available in the UK. In the present era, a wider breadth of narrative has developed within the subject, and as a result the content of industrial design educational offerings varies considerably. The paper assesses the industry view of Industrial Design as a discipline from the perspective of those employing university graduates. These views illustrate a change in the discipline, and this is considered in respect to current education practice. The choice of entry courses for the student wishing to embark on a career in the subject has also widened. It is argued that at present, the access to courses offers a haphazard informational stream to the potential applicant. An approach to developing an online facility to enable potential students to apply for the right course is discussed. It is suggested that a consistent and comparable platform of guidance is needed by which potential students can identify and match the course offering against their aptitudes and aspirations. A framework for such a system is proposed. Given that course choice will ultimately define the nature of their career opportunities it is argued that this would be a useful and productive asset.

Research on the education of international students sheds light on the difficulties of studying in a foreign language, but often underplays the opportunities provided by cultural diversity in the classroom. This study, prompted initially by the authors' experiences of the contrasts between East/West learning styles, explores how education systems, language, and cultural orientations inform students' approaches to learning. It explains how role reversal in the classroom can be implemented in higher (university) education settings, to generate deeper perspectives of meaning and understanding when teaching internationally diverse cohorts to show how imaginative postgraduate student engagement can not only bridge cultural differences, but also capitalize upon them. While the apparent polarization between East and West educational system stereotypes served as the catalyst for the search for effective pedagogies of engagement, the proposed methods were found to have universal application, clearly resonating with culturally diverse cohorts studying in the UK. The approach benefits international business teaching as cultural, national, and institutional perspectives become explicitly incorporated into course material, using the students' own background, knowledge and experience as resources to add value.

This project built upon the AchieveAbility initiative, which develops materials and training for teaching specific learning difference learners in schools and colleges. AchieveAbility devised the concept for the "InCurriculum" Project and brought together a consortium of United Kingdom higher education institutions to deliver the practice: Norwich University College of the Arts, the University of Westminster, and De Montfort University. All partners delivered a range of art and design courses, using a variety of complementary learning techniques. The project was set up to investigate how changing teaching and assessment practice could be beneficial to different learning styles. The contextual justification for this action research project was to investigate effective practice to retain students within their higher level courses and to support their successful attainment. The project was funded by the Higher Education Academy for a three year period, during which the United Kingdom educational landscape changed rapidly from a widening access perspective to a more business-orientated model of delivery. To make these changes, technology was shown to be essential to the negotiation that evolved for the learning exchange between the student and staff.

Some psychology students achieve high grades in all classes except for research methods (RM). Previous research has usually treated low levels of achievement in RM as a unitary phenomenon, without reference to the grades the student is achieving in other subjects. The present internet survey explored preferences for learning RM in 140 psychology students. Students were categorised as: those who achieved higher grades for RM than other subjects in psychology; those whose grades for RM were equal to their grades for other subjects; and those who had lower grades for RM than other subjects. An interesting finding was that whereas wanting to see more humour in RM teaching was significantly associated with lower RM grades, wanting more visual aids in teaching RM was significantly associated with low grades only for RM. Implications of these findings are discussed in relation to explaining low achievement specific to RM. (Contains 4 tables.)

This UK based exploratory case study explores the perceptions of accounting students using visual metaphor to support personal development planning (PDP). The requirement within PDP for students to reflect on their skills and knowledge and to evaluate, visualise and communicate their development and achievement needs is demanding. Students find the use of visual tools offers them the time, flexibility and functionality to explore, imagine, structure, interrelate and communicate the products of their reflections as part of the PDP process. The use of imagery in accountancy is growing with professional accounting bodies taking an increasing interest in the use of visualisation. The application of visual metaphor provides undergraduate accounting students with a valuable early experience of using iconography for technical information presentation. The findings suggest that students perceive the technique of visual metaphor as a stimulating exploration of their personal goals that enhanced their engagement in the reflective PDP process.

This paper argues for community psychology to be included within the discipline boundaries of psychology. In doing this, it will enable psychology to begin to address some of the large scale social issues affecting people's well-being. It will be necessary, however, to incorporate aspects of other disciplines, make explicit the political dimensions of psychological knowledge and practice, and adopt an action-oriented, more student-centred approach to learning. The paper will draw on student experiences to illustrate the value of community psychology learning. Radford (2008) raised a number of issues challenging the boundaries of the discipline of psychology and the relevance of an education in psychology as overseen by the British Psychological Society. In this paper, Kagan will further the case for a psychology that addresses real world issues and goes beyond its current boundaries. In doing this, she will explore the extent to which community psychology is contained within the boundary of psychology, the challenges that an emergent community psychology might make to the parent discipline, and the benefits to students of community based learning of community psychology.

The importance of accessibility to digital resources is now widely acknowledged. The W3C WAI has played a significant role in promoting the importance of accessibility and developing a framework for accessible Web resources. The accessibility of e-learning provides additional challenges that may not be faced when providing access to other Web resources. The authors argue that there is a need for a more sophisticated model for addressing e-learning accessibility which takes into account the usability of e-learning, pedagogic issues and student learning styles in addition to technical and resource issues. The authors expand on these issues and propose a holistic model for the development of accessible e-learning resources.

The issue of poor statistical literacy amongst undergraduates in the United Kingdom is well documented. At university level, where poor statistics skills impact particularly on social science programmes, embedding is often used as a remedy. However, embedding represents a surface approach to the problem. It ignores the barriers to learning that students bring to class, which may not always be addressed solely through embedding, such as, mathematics anxiety. Instead, embedding can only work within a much deeper pedagogic model that places students at its heart, as active participants in learning. This paper examines the development of such a model within a large sociology programme, where there was an implementation of a range of pedagogic strategies to support the development of students' statistical literacy.

This paper investigates forest school practitioners perceptions of learning at forest school to identify the topics covered, the learning styles, and the philosophies underpinning its delivery, based on interviews with experienced forest school practitioners. Practitioners identified the focus of learning at forest school as social development: teamwork, relationships with others, self-knowledge, and learning to take risks. Children also engaged with nature and developed an attachment to the woods where forest school took place. Learning styles were kinaesthetic, sensory, and experiential. Forest school leaders saw themselves as facilitators of learning rather than teachers.

This article investigates the motivations and strategies employed by respondents to a Likert-style course evaluation at a UK university. These attitude surveys, generating large amounts of quantitative data, are commonly used in quality assurance procedures across UK higher education institutions. Similar student survey results are now scrutinised by regulatory bodies undertaking external inspections, and by prospective students when making choices about their course and university of study. For respondents, I argue that the ubiquity of such evaluations has led to complacency, misunderstanding and apathy, with the adoption of completion strategies that lack deep engagement. This research also reveals that the recollection of specific key events and the existence of personal relationships are the strongest influencers in respondents allocating an attitude score. I conclude that the distinction between formative and summative evaluation could be articulated more explicitly to respondents, and that to genuinely inform future teaching and enhance satisfaction for respondents, substantive qualitative comments should be sought alongside attitudinal scoring.

Using PISA 2009, an international education database, this study compares gifted and talented (GT) students in three groups with normal (non-GT) students by examining student characteristics, reading, schooling, learning methods, and use of strategies for understanding and memorizing. Results indicate that the GT and non-GT gender distributions show differences; GT groups' reading time, reading material types, and level of interests are higher than or different from non-GT, but their use of library is not. Furthermore, teacher-student relationships of GT groups are better than those of non-GT, but their attitudes toward school show no differences. Results of "t"-tests reveal that two learning methods are employed significantly more often by GT than by non-GT, but a third method is used less by GT students.

The question of "how we learn" continues to direct scholarly debate, yet undergraduate teaching is typically designed to homogenise the learning environment. This is despite heterogeneous learning outcomes ensuing for students, owing to their different learning styles. Accordingly, we examine the relationship between teaching methodologies and learning styles. Drawing on the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument and the theory of "whole-brain" teaching, we find a suite of teaching methodologies that are generic across learning styles--tutorials, group work, firm-oriented case studies, game playing, reading journal papers, handouts, PowerPoint slides, in-class examples, in-class short exercises, and videos--and find a group of teaching methodologies--lectures, seminars, people-oriented case studies, creative problem-solving, reading textbooks, guest speakers, in-class small group exercises, homework, role-play, problem-based learning, self-directed learning, project-based learning, and class debates--that target and develop specific learning styles. Implications of the "whole-brain" model for teaching and learning are discussed.

Self-report profiles of 50 students and 10 interviews indicated that initial learning styles used in a new context are those that were previously successful; however, technology projects required different strategies. Peer appraisal of portfolio work can be a significant catalyst in shortening the period of change to new strategies. (SK)

A recent study of the psychological type profile of Christian youth workers in the UK drew attention to differences between the profiles of youth workers and clergy, and highlighted distinctive strengths and weaknesses that may be experienced by youth workers in Christian ministry. The present study, employing the Francis Psychological Type Scales among Canadian Baptist youth leaders (150 men, 186 women), cautions against generalizing on the basis of findings from the UK study. Among the Canadian Baptist youth leaders, compared with the UK Christian youth workers, there were higher proportions of introverts, sensing types, thinking types and judging types.

Very little is known about the impact of the different types of feedback on students' academic performance. This article explores students' preference in the use of audio and written feedback and how each type of feedback received by students impacts their academic performance in subsequent assignments. The study involved 68 students who were divided into two groups that received either audio or written feedback in their first assignment which was then recalled and applied into the second assignment. An analysis of results obtained in the second assignment was conducted and comparisons made between students in the audio and written feedback group. Students were also surveyed using an online questionnaire to ascertain their perceptions about the type of feedback they had received. The study established that the type of feedback received did not impact students' grades in the subsequent assignment. In addition, while students were broadly positive about audio feedback, they indicated a strong preference for written feedback in future assignments. The study recommends, among other things, further investigation into the link between students' learning styles and their preferences for different types of feedback.

Dual process theory proposes two distinct reasoning processes in humans, an intuitive style that is rapid and automatic and a deliberative style that is more effortful. However, no study to date has specifically examined these reasoning styles in relation to the autism spectrum. The present studies investigated deliberative and intuitive reasoning profiles in: (1) a non-clinical sample from the general population with varying degrees of autism traits (n = 95), and (2) males diagnosed with ASD (n = 17) versus comparisons (n = 18). Taken together, the results suggest reasoning on the autism spectrum is compatible with the processes proposed by Dual Process Theory and that higher autism traits and ASD are characterised by a consistent bias towards deliberative reasoning (and potentially away from intuition).

This study explores how a change of learning environment from China to the United Kingdom affects Chinese international master's students' use of strategies in academic reading. Think aloud was used at two time points in one academic year among 15 participants. To capture the complexity of the academic reading, reading strategies were categorized into textbase processing, situation-model construction, and comprehension monitoring. Quantitative analysis suggests that there were no significant changes in these students' overall strategy use over time, nor in their deployment of individual strategies. Furthermore, analysis of their parsing strategies indicates a dominant combination of textbase and comprehension monitoring strategies, and this combination was mainly triggered by their decoding difficulties. The findings of the study suggest that the participants' textbase-dominated processing largely contributed to the static development of their strategy use during their master's study.

The context of this study is of students with backgrounds in a variety of engineering and social science disciplines, and from first degrees in different countries, coming together to study Project Management. Tailoring teaching to all individuals' learning styles is not possible, but, in an attempt to learn how to teach better in ways that fit students' different needs, the preferred learning styles of engineering and humanities students are measured by use of the Memletics Learning Styles Quiz. Individual scores are normalised, and individual students' preferences for one style over another are calculated. Statistical analysis shows that the engineering students express a significantly stronger preference for a "logical" learning style over "visual," "verbal," "aural," "physical" or "solitary" learning styles, and for a visual learning style over both verbal and aural learning styles, whereas students with a social science background expressed significantly stronger preferences for a social learning style than for a logical learning style. Additionally, the learning style preferences of groups of engineering students in the UK and in Malaysia are compared, showing stronger preferences among the UK students for logical and social learning styles, and among the Malaysians for a solitary learning style.

In November 2012, 300 students came together in the Media School at Bournemouth University in the UK to report the US Presidential Election. Over the course of 10 days, students published 176 articles on a rolling news website, garnering more than 20,000 hits. On election night itself, students produced 10 h of live coverage on both TV and radio, airing 30 pre-recorded video packages and 35 pre-recorded radio packages. This experiential project adopted a so-called "live case" methodology that encapsulated a high degree of application and a certain level of structure, which allowed for the "variety and uncertainty" or reality to intervene. It also empowered and enabled students to reflect on and evaluate their individual experiences in light of their own learning styles. This paper will discuss the challenges and successes experienced during this experiential project, and will provide a nine-step guide on how others could replicate a similar project.

The apparent educational underperformance of boys has received phenomenal attention worldwide for many years. In the UK, it has led to various government reports and policies aimed at raising boys' achievement. This small-scale qualitative-interpretive pilot study, undertaken in one urban primary school in North Wales, reports the findings from exploring boys', aged six to seven years, perceptions of education. It also presents teachers' perceptions of how boys' learn and what they regard to be visible gender differences in the classroom. The research suggests that although many boys within this age group seemed generally positive about school and learning, certain issues were emerging for some boys that, if not addressed, could result in disengagement and/or underperformance. Factors include: issues related to boys' reading and literacy; boys' preference for screen-based, digital devices; gender binaries in relation to learning styles and behaviours; gender-specific syndromes; and teacher concerns about the impact of a "feminised" education sector. The objective of this paper is to examine, after decades of research studies and government reports, what do we really know about the perceptions of young male learners and their experiences within the context of the primary classroom?

The research draws from four case studies to investigate the impact of using blogs within postgraduate education. The study explores how postgraduate business students engage with blogs, whether students' learning preferences correlate with their degree of contribution and how student participation relates with overall achievement. A mixed methods' approach is adopted using both qualitative and quantitative data. The findings indicate that blogs can contribute to students' collective and reflective learning, and emphasise the importance of active feedback from the lecturer. Challenges pertinent to using blogs include the choice of assessment strategies and understanding postgraduate students' goals and expectations. Statistical analyses revealed significant correlation between students' degree of contribution and their achievement. No significant correlation was observed between the degree of contribution and students' learning preferences.

As new technologies become less expensive, provide greater access to various forms of multimedia, and are integrated into all aspects of everyday life, online learning environments are becoming more prevalent. Online education, as experienced through course management systems, is being heralded as meeting the needs of students' lifestyles by managing time conflicts and access from remote locations, and helping people to juggle personal commitments (Harrison & Bergen, 2000). However, research indicates that improvements are needed to prevent high drop-out rates and to improve learning results (Byun, et al., 2000; Carr, 2000; Moshinskie, 2001). Online distance education courses need to be designed in such a way that learners with different backgrounds and preferred learning approaches will feel motivated and gain the best possible learning results from such courses. It is a challenge for instructional designers of online education courses to determine learners' preferred learning approaches and related social and cultural issues, and to design learning environments to meet these needs. Designers of such programs should consider cultural differences in their design as students of different cultural backgrounds may have different perspectives and interpretations of learning content (Driscoll, 2000; Gayeski, et al., 2002; Moshinskie, 2001). The case used for this study was a graduate seminar delivered fully online using asynchronous computer-mediated conferencing communication (CMC) for class participants to discuss topics and issues raised from the reading materials assigned by the instructor. Based on a review of literature on asynchronous CMC, the author lists the benefits of this medium as flexibility, participation quantity and quality, communication openness/access, and post-participation review/access for references. Morse also lists various challenges such as technology frustration, coordination, timing/delay frustration, and skills deficits. The author points out that even though culture is a primary factor in "determining individual behavior patterns, and provides the paradigm by which experience is interpreted, assimilated, and adapted"(p. 40), a systematic consideration of the role culture plays in CMC is missing in the literature. This paper discusses different definitions of culture, such as "shared patterns of behavior", "systems of shared meaning and understanding", "...those learned roles of behavior which bound accepted acceptable practice in a group environment", a result of fundamental societal assumption, and the concept of national culture, and argues that the indicator of cultural background should be ethnicity rather than nationality. The author goes on to introduce a continuum between low context and high context cultures, and uses a table to illustrate the difference between low context education perceptions/expectations and high context education perceptions/expectations.

The paper proposes the notion of a "critical feel-trip" as a pedagogical narrative to entertain the relationships of experiential, affective and critical learning in field-based studies. It is argued that explicit mobilization of the triadic relations of these three modes of learning is a powerful way to strengthen students' appreciation of human geography's concepts and to interrogate their positionality. The paper particularly draws on a fieldcourse taught to UK undergraduates, which explores Moscow as a "field laboratory" for critical geographies. The analysis considers both effectiveness and limitations of such modes of pedagogy.

With no tangible evidence of widespread public engagement in the UK on matters relating to the environment, this article assesses the benefits of adopting the principles of key theoretical models on learning (e.g., Kolb's Experiential Model) in environmental campaigns. In addition, in order to facilitate the transition from environmental knowledge/awareness, to the adoption of proenvironmental behavior, the article reviews some of the key internal and external drivers to achieving sustained behavioral change.