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Low-income students' preferences for higher education might depend on the uncertainty of financial aid. Using a time discontinuity design, this paper exploits the unanticipated cancellation of a nationwide Colombian merit and need-based scholarship, called "Ser Pilo Paga," to study its consequences on students' preferences for higher education. Preferences are measured using a discrete choice experiment administrated to 949 low-income high school students in 2018. The findings reveal that the scholarship's cancellation reduced higher education ambitions among low-income students due to the decreased interest in both financial aid and high-quality universities. The effects were particularly concentrated on income-eligible individuals who were more likely to obtain the scholarship, as their choices for financial aid and high-quality institutions declined by 15 to 50% of the baseline preference.

This study assesses the technical efficiency of higher education institutions in terms of labor market outcomes for recent graduates, employing a comparative analysis of three distinct methodological approaches. Using a sample of recent graduates of Colombian universities who earned their degrees between 2007 and 2011, we estimated the institutions' efficiency scores through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), the Free Disposal Hull (FDH) model, and Cazals et al. (Journal of Econometrics 106:1-25, 2002) order-m estimator. Our results reveal that the estimation technique affects the results when super-efficient decision-making units are present, with the order-m technique demonstrating superiority over DEA and FDH. However, in the absence of super-efficient institutions, the efficiency rankings obtained from all three methodologies exhibit consistency. This paper contributes to the literature by highlighting the importance of methodological selection in evaluating the labor market performance efficiency of higher education institutions when recent graduates' perspective is adopted.

This study aims to carry out a global evaluation of 13 Music Education Bachelor Degrees from Colombia, academic programs focused on the higher training of music teachers in this country, and to establish the training guidelines received by the music education professors who study them. The methodology used is empirical-analytical and descriptive-type and makes use of content analysis techniques that NVivo software provide. In addition, mixed and contextual analyses have been combined regarding specific keywords, such as music, pedagogy, and teachers. The instrument applied was a matrix with content validity completed by an international group of nine evaluators. This matrix showed a structure made up of five categories: General description of the program; Curricular characterization; Curriculum structure; Guiding principles of the curriculum; Curriculum management. The results indicate that there are divergences in the approach of the programs at the training of music educators. It is concluded that the differences between these programmes lie mainly in their formative emphasis, music or pedagogy, in a context in which the instructive approaches of higher education in music education have not yet resolved the divergences and the necessary balance between the pedagogy or artistic training.

Introduction: School mediation training is important because it teaches students to resolve differences in a non-violent way. Despite the benefits it offers, research on the subject is scarce and the background is mostly focused on theoretically understanding the conflict to develop specific techniques and tools that are useful for peer students, teachers and school counselors (Benítez, 2020). In this sense, the need to expand knowledge that allows education from a socio-emotional perspective is identified and therefore, the objective of this research is to establish the influence of multidimensional social competence in the formation of socioemotional skills for school mediation. Method: 1025 Colombian students participated (40.6% men and 59.4% women), aged between 12 and 19 years (M = 14.86; SD = 1.43). A structural equation model informed the relationships and influences of prosociality, social efficacy, and cognitive reappraisal on mediation skills. Results: Specifically, prosocial behavior and cognitive reappraisal affect the understanding and management of conflict. Social efficacy and prosociality would be important in the ease of generating assertive communication. Meanwhile, social efficacy and cognitive reappraisal influence the ability to generate awareness and emotional regulation. Discussion and Conclusions: The mediator's prosociality is the most relevant characteristic because it implies displaying helping behaviors in accordance with the needs expressed by the students. For its part, social efficacy is an important factor because it is associated with motivation, the person's commitment to the task, resistance to frustration, and the management of emotions in relationships. While cognitive reappraisal is influential thanks to the use of strategies such as acceptance, positive focusing and perspective taking.

In its language policy and planning (LPP), Colombia offers ethnoeducation for ethnic groups, with Spanish as a second language, and for the protection/revitalization of native languages. However, these LPP measures are insufficiently implemented. Meanwhile, with regard to foreign languages, LPP have specifically advocated a Spanish-English bilingualism emphasized since the early 2000s. What then favours English to the detriment of native languages? The objective of this research is to reveal what is hidden behind this LPP through a Critical Discourse Analysis of official documents. The elements brought to light show "unilingualism" and "unibilingualism" ideologies that discriminate against native languages, and value the linguistic imperialism of English.

Developing intercultural communicative competence has become an inevitable need within 21st-century demands, mobilizing global efforts to promote unity through diversity. However, within the Colombian context and supported by an economic interest in bilingualism, most English language teaching programs still advocate educational practices that reaffirm cultural homogenization and legitimation. This presupposes a challenge for pre-service language teachers, who may not be interculturally prepared to overcome their ethnocentrism, and yet have to face a language classroom. The study explored the intercultural sensitivity level of a group of 50 pre-service English language teachers from a Colombian private university, its influencing factors, and explained its relationship with the representation of the Other. A twostage explanatory sequential mixed-method design was employed, involving, in the first stage, quantitative data from a self-awareness intercultural sensitivity questionnaire and in the second stage, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and two in-class observations. Findings indicated that the participants demonstrated ethnocentric intercultural sensitivity arising from a traditionalist culture teaching approach, misleading artificial means to culture learning, and limited overseas cultural experience, which led them to perpetuate Cultural Othering, a social representation materialized through mechanisms of overgeneralization, cultural pride, and cultural underestimation. The conclusions and implications are further discussed.

In 2020, humanity experienced one of the most complex situations in history: The COVID-19 pandemic, which caused significant social, economic, and educational consequences. Nevertheless, countries and people generally survived. Why? Resilience and the ability to cope are fundamental elements in human, community, and national survival. This study compared the situations experienced by six children from different social and educational backgrounds in Colombia during the COVID-19 pandemic using a collective analysis of cases. Interviews with children's families, as well as observations of the participants and a narrative instrument from the BASIC Ph resiliency model (Lahad, 2016) are used to describe the context, the promoting factors of resilience, and the so-called coping "channels" of each case. Results showed that (a) the difficulties perceived by families during the pandemic were different from those perceived by the children, and (b) the predominant coping channels had an important relationship with factors that promote resilience. Finally, although it is not clear from the present study whether the children developed resilience, they exhibited factors that determine their future development.

This qualitative study explores how a group of preservice teachers make sense of task-based language teaching principles and characteristics, especially amidst remote instruction. We draw on the analysis of 13 preservice teachers' lesson plans and teaching guides as they transitioned from in-person to remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of the lesson plans using task-based language teaching principles as a framework revealed that preservice teachers implemented principles differently during in-person and remote teaching. Interestingly, the use of the principles sometimes contrasts with what the participants report in their reflections. We discuss the challenges English as a foreign language teachers face when adapting methods such as task-based language teaching to the demands of new teaching contexts.

This exploratory qualitative study reports gaps in the preservice teacher education and professional development of 15 English language teachers in a Colombian public university regarding their teaching knowledge and practice. Grounded theory was used to examine the data collected via focus groups and questionnaires, which were validated and triangulated. Findings reveal several teacher deficiencies, classified into three axes: language proficiency, teaching awareness, and teacher challenges. These tensions unveil imbalances between theory and practice, inefficient mentoring during the practicum stage, lack of classroom management skills for efficient teaching, and the need to revitalize and endorse information and communications technology education and use in the new classroom era. The article also offers a discussion on reconceptualizing teacher education.

This article presents critical intercultural dialogue as a necessary curricular, pedagogical, and decolonial practice to engage and value Indigenous students' cultural semiotic resources in higher education. Drawing from social semiotics, critical interculturality, and decolonial theory, the article analyzes Indigenous students' structural barriers to accessing and completing their undergraduate programs. Using examples from pedagogy courses taught in English and reflections and learnings from a research project with Indigenous students, the article underscores and extends lessons to mobilize Indigenous students' learning paths, sociocultural practices, and languages, showcasing intercultural dialogue within a public university. Reflections on the tensions, constraints, and possibilities to facilitate university stakeholders' engagement at multiple levels are discussed.

This case study reports how three high-school teachers from two state schools in Colombia enacted the National English Suggested Curriculum by the Ministry of Education. The teachers' trajectories of action were analyzed through semi-structured interviews, teachers' narratives, and lesson observations. Using the ecological model of agency as a framework, we situated teachers' steps within projective, iterational, and practical evaluative dimensions of agency. In this paper, we provide additional dimensions of teacher agency, which can help to expand theoretical and empirical knowledge in the field. Findings show that teachers cope with the changes derived from policy differently. The analysis presented in this paper can inform the creation and promotion of future curriculum policies in similar contexts.

In this article, we report the results of a study through which we collected English language teachers' needs and wants to design an online language assessment course. Through a mixed-methods approach, we asked 20 teachers from four Latin American countries what they wanted to learn in the course. The teachers wanted a course in which they could address the challenges they faced in assessment; discuss and develop new ways to assess; and learn about authentic, valid, and ethical assessment. Therefore, the findings suggest that the teachers wanted a course that mixed theory, practice, and principles of assessment. Additionally, the course should address emerging topics in English language assessment, namely bilingual assessment and the assessment of learners with special educational needs.

This study examines hegemonic discourses on English and socioeconomic development from teachers' perspectives. Specifically, it scrutinizes the sorts of positions a group of 36 teachers of English, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese in an undergraduate program of modern languages take towards both the predominant narrative of English as the language of development and the role that the languages they teach may also play. Using postdevelopment as a theoretical framework, teachers' social representations around the languages they teach are analyzed. Findings suggest that, although there is a strong tendency to uncritically accept and accommodate instrumental and Anglo normative views of development, "small hopes" for configuring plural, locally sensitive, less instrumental, and ecological understandings are also emerging.

This two-cycle action research explores how Colombian students from rural and urban areas construct community knowledge by exploring funds of knowledge using dialogue journals. Thirty-three seventh graders from an urban school participated in the first phase and 19 sixth graders from a rural school and 18 eighth graders from an urban school in the second phase. Data were gathered through journals, artifacts, audio recordings, narratives, focus groups, and interviews. Results revealed how students learned to see and re-signify their communities and territory by exploring the knowledge held by their families and community members. Then dialogue journals were valuable tools to verbalize and communicate their perceptions and understandings about their communities and funds of knowledge.

Drawing upon Bourdieu's concept of capital, this article examines the enactment of the "Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo" (National Bilingual Program), a policy that aims to provide Colombian students equal opportunities to learn English. In this exploratory, sequential mixed-methods study, data were collected from teachers and students from three Grade 5 classrooms of public schools in Colombia. The findings revealed that the plan's differentiated enactment generates unequal access to opportunities to build language capital and unequal levels of academic language achievement among the three schools. We argue that the enactment of the plan to equalize opportunities and achievement and therefore build the language capital of Colombian students is obstructed by existing funding structures.

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the online learning platform Brilliant.org in improving the academic performance of 60 tenth-grade students from four public schools in the city of Barranquilla, Colombia. A quasi-experimental design with two groups will be used: an experimental group that will use Brilliant.org platform to learn linear algebra and matrix operations, and a control group that will learn through video explanations and other resources not related to Brilliant.org. The academic performance of the students will be measured before and after using the platform, and qualitative data will be collected through focus groups with each student group at the end of the research. Advanced statistical analysis based on numerical responses will be used, including a t-test to compare mean differences between the two groups, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to compare mean differences between more than two groups, and a regression analysis to determine the relationship between variables. The results may demonstrate a significant improvement in the academic performance of students who use the platform compared to the control group. This study can contribute to current knowledge about the effectiveness of online learning platforms in the academic performance of secondary school students in Colombia.

In an increasingly globalised society, the internationalisation of higher education has become a prime goal for many universities, which seek to promote the development of intercultural competencies and insert their actors in dynamics of academic cooperation, knowledge construction and negotiation of meanings in an environment of respect. What is sometimes overlooked, however, is the fact that university campuses are already intercultural spaces by nature, even in the absence of internationalisation initiatives; in other words, university campuses are places where diversity abounds, making it possible to experience intercultural encounters, leading to the development of intercultural competencies. This article presents the narratives of four students and their home-making experiences at a Colombian university. Through their stories, these students give us a glimpse of the intercultural challenges they face when they try to create a sense of belonging while developing, constraining or reaffirming their identities on campus. The article analyses the student narratives through the lenses of new materialism, social semiotics, intersectionality and intercultural communication to understand the complexity of building a home with others amid diversity and, sometimes, adversity.

This article provides a comprehensive qualitative synthesis of EFL writing studies published in Colombian journals between 1990 and 2020. We synthesised 63 research reports regarding authorship, publication year, focus, methodology (context, participants, research paradigm, design, and data collection methods and analyses), validity, reliability, ethics, findings, limitations, and further research. Our findings reveal that EFL writing is a developing research area in Colombia, characterised as a predominantly qualitative inquiry into adult writing instruction and learning at universities. From the findings, we propose a research agenda and some guidelines for authors and reviewers to enhance and evaluate research reports.

This article reports the results of a study carried out at a public high school in Colombia whose objective was to design and determine how a reading comprehension module contributed to strengthening English literacy competence in sixth graders. The methodological framework entailed a basic outline of the action-research cycle. The qualitative data analysis was designed descriptively, focusing on three research moments corresponding to each cycle's stages. The results show that the implementation of the material had a significant impact on the development of literacy competence, which suggests the material could be a tool for supporting English language learning.

English teachers' professional development responds to individual needs and societal discourses about teaching, learning, and language use. This paper reports the findings of a case study that explored the factors that increased or limited the active and committed participation of nine Colombian teachers of English in professional development programs. Findings suggest that English teachers are invested in their professional development if they may develop three imagined identities--as proficient English speakers, ELT experts, and ICT competent users--and their affiliation to an imagined community of "bilinguals." The teachers' journey to the imagined identities and the imagined community is full of conflicting emotions amidst the socio-political context of their work and the country's language education policies.

This article reports on a case study that analyzed pedagogical relationships and teacher identities in research incubators. Conducted over two years in an English teaching program at a Colombian private university, the study included semi-structured interviews with four research incubator coordinators and two focus groups with eight students. We found that mentoring in research incubators nurtures attitudes and competencies crucial to the students' construction of their identity as teacher researchers. From the results of our research, we built a theoretical model that describes pedagogical relationships in research education around the axes of power and affect. Finally, we draw some implications about an epistemological shift from knowledge-centered to knower-centered pedagogical relationships in collaborative approaches to research training.

This needs analysis study sought to identify the contextual requirements to design and implement a blended learning program in English at a Colombian public university. Data on teachers' and administrators' perceptions were gathered through a questionnaire, interviews, and focus groups and analyzed using grounded theory. Findings revealed the need to invest considerably in new personnel and e-infrastructure. Likewise, students' context should be considered to design EFL blended programs. Teachers and students should be offered ICT and methodological professional development. Finally, the program should carefully balance the integration of face-to-face and online modalities. This investigation can help the academic community of language educators and curriculum designers carry out needs analysis studies for creating contextualized blended learning programs.

This qualitative research project aims to determine the impact that Task-Based Instruction had on fifteen Intermediate English language students´ writing skills in online classes at a private institute in Cartagena. A journal, a questionnaire, and a checklist were used as instruments to collect information during the diagnostic stage. During the action stage, six workshops were implemented, each with a different writing strategy: webbing, peer-editing, asking questions to revise writing, revising and editing, using templates, and reorganizing ideas. At this stage, the same instruments were used to measure the impact of the strategy and to achieve the research objectives. Results show that implementing six online workshops predicated on the task-based instruction helped the students to improve their writing, learning new vocabulary, use ICT tools, and writing strategies, thus having a positive impact on their English language learning process not only in writing but also in other skills. TBI was favorably accepted by learners and affected positively their writing skills.

This article reports on a research conducted at a private university in Colombia, as part of an English language course in which the topics of study addressed the culture and history of Colombia and Boyacá through art. Narratives from three female students were analyzed, from a decolonial perspective, to observe their processes of reconstruction as sociohistorical subjects considering their experiences in the contexts where they study, live in, and come from. The data for this research was gathered inside and outside the classroom through learners' diaries and dialogical interviews held with the researcher. Narratives served the purpose of making visible elements of those processes and allowed to explore three of them: (1) The construction of particular relationships in and with the world; (2) a perception of unity of past, present, and future; and (3) a sense of their personal and spiritual growth in time. Nevertheless, the narrative of each participant had unique features and values. The results showed that each female had specific anecdotes constructing their experiences, relationships, and plans in their world. One conclusion of the study refers to how the relevance of family, context, childhood memories, and life expectations offer meaningful and memorable topics of discussion within English language lessons for undergraduate learners.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way education was being taught. Due to school closures to prevent the spread of the disease, the education system resorted to distance learning to grant students' learning process. This research article reports a mixed-method study on technological resources and their impact on motivation during online lessons. The study seeks to explore the students' perceptions regarding the implementation of some game-based learning platforms (Kahoot, Quizizz, and Quizalize) during their EFL virtual classes and to determine the impact of these platforms on students' motivation toward language learning. A convergent parallel design was implemented to gather quantitative and qualitative data from the twenty-seven participants of the study simultaneously. A four-point Likert scale questionnaire and a focus group were the instruments employed to collect this statistical and descriptive information. The results show that the students perceived Kahoot, Quizizz, and Quizalize as useful, entertaining, fun, and engaging tools. As a conclusion, the enjoyment factor of these tools increases learner motivation and level of attainment.

This paper showcases a literature review in 13 Colombian refereed journals, covering the last decade, from 2011 to 2021. Data were collected from the virtual platforms where each journal hosts published issues. A thematic analysis was conducted with the sample of papers. The purpose of the review was twofold. On the one hand, it aimed at establishing the main research concerns of Colombian scholars regarding the place of culture in the context of Foreign Language Teacher Education programs. On the other hand, the review aimed at exploring the implications for curriculum design in Colombia that can be drawn from culture-related literature produced by scholars in the last decade. Results suggest that the treatment of culture-related issues in Foreign Language Teacher Education programs has gained currency, although scholarship in the last decade has mainly focused on a diagnostic stage.

Remote learning replaced for almost a year the traditional face-to-face education to maintain and ensure the continuity of the teaching-learning process during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article reports the results of an exploratory and descriptive-transversal study that exposes primary and secondary school students' perceptions about their experience with remote learning during 2020. Though the research study was also aimed at finding out potential teaching and learning issues inherent to remote education, we only focus on reporting the main findings on the determining factors that hindered or enhanced students' learning during their remote education experience. Data were collected through two different surveys addressed to 101 secondary and primary school students from Neiva and Pitalito, the two most populated towns in the state of Huila, Colombia. The findings showed that the students' learning was both positively and negatively influenced by several factors affecting interaction inside and outside of the classroom setting.

This article aims at sharing the preliminary literature review of the main developments related to Intersectional Identities in Colombian English Language Teaching and general educational contexts worldwide. First, I trace the research work concerning the topic at both national and international levels through a bibliometric analysis in Scopus to see the main developments regarding intersectionality from a decolonial perspective. Then, I show through a complementary bibliometric study, 50 articles that were collected from different databases, and the trends found as representation of intersectional studies. The analysis indicates two core trends: (1) Intersectional studies in general educational contexts and (2) Intersectional studies in ELT contexts. Finally, I present how this profiling research study shows that the topic of Intersectional Identities in Colombia seems scarce within the field of ELT.

In this work, a bibliometric analysis of the investigations of the last 54 years focused on the teaching of topology and its applications in the learning of other areas of knowledge was carried out. The articles that appear in the SCOPUS database were taken into account under the search criteria of the words topology and teaching, connected with the Boolean expression AND in the search field ABS. As a result, 329 articles were obtained which, based on the PRISMA methodology, were reduced to 74 papers. In them publication trends, impact of publications, citation frequencies, among others, were compared. In addition, its use was identified for learning topology at different levels of training, areas of knowledge where this discipline is most applied and strategies used to teach these applications.

Virtual exchange (VE) has gained prominence as a means to improve students' intercultural competence and foreign language abilities through forums and other supplemental activities. This study examines a supplemental activity referred to as the student-generated survey (SGS) implemented in the IVEProject, a large-scale VE with, at the time of this research, over 3000 contributing EFL students per exchange. Stemming from a sociocultural perspective with an aim to promote student agency, curiosity and discussion, the SGS allows students to participate in a survey composed of questions generated by themselves and/or their peers. Aiming to investigate how the SGS affects IVEProject participants' intercultural competence, this cross-sectional study focuses on data collected from 768 participants from 10 countries during the May-July 2021 exchange. Quantitative analysis of nine six-point Likert scale items showed that students who took the SGS and discussed its results had statistically significant increases in multiple items related to components of Deardorff's Pyramid Model of IC compared with students who did not. Furthermore, these gains were more noticeable among students who additionally took part in the question-generation process of the SGS. Thematic analysis of an open-ended question found 96% of student comments to be positive, falling under the themes 'intercultural development' and 'enjoyment and contentment.' The findings from quantitative and qualitative data shed light on the positive effect of the SGS on IC development, offering a beneficial reference point for international VE contexts.

Although the number of publications on formative assessment in science education has long been high, there is no bibliometric analysis or scientific mapping in the literature to understand research trends in formative assessment research. This research aimed to examine the bibliometric results of articles on formative assessment in science education. Based on the criteria for inclusion and exclusion, 94 articles were selected for analysis. The results show that between 2015-2016 and 2020-2022, the number of publications on formative assessment increased substantially. Among the top ten institutions that contributed to the research are three institutions from the United States. The results also show that the United States had the most publications. Analysis of the co-citations showed that the "Journal of Research in Science Teaching," "Science Education," and the "International Journal of Science Education" were cited more than 100 times. The three most cited studies were published in "Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy, and Practice." The results show that the researcher used formative assessment, students, science education, teaching, education, engineering education, curricula, STEM, and e-learning in research on formative assessment. In light of the obtained results, practical suggestions for further studies are made in the conclusion.

Higher education institutions have been complicit with the ongoing coloniality project that reinforces and perpetuates inequities, dismisses interests, knowledges, alternative discourses, and world views different from Western European thought (Bell, 2018; Dastile & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013; Harms-Smith & Rasool, 2020). Education is rooted in colonialism, which raises doubts about the feasibility of universities implementing a decolonial agenda (Dhillon, 2021). To contribute to the conversation about decolonial praxis and the documented efforts in the literature on how to enact a decolonial rehumanizing agenda, this paper presents a systematic literature review of works from the Global South that attempt to disentangle universities from colonial practices in higher education. The works reviewed describe a variety of practices from pedagogical practices, curriculum changes, and institutional connections with marginalized communities that make visible knowledges, languages, and perspectives traditionally excluded from universities.

In light of the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders of higher education institutions around the world have been contemplating ways to help their universities engage in a digital transformation that must have student engagement and learning as the foremost considerations. This study reports on the work conducted at a university in Colombia that created an evaluation instrument based on the Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE) framework (Borup et al., 2020) to examine how well the institution was supporting the affective, behavioral, and cognitive (ABC) dimensions of engagement in its online and blended learning course offerings. This survey, the ACE in Higher Education (ACE-HE), measures indicators of the ABC engagement dimensions as well as indicators of institutional support for those elements. The survey was completed by 1,295 university students representing a broad demographic profile. Structural equation modeling found good fit for both the model of ABC engagement dimensions and the model of institutional support for ABC engagement dimensions. Institutional support for affective engagement showed strong relationships to affective, behavioral, and cognitive indicators of engagement, while institutional support for behavioral and cognitive engagement did not have the same outcome. This research provides access to both English and Spanish versions of the ACE-HE instrument. It also highlights ideas for institutions that want to improve their support for student ABC engagement dimensions in online and blended environments. Finally, several implications for making updates to the ACE framework are shared.

While some students had experience receiving online education prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the emergency remote modality offered a different experience given that higher education faculty had limited time for planning and, most of them, did not have any experience in online education. This research aims to identify the differences between undergraduate students' perceptions and preferences on emergency remote and online education. Researchers identified a set of online education courses--that pre-existed COVID-19 times--and courses that were transformed into remote education courses--designed as a response of the COVID-19 emergency. Participants of this study are a group of students who, during the same academic semester, participated in both online and (emergency) remote courses. Researchers used a survey to understand students' perceptions and preferences assessing their experiences in different dimensions (e.g., interaction and evaluation). Researchers used the add-on preferential groups model to identify which of the two modalities was preferred by the students for each dimension. The quantitative analysis was complemented using content analysis of responses to open-ended questions, seeking to gain a better understanding of students' perceptions and preferences between online and emergency remote education. The results show that students have a positive view of the online and remote modalities; however, each of these modalities offers students advantages for specific dimensions. For example, the remote modality was preferred for having greater interaction among peers and with the instructor. On the other hand, online education provided more flexibility. Students suggested improving assessments' approaches and instructors' technological skills for both modalities.

Language assessment literacy has gained recent attention in the field of language testing, particularly on teachers' profile. However, the literature on LAL is limited regarding teachers' perceptions of language assessment courses. In this paper, we used a case study method to characterize the perceptions of eighteen English language teachers into three components of an online assessment course: contents, activities, and impact on their professional development. For data collection, we used a questionnaire and a focus group interview. Findings indicate that the teachers perceived course contents as organized, relevant, and useful; they also considered test analysis and collaborative tasks as valuable. Regarding professional development, the teachers explained that test-analysis tasks made them aware of their mistakes in assessment. Finally, the teachers suggested that the course raised their awareness of what language assessment is and does. Based on these results, we provide recommendations for LAL courses elsewhere.

Emotions are ubiquitous and permeate all aspects of human life, including language learning. However, little attention has been paid to emotions in the ELT curriculum, let alone in the design and implementation of conversations clubs. In this article, we share the qualitative results of a mixed-method study on students' emotions while participating in a conversation club at a public university in Colombia. Findings show an ample range of students' emotions, factors commonly associated with these emotions such as academic load and personal life, and the connections of emotions with students' language learning processes. This study identifies how emotions can facilitate or interfere with language learning, highlights the importance of emotions in the development of oral skills in the context of conversation clubs, and contributes to the understanding of the language learner from a holistic perspective in the field of Applied Linguistics.

Teacher´s beliefs and conceptions of teaching English are an important area for the professional development path of primary teachers. Giving primary teachers opportunities to grow professionally and support their learning belongs to the wide variety of practices that can be implemented to foster early education today. To do that, the Colombian government has implemented different initiatives; however, through the exploration of literature, primary public-school teachers need more professional development opportunities to fulfill the objectives stated by the Ministry of National Education. This is why, the present study aims to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of elementary rural teachers involved in the incorporation of English in their teaching practices. A total of ten teachers were selected to be involved during a semester that lasts the implementation of the project. Through qualitative research under the exploratory paradigm, we identified frustration, motivation, and lack of expertise as the main perceptions that interfere the teaching practices of the selected population. Findings suggest that professional development strategies should be incorporated as an eventual strategy to foster the teaching practices in the classroom.

EFL teachers' professional development in Colombia has been characterized by top-down policies that neglect the regions in terms of contextualized professional development programs and resources. This article is an effort to make EFL teachers' needs in the Eastern region of Antioquia, Colombia, visible for academic institutions and local authorities to propose coherent professional development programs. This report is based on a section of the findings of a larger study called "Diagnosis of the needs about plurilingualism in the regions of Antioquia". Findings show that EFL teachers in the Eastern region claim for ongoing and contextualized professional development programs, differentiated for primary and secondary-school teachers, and focused on instructional material design and adaptation according to the resources available in the local communities. Conclusions from this study outline implications for educational institutions to support teachers in pursuing their professional development within their contexts, methodological limitations for researchers, and possibilities for further research for stakeholders in the territory.

As the number of international students in higher education continues to grow, so do concerns regarding systemic obstacles, discrimination, and social isolation that can impede students' academic success. Peer mentorship has been shown to support graduate students through academic socialization and achievement in higher education (Lorenzetti et al., 2019). The purpose of this study was to explore the transitional experiences of international graduate students, and the extent to which peer-mentoring relationships can support academic and emotional wellbeing. Researchers interviewed 13 international graduate students from 3 professional faculties at a research-intensive Canadian university. International students described academic and intersectional challenges experienced while navigating and adapting to new environments and how these impacted both academic outcomes and students' well-being. Relationships with peers were viewed as an essential means by which students could access academic and psychosocial supports necessary to adjust to and thrive in their new educational and cultural environments.

Self-regulated learning strategies are essential for learning, and to teach learners to use them, teachers must master them. The objective of this study was to identify training priorities for including these strategies in online courses for teachers, and to determine whether opinion influences the use of strategies. The design was non-experimental and cross-sectional, and involved administering the revised "Cuestionario de Evaluación de las Estrategias de Aprendizaje de los Estudiantes Universitarios" (CEVEAPEU questionnaire) to 285 teachers. The results allow us to differentiate between priority weaknesses, lower-priority weaknesses, and strengths in relation to metacognitive strategies (planning, objectives, self-evaluation, self-regulation, and context). To determine this, a frequency analysis was used, followed by a Mann-Whitney U (for 2-group variables) and Kruskal-Wallis (for 3 groups) test to determine whether opinion influences the use of strategies. Priority weaknesses were identified in the knowledge of objectives and evaluation criteria (planification); the ability to recognise when an exam has been passed (self-evaluation); modifying initial plans, dedicating more effort to difficult subjects, and learning new study techniques (self-regulation); and taking advantage of study time (context control). We concluded that opinions on self-regulated learning influence the use of strategies. Finally, work should be done on the recognition of the importance of self-regulated learning, time management strategies, self-evaluation techniques, flexibility, and self-control.

The design of mathematical tasks has taken the replacement on the research agenda of Mathematics Education. In this article, we provide principles of design of interactive mathematical tasks that make up the reasoning and the Ethnomathematics program. The research context involved the design, the development, and the analysis of written and oral prospective mathematics teacher (PMT) in an initial training course. The methodology implemented was descriptive-interpretative and implicated the design of mathematical tasks by the PMTs based on the adaptation of the HiCuA analytical framework. Regarding to the analysis of the data collected, categories of mathematical task types were constructed because of a thematic analysis carried out with the purpose of characterizing the tasks designed by the prospective teacher. The findings of the study provide information on the design principles implemented by prospective teacher in the context of Reasoning and Ethnomathematics. Likewise, it was identified that promoting reasoning and Ethnomathematics through interactive mathematical task designs supports students by developing skills such as: justifying, criticizing, and reasoning the conclusions presented by others.

This collaborative autoethnographic research explores the identity shaping construction trajectory of a group of three English teacher researchers as well as the repercussions that these processes had on the enactment of a critical decolonial perception toward the ELT field. Using a qualitative approach, the English teachers engaged in this collaborative autoethnography shared their experiences, beliefs, and influences to collectively examine how these influenced their evolving professional identities and their current critical understanding of the field. In general, the study reveals that collaborative autoethnography provides a unique platform for examining the identity trajectory of individuals and for establishing a connection between the past and the present. The findings similarly highlight the interplay between individual experiences, sociocultural contexts, and pedagogical practices, fostering a deeper understanding of English teacher researcher identity development. By emphasizing the significance of collective exploration, this study advocates for incorporating collaborative autoethnography more actively as a valuable tool for professional development in English education and research in general, and in Colombia in particular.

An onto-semiotic analysis of the mathematical connections established by one in-service mathematics teachers and university students when solving a problem about launching a projectile using the derivative was carried out. Theoretically, this research was based on the articulation between the Extended Theory of Mathematical Connections and the Onto-semiotic Approach. The methodology was qualitative-descriptive where data was collected through interviews based on a task. Subsequently, following the joint analysis method of both theories, the mathematical activity of the participants when they solved the task was analyzed. The results show that, teacher and students established a system of connections of feature type, different representations, meanings, part-whole, procedural and implications in terms of practices, processes, objects, and semiotic functions that relate them. However, some students presented difficulties caused by some incorrect mathematical connection such as stating that the maximum height of the projectile is the time obtained with the critical number, errors in performing arithmetic calculations when evaluating the function, graphically representing the quadratic function as a straight line and use the general formula in an inappropriate way that prevents the procedural connection from being made.

This research aims to design a helpful methodology for estimating universities' relative impact on students as a sustainability factor in higher education. To this end, the research methodology implemented a two-stage approach. The first stage involves the relative efficiency analysis of the study units using Fuzzy Data Envelopment Analysis. The second stage consists of a predictive evaluation of the efficiency of the study units. Consequently, among the most relevant results of the research, it is observed that the methodology identifies the institutions that need to strengthen the academic competencies of the industrial engineering program. Additionally, we developed a benchmark analysis called Efficient Route to help inefficient units achieve efficiency, associating efficiency, and sustainability as pillars of higher education processes.

In the rapidly changing atmosphere of the global economy, productivity has become a very important concept for long-term economic growth, development, regional and global competitiveness, raising social living standards and increasing the level of welfare for countries. In the 21st century, when scientific knowledge, technology, innovation, R&D and entrepreneurship manifest themselves in every stage of the production process, human capital has come to the fore as an important and determining factor that increases productivity. In the current study, the effect of human capital, one of the most important outputs of education, on country productivity was analyzed for 24 developing countries, including Turkey, which are in the upper middle income group. In the application part, a panel data set was created for the 24 countries included in the study with the series obtained from the database of PWT10.0 for the period of 1980-2019. The Human Capital Index was used to reveal the human capital status of the countries included in the analysis and the Total Factor Productivity Index was used to reveal the productivity status. The Granger Panel Causality Test was employed to determine whether there is a short-term relationship and the Westerlund Panel Cointegration Test was employed to determine whether there is a long-term relationship between the two variables. As a result of a bilateral causality relationship was found between human capital and productivity in the short-term and a cointegration relationship in the long-term. The study is important and different from other studies in that it focuses on the concepts of human capital and productivity, which have a very limited place in the education literature, although they are directly related to education, and it is grounded on an interdisciplinary approach (bringing together education, sociology and econometrics).

This article presents results of research analysing the views on the nature of science (NOS) among primary and secondary teachers working in state schools in two different cities in Colombia. Previous studies have reported that science teachers maintain 'eclectic' epistemological perspectives on science; in this article, we test if such hypothesis holds when teachers' ideas are 'anchored' in specific periods and topics of the philosophy of science. Thirty-five teachers attending a postgraduate teaching course with emphasis on the natural sciences at the Universidad del Norte (Barranquilla, Colombia) were assessed with the use of quantitative, descriptive and parametric research methods. The most important conclusion of this study is that teachers' expressed views on NOS maintain their epistemological eclecticism even when examined with more detail in relation to specific periods and topics of the philosophy of science. Such results can have negative implications for teachers' professionalisation, since fragile or labile conceptions of NOS could restrict the possibility of presenting a coherent view on science in the classroom.