Search

A deeper understanding of what factors influence metacognition has never become more pressing than in today's digital era, in which information flows constantly and quickly. To this end, the present study explored the role of culture in mediating how individuals experience metacognitive phenomena. For this purpose, the International Group on Metacognition (IGM) developed a rigorous standard international protocol to measure metacognition in Spanish-speaking university students (N = 1,461) in 12 cultures in Latin-America and Spain, employing both a subjective measure of metacognitive awareness (the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory [MAI]) and various metrics of objective metacognitive monitoring across three domains of learning--vocabulary, probabilities (mathematical reasoning), and paper folding (visual-spatial reasoning). Data were subsequently compared across the various cultures with subjective metacognitive awareness and the raw frequencies of the four mutually exclusive cells of the 2 × 2 performance/judgment array as outcomes. Results revealed significant differences regarding both macro-level components of subjective metacognitive awareness, knowledge and regulation of cognition. Further, significant and meaningful differences emerged for the raw frequencies of the four mutually exclusive cells as a function of culture, especially for vocabulary, in which differences among cultures emerged for all four cells. Implications for metacognitive research, theory, and practice are discussed.

Background: To avoid the spread of COVID-19, most engineering programs rapidly shifted to emergency online education, and prior research has associated online education with academic overload. Before the pandemic, engineering curricula were already packed with content and course assignments, so more studies should explore how the unprecedented conditions of remote learning affected the intensive academic workload of engineering programs. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study addresses the following research question: How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect the perceptions of engineering instructors and students regarding their academic workload? Thus, the main research objective is to explore the influence of COVID-19 on the perceived academic workload, extrapolating lessons learned for engineering education settings. Design/Method: During 2020, we developed a single-case study to understand academic workload in 22 engineering majors at a large Latin American university. We triangulated different sources of institutional and research-focused evidence, including two instructor surveys (n = 110), two student surveys (n = 2218), two student focus groups (n = 18), and workload measurement surveys (n = 3131). Results: Both instructors and students experienced academic overload since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the first year, instructors became capable of accommodating course activities and assignments to students' particular circumstances. Regardless of these efforts, students continue perceiving academic overload, particularly affecting those who experience connectivity issues or frequent problems with their personal computer or tablet. Conclusions: Further efforts are needed to support course planning and self-regulated learning in engineering education. In these lines, lessons learned were captured and shared to inform engineering education research and practice beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research outputs are a form of testimony with researchers serving as expert testifiers. Research outputs align with philosophical understandings of testimony, as research represents an everyday, informal communicative act. If research outputs are a form of testimony, they are open to ethical and epistemic critique. The open access (OA) article processing charge (APC) in the Global South serves as an apt topic for this critique. The APC is a financial barrier to publication for Southern researchers, and thus raises problems around epistemic and testimonial injustice. The second half of this paper examines a variety of equity issues in prestige scholarly publishing and OA APCs, which are then more fully illustrated by the development of a hypothetical testimonial injustice case study focused on a researcher working in Latin America. Ultimately, I propose the following argument: If people use journal rankings as a guide to which testimony they should take seriously and the OA APC publishing model systematically excludes researchers from the Global South on non-meritocratic grounds, then the OA APC publishing model contributes to testimonial injustice. This paper is a philosophical, theory-based discussion that contributes to research about equitable systems of scholarship.

The age of information and communication technology (ICT) has witnessed the prevalence of computer-based reading. Previous studies yielded mixed results concerning the relationship between ICT perceived competence, ICT use and digital reading performance, and the underlying mechanism was rarely explored. This study aimed to explore the relationship between ICT perceived competence and adolescents' digital reading performance and the potential mediating roles of three types of ICT use. Multilevel mediation analyses were conducted for 199,646 15-year-old students from 29 OECD countries/regions in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018, in which digital reading performance was assessed by multistage adaptive computer-based testing. The results revealed that (a) ICT perceived competence and digital reading performance were positively correlated; (b) ICT use significantly mediated the relationship; (c) students with higher-level ICT perceived competence tended to use ICT for leisure at home more frequently, which led to better digital reading performance; (d) the suppression effects were revealed, indicating the need to consider the interrelationship between ICT perceived competence and ICT use. These findings provided new evidence for the self-determination theory and the ICT engagement model, suggesting that appropriate ICT use driven by high-level ICT perceived competence might help improve adolescents' digital reading performance.

Effective collaborative problem solving comprises cognitive dimensions, in which men tend to outperform women, and social dimensions in which women tend to outperform men. We extend research on between-country differences in gender gaps by considering collaborative problem solving and its association with two indicators of societal-level gender inequality. The first indicator reflects women's underrepresentation in the labor market and politics. The second reflects women's underrepresentation in stereotypically masculine fields and men's underrepresentation in stereotypically feminine fields among university students. We use cross-country evidence on collaborative problem-solving skills among 15-year-old students from 44 countries (N = 343,326) who participated in the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Girls outperform boys in collaborative problem solving in all countries. Gender gaps in collaborative problem solving in favor of girls are less pronounced in countries where women are especially underrepresented in the labor market and politics but more pronounced in countries where men and women are more likely to conform to gender stereotypes in selecting a field of study at university. Societal-level gender equality plays a bigger role in explaining between-country differences in achievement in domains with a gender gap in favor of girls--such as collaborative problem solving and, to a lesser extent, reading--and a smaller role in explaining between-country differences in achievement in domains with a gender gap in favor of boys--such as mathematics.

In this paper we consider the experiences of international students studying in Norway, analysing data from more than 5,000 survey respondents. Variations according to students' region of origin and whether they are full degree students or exchange students are the focus. Students report a high level of overall satisfaction, exchange students in particular, and the vast majority of students are content with the quality of teaching. Students from the African continent report being more content than others, despite struggling somewhat more with academic demands and having weaker social networks, something they have in common with Asian students. Multivariate analyses show that type of mobility (full degree cf. exchange), region of origin, coping with academic demands, satisfaction with teaching and interaction with Norwegians are predictors of overall satisfaction with studying in Norway. The patterns observed are assumed to be related to prior experiences and expectations.

The importance of soft skills in the professional work of an engineer is becoming increasingly important, even more so since the emergence of COVID-19 boosted the digitization of all professional sectors. In order for future engineers to acquire this type of skills, it is necessary for engineering professors to have an optimal level of technical and transversal skills. This article analyzes the assessment made by a group of engineering professors about their degree of development of soft skills and describes gender gaps in these assessments. Based on a self-created survey to evaluate different families of soft skills relevant to engineering education, a sample of 284 Latin American engineering professors reported: 1) high evaluations of their soft skills and 2) the existence of gender gaps in the families of work behavior and social skills in favor of females. This gap is especially wide among participants younger than 45 and older than 65 in the social skills family. In addition, females also rate their work motivation skills higher, except in the 55-64 age range.

Evaluation has been expanding as an important discipline in Latin America, yet there are significant challenges regarding capacity development through educational and training initiatives in the region. This paper first analyzes the evolution and state of the field in terms of the teaching of, and training in evaluation in Latin America, with a special focus on young and emerging evaluators. The paper then draws on published literature, interviews with evaluation experts, and the results of a survey with VOPE leaders and a survey focused on young and emerging evaluators to illustrate Latin American evaluators' challenges and needs in terms of capacity building and training in evaluation. Lastly, this paper provides some examples of innovative activities and strategies that are being put in place by different actors to address training and teaching needs of Latin American evaluators.

The article highlights the history and features of parliamentarism development in the Latin America countries. In addition, the need for training on the subject and the effect of increasing students and educators' awareness in this field is examined. This process was lengthy, replete with the examples of various social groups, political trends and parties struggle intensity increase. Since the beginning of the 19th century, there have been almost no favorable conditions for the practical implementation of democratic government in the countries of Latin America, and the institutionalization of the party system has not taken place yet. However, there have been exceptions to the general rule in the history of Latin America. Chile and Argentina were such an example. The success of democratic transformations in the countries of the region depended on various reasons: (a) whether the country had a democratic experience in its past; (b) the conditions for the political and economic development of this country to develop representative institutions in the future; (c) the importance of the parties in the political course development and the adoption of state decisions. The results of democracy and parliamentarism development in the states of Latin America are rather complicated by the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. On the one hand, the last decades of the XX-th century and the beginning of this century was marked by the democratization of political life, reforms, and the replacement of military regimes with civilian governments. Since the beginning of the 60-ies, they started the process of democratization and formation of independent island states in the Caribbean and Central America. Despite the successful development of the economy, culture, education, the presence of a large middle class in Argentina, the military governments overcame civilian ones in the 30-70-ies. Therefore, it is needed to consider this aspect as a part of education system to improve the educators' level.

This mixed-methods study investigates the design and instructional practices of massive open online courses (MOOCs) instructors within the learning environment to address the cultural diversity and learner personalization needs. Leveraging a grounded theory approach, the researchers analyzed two rounds of email interviews (n1= 25; n2=19) with MOOC and open education leaders about cultural sensitivity and personalization in MOOCs. Those interviews led to the formation of a 30-item online questionnaire completed by 152 MOOC instructors. While many of the MOOC instructors within the sample did not fully grasp the complex issues of cultural diversity, most made attempts to modify their instructional practices to accommodate cultural variances. To address cultural and linguistic differences, instructors added subtitles to video content and offered transcripts for video or audio content. Additionally, instructors were careful with language use and hand gestures, used simplified language, slowed their pace of speech, made the course content easy to navigate, limited text by leveraging (multi)media, and encouraged learners to translate and localize content for their peers. Furthermore, many instructors favored collaborative, small group learning; however, instructors could not agree on best practices to establish these groups. Implications and future directions for MOOC instructors and instructional designers are offered.

While it is true that identity studies on the intersection between gender and sexual orientations with language teaching and learning are not new in the local context, the systematization of these studies as a body of knowledge is scarce. This article presents, first of all, a systematization of reference frameworks for this type of studies in historical perspective. Secondly, it presents a reflection on the collective achievements in this field of study. Finally, the article concludes with a brief reflection on potential actions at the research and pedagogical levels

Minority language communities lack access to educational technology that facilitates literacy skill building. The approach currently taken by most educational game app developers privileges widely spoken languages and often requires intensive resource investment. In response, a new game app was designed to provide easily localized, pedagogically appropriate games for literacy skill building. Scalability to multiple minority languages was possible through a programming design based on language packs that could be compiled by local implementation teams without specialized technical skills and without significant resource investment. We describe the scalability issues encountered when localizing the app for the initial ten minority language pilot groups and how a language-neutral app design that relies on language packs to specify language-specific content and parameters can adequately address these issues. When it comes to meeting the demands of growing education technology markets in underserved Indigenous and minority communities, localizing an app initially designed for maximum scalability is more feasible than investing significant resources converting apps custom designed for one language into new languages.

Gender equity in education is one of the main targets for social justice and sustainable development. This literature review, from a gender approach, was conducted to understand how the gender digital divide (GDD) in information and communication technologies (ICT) and education are related in Latin American countries. A total of 28 articles have been analyzed as a satisfactory sample of the scientific literature to examine how this relation is explored and its influence, to acknowledge political stakeholders, as well as provide information and proposals to address the digital gender divide in education research in this region. The results show the need to develop research from the pedagogical and gender perspectives in Latin America, since they are not represented within an obvious problem.

The purpose of this research paper is to investigate how technology has influenced the economic growth of developing countries and what steps are needed to be implemented in the regions of the world such as Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper reflects the arguments and the conclusions brought up during the discussion with a student roundtable answering the general research question; 'Are certain developing countries doomed to remain emerging'? In answering this question, the group identified four factors for economic growth: (1) human resources, (2) natural resources, (3) physical capital and (4) technology. Of the four factors technology was the single most significant factor for economic growth in developing countries, although the others are just as important. The group concluded that countries that lead the world in generating advanced technologies and leveraging their full productive capacity can gain a strategic comparative advantage and become an advanced country. Innovation and entrepreneurship are crucial for long-term economic development.

Research on augmented reality (AR) in education is gaining momentum worldwide. This field has been actively growing over the past decades in terms of the research and development of new technologies. Reviews in the field of AR in education consist of systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses (around 45), surveys (around 33), and only one bibliometric analysis. However, these reviews do not provide a general synthesis of the research published in the field to depict its evolution over the years. This study used the metadata of articles from a 25-year period (1995-2020) to conduct a bibliometric analysis. A total of 3,475 studies were considered. In this study, we used tools such as the Scopus database, the bibliometrix R package, and the VOSviewer analysis tool. The analysis of the literature is based on the metadata, author, content, and citation information extracted from the dataset. In addition, we focus on comparing literature published mainly in journals (articles, articles in press, and reviews) and those published in other sources (conference papers, books, and book chapters). Practitioners could use the results of this study to make decisions about the adoption of AR technologies in education.

This report presents the activity systems analysis of the general MOOC design process adopted by a multidisciplinary team for delivering edX courses to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). This report builds on Freire's (2020) exploratory case study [EJ1275469], which applied work-based learning theory and activity systems theory to determine whether and how 20 participants selected from the Hemispheric Development Fund's MOOC design team (HDFx) experienced work-based learning through their collaboration during the MOOC program's initial professionalization period. Activity systems models are developed to identify systemic tensions for each of the five phases in the MOOC design cycle: Needs Assessment, Instructional Design, Production, Implementation, and Evaluation. Such contradictions are further analyzed to formulate three main system-wide tensions that acted as triggers for the work-based learning reported by participants: (1) skill gaps for implementing the edX platform, (2) edX's limited techno-pedagogical affordances, and (3) organizational structures inhibiting multidisciplinary collaboration among participants and limiting the professionalization of the HDFx MOOC program. The report concludes by integrating the theoretical underpinnings of the case study with its four primary findings.

Nowadays, many universities are employing metrics that are used by other countries as the focus moves towards academic management. A shared vision and collaboration is required to identify success cases. Leaders at senior and middle management need to be guided by a road map to get a clear vision, a list of different strategies and successful outcomes. Consequently, this article proposes an academic management strategy to guarantee student-centred education. This strategy has an emphasis on hierarchical process in layers, in order to optimise and achieve efficiency, reliability and resilience. In this paper, the "what", " how" and "where" are taken into account in order to respond to academic and administrative adjustments which are necessary to reduce the risk of investment in training and formation of human capital, which warns about the need to acquire knowledge, especially from countries with scientific expertise. It is also shown the indicators that motivate the effort based on the merit that human capital produces. A methodology of flipped learning or blended learning is applied to presume a human capital that is able to break down barriers, such as: English as a universal language. A bibliometric analysis has been based over 2000 scientific articles from the Web of Science and Scopus databases. So It was possible to identify countries, universities and researchers specifically for each area of knowledge based on the results of this analysis. Besides, university careers can even be validated according to the development and scientific interest that is presented by the bibliometric analysis, which could be compared with studies based on economics and wealth from sources such as Forbes.

This paper presents an explorative holistic analysis of digitally-constructed gamification processes in mathematics education. The main aim of this study is to identify the key issues, intentions and trends by examining peer-reviewed publications using a combination of social network analysis (SNA), computerized lexical analysis and content analysis. Research findings indicate that there is a growing trend in gamification in mathematics education (GIME) research. GIME is mostly employed in primary school level. It was also found that, numbers is the most gamified math topic. Another research finding reveals that the researchers mostly use gamification to improve mathematical problem-solving, math achievement and math performance apart from the motivation and engagement. According to SNA findings, the most strategic terms in GIME research are as follows; geometry, fractions, mobile-learning, gender-studies, human-computer interaction, intelligent tutoring systems and tangible user-interfaces. GIME research is mostly influenced by USA and Brazil hence, the developing countries have an increasing interest in GIME research. Finally, findings on general research discourse implies that the general discourse among the sampled papers is positive. The findings obtained in this study may be useful to improve mathematics education by mapping a research agenda for researchers and educators with the exploration of potentials of GIME research.

A conceptual model on OER adoption is presented, as the substantive theoretical synthesis of a Grounded Theory study, whose purpose was to identify which factors influence the adoption of OER among teachers in Latin American universities. Main theoretical-methodological bases are rooted and analised, in comparison with the traditional approach identified in the most recent literature. From a double "emic" perspective on agency and structure, the faculty and the university institution, the resultant conceptual model includes four categories influencing the adoption of OER among professors in Latin American universities: 1) Construction of Teacher Professional Identity; 2) Practices and Transformations in the Curriculum; 3) Creation, Use and Opening of Digital Educational Resources; and 4) Social Representations about Repositories of OER. Properties and dimensions of each category are presented and described. The critical conceptual model may be adopted by researchers from all regions who seek to unveil and decolonise the hidden curriculum of OER.

Prompted by William Newell's 2013 call for the Association of Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS) to consider whether to rethink its mission in light of other organizations' interests, this article begins by reflecting on similarities and differences among five of the founding organizations of a recently formed Global Alliance for Inter- and Transdisciplinarity. In chronological order of their own founding dates they are AIS, the Network of Transdisciplinary Research, the Integration and Implementation Sciences network, the International Network for the Science of Team Science, and the Center for Interdisciplinarity at Michigan State University. Descriptions of the five in Part I account for their emergence, communication venues, keywords of representation, website features, and prominent outputs. Given the centrality of integration in both inter- and trans-disciplinarity, it also describes their stances on this prominent topic. Part II reflects on implications of the current heterogeneity of the core concepts, focusing initially on generalizations including distinctions between Zurich and Nicolescuian approaches to transdisciplinarity followed by the premise of distinct Franco and U.S. traditions of the field of nanomedicine. It then draws further insights from case studies of institutionalizing interdisciplinarity across Europe, Russia and the South Caucuses, Africa, Latin and North America, Australia, and Asia. After commenting on signs of change in AIS, discussion turns to historical precedents for prioritizing problem solving, followed by future horizons for both inter- and trans-disciplinarity with emphasis on implications of their heterogeneity and overlaps with other prominent concepts such as Convergence and Mode 2 Knowledge Production. The closing section presents final reflections for answering Newell's challenge for AIS members to consider expanding its definition of interdisciplinary studies and conception of integrative process in light of other organizations' interests.

During the last 20 years, the teaching of writing has grown worldwide as a dynamic field of international academic practice and research, as attested to by the emergence of disciplinary societies, conferences, and publications. This paper builds on common nodes that have shaped the original contributions to Latin America's university-level teaching of and research on writing. The authors report on the particularities of university systems in the region, as teaching and researching writing are situated and respond to institutional needs and opportunities. They also explore the central role of language and discourse studies in the disciplinary development of the field and outline the current state of scholarship with particular attention to the production of writing knowledge and theory.

The current stage of society development is very closely related to the digitalization of all spheres of public life without exception. Education in this regard should become the starting point or the basis for the competent and conscious application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, neural networks, and other cyber-physical systems based on AI, as well as robots and robotics objects. Digitalization in education is promoted by economic, social and structural prerequisites. The introduction of these technologies provides new opportunities to improve the educational process, but at the same time the application of these technologies faces some risks, the identification of negative consequences of which is delayed. The aim of the article is to provide the ways for the development of legal regulation of AI, robots and robotics objects in education. The study considers the experience of different countries in the implementation of AI technologies in the educational process, provides the opinions of international UNESCO experts, Russian and foreign researchers. According to the results of the research, three main directions of the relationship between the development of AI technologies and education are identified: 1) training with the help of AI technologies; 2) scientific and practical research of AI and its technologies; 3) training qualified specialists to work with AI in the process of obtaining secondary and higher education. The factors that hinder the implementation of these technologies, as well as the risks of negative consequences of their use in the form of violations of the students' rights are revealed. Findings and proposals for each of the identified areas are formulated.

The field of music education was engaged in unprecedented cross-cultural efforts with Latin American music educators and Latin American music during the period between 1939 and 1946. These inter-American efforts related to the Good Neighbor policies with an emphasis on education and culture in diplomacy. Music educators collaborated with governmental and non-governmental organizations to undertake activities including the development of curricular materials incorporating Latin American music for use in US schools and participating in person-to-person exchanges between American and Latin American music educators. The two genres of music deemed appropriate for schools, folk music and art music, were reinforced in the inter-American educational projects. This combination of efforts to diversify curricular materials and cross-cultural exchanges provided new opportunities for assessing the representation of Latin American musical cultures in US music education.

Inspired by neo-institutional theory, we explore whether the semantics of diversity appears to be global and universal through computer-assisted content analysis of 2378 publications. Diversity discourses are dominant, but only in the USA and Canada, UK and Ireland and Europe, not being present in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Diversity is interpreted differently across regions influenced by the local socio-political settings. Academic literature on diversity first appeared in the USA and Canada in the mid-1970s in relation to race and gender. In other English-speaking countries, diversity gained momentum only in the mid-2000s, with inclusion, gender, ethnicity and cultural diversity being the dominant terminologies. Later in that decade, diversity appeared in the academic literature in Europe, often framed as inclusion and gender. We did not find any evidence that the semantics of diversity has become global or universal and, therefore, question the cultural globalisation and the worldwide standardisation of academic knowledge around the valorisation of individual and collective differences.

This article presents a case study that examined the principles and practices of one novice English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher at a prominent English language institution in Central America. This qualitative study sought to contribute to the discussion of the perceived interdependent influences of EFL teachers' thoughts, identities, and behaviors through five stages of self-reflection in Farrell's framework for reflective practice. The EFL teacher engaged in conscious reflection to subject their beliefs to critical analysis and interpretation expressed through their philosophy, principles, theory, practice, and beyond practice. Overall, the findings confirm that reflections in all five stages are connected to several common themes, but simultaneously reveal a complex relationship between the teacher's stated principles and actual practice. The discussion explores potential reasons for convergence and divergence in teachers' beliefs and classroom actions, concluding that the results correlate with previous research in the field of language education and teacher reflection.

This paper examines patterns of knowledge production in the social sciences (SS) and in the arts and humanities (A&H) in Latin America (LATAM). We report on a longitudinal analysis of 127,515 journal articles published between 2002 and 2018. The analysis reveals six major patterns: (i) a rapid growth in the production of journal articles; (ii) large differences in article production across nations; (iii) significant variations in the magnitude and the growth of articles across disciplines within the SS and the A&H; (iv) a present predominance of single-authored articles that has nevertheless been declining in favour of collaborative articles; (v) a significant variation in the magnitudes of collaborative articles with researchers outside LATAM, a collaboration that tends to be with the global North; and (vi) differences in research leadership across LATAM nations. A set of possible explanations is offered for each of these patterns, set within a dynamic global knowledge production context.