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Introduction to Computer Science is traditionally the first course that all computer science and software engineering majors take. The course introduces many problem-solving techniques which can be challenging for many freshman students. In order to mitigate some of the issues of this course, we, at the Higher Education Institute, introduced a new prerequisite course, Introduction to Programming Logic, which is a required course for all students who have not taken any previous computer science course. In the Summer Session of 2022, we included prize-based learning in one of the sections of the course. Prize-based learning is similar to both problem-based learning and project-based learning in many aspects, including the principle of student-centred learning. However, it differs with respect to the motivation for student success. This approach utilises the students' ambition to win, to encourage students to work harder and learn more both inside as well as outside the classroom.

There can be many reasons why students fail to answer correctly to summative tests in advanced computer science courses: often the cause is a lack of prerequisites or misconceptions about topics presented in previous courses. One of the ITiCSE 2020 working groups investigated the possibility of designing assessments suitable for differentiating between fragilities in prerequisites (in particular, knowledge and skills related to introductory programming courses) and advanced topics. This paper reports on an empirical evaluation of an instrument focusing on data structures, among those proposed by the ITiCSE working group. The evaluation aimed at understanding what fragile knowledge and skills the instrument is actually able to detect and to what extent it is able to differentiate them. Our results support that the instrument is able to distinguish between some specific fragilities (e.g., value vs. reference semantics), but not all of those claimed in the original report. In addition, our findings highlight the role of relevant skills at a level between prerequisite and advanced skills, such as program comprehension and reasoning about constraints. We also suggest ways to improve the questions in the instrument, both by improving the distractors of the multiple-choice questions, and by slightly changing the content or phrasing of the questions. We argue that these improvements will increase the effectiveness of the instrument in assessing prerequisites as a whole, but also to pinpoint specific fragilities.

Cognitive demand is a crucial dimension of instructional quality. Its heterogenous operationalizations call for refined investigations, with respect to discursive richness (generic conceptualizations) and conceptual richness (subject-related conceptualizations). Considering not only teachers' intended cognitive activation (operationalized, e.g., by tasks), but also the enacted activation and individual students' participation as realized in the interaction, raises the question of how far the interaction quality is associated with students' prerequisites, school context, and class composition. In this paper, we present a video study of leader-led small-group instruction (in 49 groups of 3-6 middle school students each) with the same fraction tasks, so that differences in interaction quality can be scrutinized in generic and subject-related conceptualizations. In spite of equal task quality, large differences occurred in interaction quality across heterogenous class compositions. The regression analyses revealed that the enacted activation and individual participation were significantly associated with the school context (of higher-tracked and lower-tracked schools), but much less with individual learning prerequisites. These findings reveal the need to capture students' collective and individual engagement in cognitive demands in the interaction and in generic and subject-related conceptualizations and to systematically investigate their association with class composition.

Gross anatomy is a crucial course in medical school; it sets the foundation for future coursework and is highly valued by clinicians. While both medical students and faculty recognize the importance of pre-medical school anatomy experience, few medical schools require it as a prerequisite. Consequently, medical school gross anatomy courses have a diverse range of prior anatomy experience among students. Prior studies have shown mixed results regarding the impact of pre-medical school anatomy experience on medical school gross anatomy performance, often using final exam scores as the metric of analysis. In this study, we investigated the relationship between pre-medical school anatomy experience and medical school gross anatomy performance among students at New York Institute of Technology, College of Osteopathic Medicine. We surveyed students from all four matriculated years and analyzed their individual anatomy laboratory exam scores and final anatomy laboratory course scores. We found that students with prior anatomy experience performed significantly better on the first anatomy laboratory exam, leading to an overall positive effect on their final anatomy laboratory score. However, this advantage seemed to diminish in subsequent exams, suggesting that students without prior experience rapidly adjusted to the course challenges. Students with prior anatomy experience felt more prepared for the anatomy course, reported lower stress levels, and believed they had an advantage over peers without prior experience. Our study highlights the importance of pre-medical school anatomy experience, particularly for early performance in the anatomy course.

So-called survey courses have been a persistent but contested genre in world languages, especially in regard to "the canon," an unstable concept that has historically determined the textual choices of such surveys. This article presents a case study for redesigning the survey course genre in line with theory to diversify, decolonize, and decanonize the curriculum. It discusses a number of steps concerning the theoretical background, textual improvements, approaches to assignments, classroom atmosphere, and general pedagogy. It reflects on questions of positionality, institutional support, and workload. Focusing on music and short texts, the survey course described here questions the common practices and core values of German studies, music history, and musicology, and takes a critical stance toward privilege and power. In this context, the course counters tokenization, juxtaposes non-canonical and canonical works, and focuses on inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility work, as well as universal instructional design principles and social justice education. Thus, the survey becomes a new genre--one that still offers students the breadth of cultural production but relies on a particular set of prerequisites determined by factors such as the space, time, and accessibility of a course, as well as the identity markers of instructor and students.

This paper describes the study of enforcement of prerequisites in the Computer Science program at a regional university in the Southwest. Prerequisites are a significant factor in programs of study in higher education. Allowing students to register in courses may assume that they have existing knowledge and skills. Some programs treat prerequisites as advisory, while others consider them mandatory. In the latter case, procedures usually exist to make exceptions in the form of registration overrides. The state of prerequisite enforcement at our university over the years, and some factors that may have influenced adherence to the prerequisite structure over the years, will be discussed in this paper.

Research shows that prerequisite courses prepare students for participation in more challenging coursework and more advanced future learning. Despite being a field that heavily relies on research evidence to inform clinical decisions as part of evidence-based practice, many undergraduate Communication Sciences and Disorder (CSD) programs do not include prerequisite undergraduate coursework dedicated to research methods. The purpose of the present study was to explore speech-language pathology and audiology graduate students' experiences with and opinions about critical appraisal of research articles. A total of 201 graduate students from institutions nationwide completed an online survey with questions related to exposure to research appraisal, use of an appraisal tool, and perspectives on the importance of research appraisal and confidence in appraisal skills. Results indicated that nearly one-third of the respondents did not learn or could not remember learning about article appraisal in their undergraduate CSD programs, though almost all survey respondents reported that they had learned about article appraisal in their graduate classes. Over half of the students used an article appraisal tool to bolster their learning of article critiques, almost all of whom found it helpful. Most of the respondents recognized the importance of article appraisal knowledge prior to graduate school but suggested that many of their undergraduate instructors did not place importance on the skill. Respondents' confidence in their article appraisal skills ranged from "least confident" to "most confident". This study supports early and ongoing practice with article appraisal, which will provide these future clinicians with the confidence to communicate their knowledge and understanding when making evidence-informed clinical decisions. Additionally, instructors who teach article appraisal may consider using a hands-on appraisal tool since almost all students with experience using them believe they are helpful.

Mindset is defined as an individual's beliefs about their inherent characteristics and whether or not those characteristics can be developed. Growth mindsets have been associated with improved academic performance and resilience and may benefit students transitioning to graduate health professions education. This study examined the relationships between mindset, learning behaviors, and learning outcomes of first-semester graduate health professions students enrolled in a neuroanatomy course and examined other factors that may impact academic performance. Forty-one participants completed an electronic survey that included demographics and a mindset questionnaire. Learning outcomes, or grades, and learning behaviors, including office hour and tutoring session attendance, participation in bonus activities, and email correspondence with the course instructor, were collected. Based upon the mindset questionnaire, 10 participants were categorized as "strong growth", 28 participants as "growth with some fixed", and 3 participants as "fixed with some growth". There were no significant differences in mindset score based upon demographic characteristics. No significant correlations were found between mindset score, learning behaviors, or learning outcomes. Using a multivariable model, the factors that best predicted overall course grade were undergraduate grade point average (GPA) and number of prerequisite courses taken. While the lack of heterogeneity in mindset impacts the ability to determine potential relationships between studied variables, this study demonstrates that graduate health professions students largely have growth mindsets, perform well on academic assessments, including undergraduate coursework, and demonstrate frequent positive learning behaviors. Developing and reinforcing these behaviors as undergraduates may positively impact future success at the graduate level.

The process of becoming an expert teacher, which is one of the career steps of teachers, and the evaluation of this process are important and necessary in terms of education. The general purpose of this study is to obtain the opinions of primary school teachers about the Expert Teacher Training Program Seminar (ETTPS). In the study, a qualitative research approach was adopted, and a case study design was preferred. The data were collected from the primary school teachers who received the aforementioned seminar at the beginning of the fall semester of the 2022-2023 academic year. The research group consisted of 24 primary school teachers who were identified by the maximum diversity sampling method among the primary school teachers working in public primary schools in a province of Turkey. The research data were analyzed using content analysis. Primary school teachers listed the concepts related to expert teaching as experience, seniority, educational status, professional development, presentation skills, and competence. While the primary school teachers stated that the training was both necessary and not necessary, they also stated that the training they received did not contribute to their professional development. Most of the primary school teachers stated that the training they received did not meet their expectations. In addition, it was revealed that the online delivery of the ETTPS caused some problems in terms of time, internet, and devices in terms of follow-up. Primary school teachers offered some suggestions for changing the prerequisites for the current career ladder. In particular, they suggested that the trainings should be long-term, interactive, and face-to-face, and that examples with active participation should be provided for the implementation of different education systems. It is thought that this research will benefit all stakeholders, especially program developers, in terms of the career ladder of the teaching profession.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge regarding mathematics anxiety, self-efficacy, and performance in mathematics. Specifically, this study analyzed these constructs as they pertain to undergraduate business students enrolled in entry-level, prerequisite mathematics courses. Information was collected via surveys utilizing the Mathematics Self-Efficacy and Anxiety Questionnaire (MSEAQ). Results based on regression modeling were consistent with prior research involving the relationship between mathematics anxiety and performance, with self-efficacy serving as a mediator. Data indicated an inverse relationship between math anxiety and math self-efficacy, an inverse relationship between math anxiety and students' expected grade, differences in math self-efficacy by business major, and partial mediation support for math self-efficacy on the inverse relationship between math anxiety and expected grade. Discussion extends to instructional strategies for mathematics and business educators alike that support self-efficacy and alleviate mathematics anxiety for business students in the infancy of their program.

Business Statistics is a required course for undergraduate business majors and presents significant challenges for students with weak quantitative and critical thinking skills. This paper shows that changing the pre-requisite for the Business Statistics course from Business Calculus to Probability and Statistics makes a significant positive impact, despite the increase in course content, on student performance for business students at a comprehensive regional university in the southeast. It is recommended business schools that experience difficulties with students successfully completing business statistics to carefully consider curriculum changes, particularly the chosen pre-requisite courses.

A teacher's ability to read effectively is critical to that individual's ability to teach reading skills. Correspondingly, most state departments of education require that prospective teachers earn a passing score on a standardized reading comprehension test before they can enter university-based teacher education programs or otherwise get a professional teaching license. Having witnessed quality candidates get pushed away from teaching due to poor performance on the our state's reading comprehension measure and given that previous studies have shed doubt on the construct validity of major standardized assessments (e.g., the SAT and ACT), we examined the validity of our state's standardized reading assessment for teachers. Using data generated by 115 college-aged participants in a prerequisite course for our teacher education programs, we found that our state's assessment did little to measure reading comprehension. Instead, it measured students' test-taking skills. This is exceptionally problematic because tests like this one keep significant numbers of qualified and motivated individuals from entering the teaching profession. Worse, due to the oft-researched relationship between test-taking skills to the socioeconomic background of the test-taker, these impacts may be exponentially worse for individuals from minority and lower socioeconomic backgrounds, thereby further reducing their opportunities to teach.

This article describes how some Swedish compulsory schools work to achieve collective development of practices in mathematics and science. The overall aim is to increase knowledge about factors influencing progression to professional learning in different school contexts. Data were collected through four case studies by interviews with teacher teams and principals and were analysed in a meta-perspective by using the components of the Collaborative Action Research model. The findings showed that the schools had reached different phases concerning progression to professional learning. Changes aiming to improve teaching and learning are context-bound. Therefore the authors suggest some crucial questions to support professional learning in the prevailing school culture.

The recommendation is an active area of scientific research; it is also a challenging and fundamental problem in online education. However, classical recommender systems usually suffer from item cold-start issues. Besides, unlike other fields like e-commerce or entertainment, e-learning recommendations must ensure that learners have the adequate background knowledge to cognitively receive the recommended learning objects. For that reason, when designing an efficient e-learning recommendation method, these challenges should be considered. To address those issues, in this paper, we first propose extracting pairs concept prerequisites using Linked Open Data (LOD). Then, we evaluate the proposed list of prerequisite relationships using machine learning predictive models. Then, we present the recommendation approach based on matching concept's prerequisites relation and courses metadata through a similarity score. The experimental result of prerequisite identification was evaluated using four well-known machine learning algorithms while achieving an accuracy of 90%. Moreover, using three known evaluation metrics, the final prerequisite-based recommendation demonstrates very good results (NDCG@10 = 86%). This solution will enhance recommendations on online learning platforms. Additionally, it will overcome the cold-start issue and accomplish the needed prerequisites and background knowledge for learners to attain their learning objectives.

Purpose: The South African vocational education and training (VET) sector is required by legislation to redefine postsecondary education, advance industrialisation and expand the job market to address unemployment in the country. Yet, VET leaders' heterogenous educational and occupational backgrounds do not enable them to address the needs of the VET sector. Continuous professional development of leaders in the education sector needs to include support structures such as mentoring. Design/methodology/approach: The present study sought to investigate how VET managers in South Africa perceive three different types of mentoring -- individual, peer group and expert-based key performance area (KPA) mentoring -- during a part-time professional leadership development programme. Using interactive qualitative analysis (IQA), the authors collected and analysed data from focus group discussions (n = 24) and individual interviews (n = 21) from two cohorts of the programme. Findings: The results revealed that individual mentoring represented the most important driving mechanism, followed by peer group mentoring and expert-based KPA mentoring. Participants identified leadership as a prerequisite for their development. Emotions formed the final outcome of the mentoring framework. Research limitations/implications: Based on the findings, the authors suggest investigating the role played by leaders' interpersonal competences such as emotional competence in the workplace. Additionally, research needs to clarify if and how mentoring can support leaders to develop interpersonal competences in formal and informal settings. Originality/value: The study offers empirical evidence on a three-pillar mentoring framework adopted in a professional development programme for leaders in VET in South Africa. It highlights the importance of individual, social and emotional factors.

Extracting and formally representing the knowledge embedded in textbooks, such as the concepts explained and the relations between them, can support the provision of advanced knowledge-based services for learning environments and digital libraries. In this paper, we consider a specific type of relation in textbooks referred to as "prerequisite relations" (PR). PRs represent precedence relations between concepts aimed to provide the reader with the knowledge needed to understand a further concept(s). Their annotation in educational texts produces datasets that can be represented as a graph of concepts connected by PRs. However, building good-quality and reliable datasets of PRs from a textbook is still an open issue, not just for automated annotation methods but even for manual annotation. In turn, the lack of good-quality datasets and well-defined criteria to identify PRs affect the development and validation of automated methods for prerequisite identification. As a contribution to this issue, in this paper, we propose PREAP, a protocol for the annotation of prerequisite relations in textbooks aimed at obtaining reliable annotated data that can be shared, compared, and reused in the research community. PREAP defines a novel textbook-driven annotation method aimed to capture the structure of prerequisites underlying the text. The protocol has been evaluated against baseline methods for manual and automatic annotation. The findings show that PREAP enables the creation of prerequisite knowledge graphs that have higher inter-annotator agreement, accuracy, and alignment with text than the baseline methods. This suggests that the protocol is able to accurately capture the PRs expressed in the text. Furthermore, the findings show that the time required to complete the annotation using PREAP are significantly shorter than with the other manual baseline methods. The paper includes also guidelines for using PREAP in three annotation scenarios, experimentally tested. We also provide example datasets and a user interface that we developed to support prerequisite annotation.

Using administrative data from nearly 270,000 transfer-intending students who began at 70 community colleges across three state systems, this paper seeks to identify a set of metrics that will be useful to community college leaders as they formatively assess their colleges' efforts to improve STEM transfer outcomes. We find that a relatively simple set of STEM momentum metrics--notably Calculus and other non-math science and engineering coursework specified on statewide STEM transfer pathways, and to a lesser degree the pre-requisites to these types of courses--are reliable indicators of subsequent STEM transfer success across a wide-ranging set of state and institutional contexts, as well as across race/ethnicity and gender. However, community colleges have relatively low rates of completion of these key STEM courses, and disparities in completion of these courses by race/ethnicity and gender are common.

STEM undergraduates navigate lengthy sequences of prerequisite courses covering volumes of science content. Given that these courses may contribute to attrition and equity gaps in STEM, research is needed to test the assumption that prerequisite content benefits students in their future studies and careers. We investigated the relevance of prerequisite course content for students' careers through semistructured interviews with practicing nurses regarding their undergraduate anatomy and physiology (A&P) courses. Nurses reported that A&P content does not align with the skills and knowledge needed in the nursing profession. Interviewees averaged 39% on a brief A&P assessment, suggesting A&P prerequisites failed to impart a high degree of long-term A&P knowledge among nurses. Further, practicing nurses perceived overcommitment to A&P content coverage as an exclusionary practice that eliminates capable individuals from the prenursing pathway. These findings challenge assumptions surrounding the justification for prerequisite course content and raise questions of whether content expectations actively exclude individuals from STEM or healthcare careers. We aspire for this study to stimulate conversation and research about the goals of prerequisite content, who is best positioned to articulate prerequisite content objectives, and the influence of content coverage on equity and justice in undergraduate STEM education.

This note demonstrates that measurement invariance does not guarantee meaningful and valid group comparisons in multiple-population settings. The article follows on a recent critical discussion by Robitzsch and Lüdtke, who argued that measurement invariance was not a pre-requisite for such comparisons. Within the framework of common factor analysis, we show that measurement invariance is in general not a sufficient condition for evaluating comparable constructs in all groups under consideration. We conclude with a discussion of related issues pertaining to population invariant measurement and the examination of latent differences and similarities in multi-group studies.

Among students and lecturers of Computer Science (CS)-related subjects, there is often anecdotal talk that Frustration Tolerance (FT) is a requirement for success in CS studies or that students would learn it during their studies. In order to relate the anecdotal perception and the psychological concept of FT and to explore the anecdotal narratives, the Frustration Discomfort Scale (FDS) and self-assessment among other factors were conducted with students from a university CS1 course at two times. There seems to be no effect from one semester of CS on FT and no actual differences in prerequisites, although further studies will be needed. Students with extensive prior knowledge, male students and students in low CS-related majors rate their FT as higher than the opposite groups at the beginning of the course. Lecturers should reconsider the use of the term as it may support negative feelings related to Imposter Syndrome.

Study abroad is not an easy decision for international students who cannot manage the local language and academic courses, particularly nursing students who need to communicate with their patients in clinical environments. This study aims to explore international nursing students' experiences of pre-sessional language prerequisite courses in South Korea. Three directions were categorised, including what are the motivations and reasons to come to South Korea, how do the international nursing students describe their Korean language courses as the prerequisite for their nursing programme at one of the South Korean universities, and why did the participants select South Korea as their destination for the nursing programme. Based on the Social Cognitive Career and Motivation Theory and a qualitative design, the researcher invited 12 participants who are taking the pre-sessional language courses before the nursing programme commencement. The results indicated that personal considerations, interest in career development, and financial considerations are three of the key elements. The outcomes of this study allowed the nursing school leaders and government agencies to polish their current curriculum plans, international students' recruitment strategies, and post-study career developments for international nursing students in the East Asian region.

Physics and mathematics are interrelated as part of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The learning of science is supported by mathematical skills and knowledge. The aim of this paper is to determine the cognitive obstacles of in-service undergraduate physics student-teachers' understanding of the concept of complex numbers which is part of linear algebra. A case study is presented involving 10 undergraduate student-teachers at a university in Zimbabwe studying for a Bachelor of Science Education Honours Degree in physics. Data were generated from the 10 participants' answers to structured activity sheets and interviews. Action, process, object, schema (APOS) theory was used to explore the possible ways that students may follow to understand the concepts of complex numbers and how they concur with the preliminary genetic decomposition. It was observed that most of the participants were operating at the action level, with a few operating at the process and object levels of understanding. Recommendations are made in this study that instructors should pay more attention to the prerequisite concepts and the "met afters" so that students can encapsulate processes into object understanding of division of complex numbers and polar form.

This paper presents a fine-grained process analysis of 22 students in a classroom-based learning setting. The students engaged (and failed) in problem-solving attempts prior to instruction (i.e., the Productive-Failure approach). We used the HeuristicsMiner algorithm to analyze the data of a quasi-experimental study. The applied algorithm allowed us to investigate temporally structured think-aloud data, to outline productive and unproductive problem-solving strategies. Our analyses and findings demonstrated that HeuristicsMiner enables researchers to effectively mine problem-solving processes and sequences, even for smaller sample sizes, which cannot be done with traditional coding-and-counting strategies. The limitations of the algorithm, as well as further implications for educational research and practice, are also discussed.

The current stage of distance education development demands enhancement of standards for training of teachers working in that area. Only professional teachers are able to provide quality education for people with different abilities, interests and needs, considering their personal characteristics and specifics of distance education. It is critically important to analyse the experience and professional qualities of teachers involved in distance learning given the uniqueness of the current situation and a high probability of transition to distance education. The study was focused on establishing the actual preparedness level of teachers for distance learning and identifying prerequisites for formation of teachers' readiness to provide students distance education.

We conducted a quantitative analysis to determine how the prerequisite path of students taking calculus I impacts their grade performance. We began by investigating the performance of students that took college algebra and trigonometry versus those that took pre-calculus ahead of their credit-bearing calculus I attempt. We concluded that there was a significant difference between the two prerequisite routes. We then performed regression analysis to view the number of credit prerequisite credit hours, including multiple attempts, as a predictor of calculus I GPA and A-proportion. We found a strong negative correlation between these variables. We hope this study can be replicated at other institutions and in other fields to help university policymakers with decision-making regarding course listings.

We developed a Quantum Mechanics Conceptual Understanding Survey (QMCUS) in this study. The survey was conducted using a quantitative methodology. A multiple-choice survey of 35 questions was administered to 338 undergraduate students. Three experienced quantum mechanics instructors examined the validity of the survey. The reliability of our survey was measured using Cronbach's alpha, the Fergusson delta index, the discrimination index, and the point biserial correlation coefficient. These indices showed that the developed survey is reliable. The statistical analysis of the students' results using SPSS shows that the scores obtained by the students have a normal distribution, around the score of 7.14. The results of the t-test show that the students' scores are below the required threshold, which means that it is still difficult for the students to understand the concepts of quantum mechanics. The obtained results allow us to draw some conclusions. The students' difficulties in understanding the quantum concepts are due to the nature of these concepts; they are abstract and counterintuitive. In addition, the learners did not have frequent contact with the subatomic world, which led them to adopt misconceptions. Moreover, students find it difficult to imagine and conceptualize quantum concepts. Therefore, subatomic phenomena are still explained with classical paradigms. Another difficulty is the lack of prerequisites and the difficulties in using the mathematical formalism and its translation into Dirac notation.

Learning physiology requires students to apply physical and chemical principles to the study of biological systems. Unfortunately, many undergraduate anatomy and physiology (A&P) students are unprepared for this due to a lack of prerequisite knowledge in physics and chemistry. This lack of prerequisite knowledge of chemistry and physics makes learning physiology especially difficult and may contribute to the high failure rates among A&P courses nationwide. However, undergraduate physiology courses catering to biology majors often require more stringent chemistry and physics prerequisites that help prepare students to learn physiology. This study compared prerequisite requirements in chemistry and physics between A&P classes for health-related majors and physiology classes for biology majors across numerous four-year institutions and found striking differences in prerequisite preparation between the two groups. 62% of physiology courses for biology majors required a chemistry prerequisite while only 18% of A&P classes for health-related majors had the same requirement. As a result, students entering physiology courses for biology majors may have a better foundation upon which to learn physiology than students entering A&P for health-related majors.

Committing to a major is a fateful step in an undergraduate education, yet the relationship between courses taken early in an academic career and ultimate major issuance remains little studied at scale. Using transcript data capturing the academic careers of 26,892 undergraduates enrolled at a private university between 2000 and 2020, we describe enrollment histories by using natural-language methods and vector embeddings to forecast terminal major on the basis of course sequences beginning at college entry. We find that (a) a student's very first enrolled course predicts their major 30 times better than random guessing and more than one-third better than majority-class voting, (b) modeling strategies substantially influence forecasting metrics, and (c) course portfolios vary substantially within majors, such that students with the same major exhibit relatively modest overlap.

As learners engage, test, and apply new subject knowledge, they often expend their cognitive capacity on the technological tools designed to capture their learning progress and outcomes. The energy and attention spent on these tools reduces their capacity to engage deeply with new learning concepts. Digital literacy skills require both cognitive and technical skills to develop a learner's ability to locate, use, and communicate information. Increasingly complex information environments create various barriers for student learning, and as our learning and working industries continue to evolve and integrate technologies, students must overcome these barriers by bridging learning needs and technology expectations. This research explores the value of developing digital literacy to improve learners' cognitive flexibility by decreasing technological cognitive load and increasing learning fluency. The findings highlight the need for establishing scaffolded digital literacy skills and digital tool selection, and expand college readiness requirements to include digital literacy as a prerequisite skill for learners.

It is well known that fraction knowledge is relevant for later success in mathematics. However, many students still face difficulties when dealing with fractions. Predictors of fraction knowledge have been widely examined. Systematizing "mathematical" predictors, whether their predictive contributions are direct or indirectly mediated via other mathematical knowledge and skills, could reveal how mathematics teachers could support students' fraction learning. The present longitudinal study investigates these roles for six mathematical prerequisites of fraction knowledge that differ in their connection to the multiplicative field. N = 363 students' skills regarding six prerequisites were measured at the beginning of Grade 6. For three of these prerequisites ("distal prerequisites," e.g., whole number line estimation), possible indirect effects via one or more of the other three prerequisites ("proximal prerequisites," e.g., symbolic proportional reasoning skills) can be argued. After the systematic introduction of fractions in class, students worked on tests for three central facets of fraction knowledge (knowledge of fraction subconstructs, fraction arithmetic skills, and fraction word problem-solving). All prerequisites predicted later fraction knowledge but in different roles. The three proximal prerequisites directly predicted all facets of fraction knowledge, even when controlling for all other prerequisites. As assumed, the distal prerequisites indirectly predicted all facets of fraction knowledge, with the three proximal prerequisites as mediators. The results extend previous findings on the effects of indirect predictors on fraction learning and highlight their role in building up necessary direct predictors before fraction teaching.

Objective: Community colleges have considerable potential to grow the number of individuals who complete STEM baccalaureate degrees and to broaden access to educational opportunities in STEM. However, efforts to tap this potential have been hampered by nagging questions about whether community colleges prepare students adequately for advanced STEM courses at universities. In this study, we draw on data from four universities in Michigan to investigate differences in the course and degree outcomes of students who completed prerequisite STEM courses in community colleges versus students who completed prerequisites at the university. Methods: We use logistic and linear regression to control for several potentially confounding variables, including prior academic achievement as measured by high school grade point average. Results: In three of the universities, we did not find evidence of consistently weaker outcomes among students who completed STEM prerequisites at community colleges or among transfer students generally. In the fourth university, students taking STEM prerequisites in a community college had weaker course outcomes than did non-transfer students. Intersecting qualitative evidence points to differences in levels of support for transfer students as a probable explanation for the differences in students' outcomes, rather than inadequate rigor of community college STEM coursework. Conclusion: Our findings generally align with prior evidence of minor or inconsistent differences in outcomes for students who previously attended a community college, but also point to the probable role of institutional factors at universities in influencing the chances of success among students who utilize community college to complete STEM coursework.

Background/Context: Accelerated instructional strategies for developmental education have been promoted as a way to help underprepared students to progress more quickly through college-level coursework. Yet, what remains unknown is whether certain accelerated strategies are more effective than others and whether this initial acceleration may lead to longer term success. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: We examine whether the likelihood of success varies for completion of mathematics and English requirements over 3 years among the Florida students enrolled in courses using one of four developmental instructional strategies: compressed, corequisite, modularized, or contextualized. Population/Participants/Subjects: Our sample includes all first-time-in-college students during the 2015-2016 year who enrolled in all 28 public state colleges and took any developmental education course during the first year. Research Design: We use inverse probability-weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) to compare success rates in completion of mathematics and English requirements over 3 years for Florida college students in each of these strategies. Findings/Results: Overall, the results demonstrate variation in the likelihood of success for completion of mathematics and English courses over 3 years among students in different developmental instructional strategies, which suggests that the method of acceleration does matter. Corequisite courses tended to lead to greater long-term gains in math and, to an extent, in reading, while contextualized tended to be most effective in writing. Conclusions/Recommendations: Leaders can play an important role in strengthening institutional capacity to effectively implement developmental education reform by developing faculty buy-in, ensuring adequate resources to scale and sustain reform efforts, and using data to inform future decision-making.

This study was conducted in two phases. The first one is the preliminary phase aimed at tailoring the standard curriculum based on learners' needs analysis. The second one is the main phase, intended to evaluate the tailored curriculum based on teachers' views. The participants in the preliminary phase of the study (tailoring the curriculum) were 346 non-native male and female undergraduate students who received the same Pre-Requisite General English course at their first semester in university. They were studying different majors, including Accounting, Architecture, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. The participants in the main phase (evaluation of the tailored curriculum by teachers) were 10 non-native male (7) and female (3) teachers who taught the Pre-Requisite General English course through the tailored curriculum. The findings of the study supported the hypothesis that the teachers have a positive attitude toward using the tailored curriculum in teaching the Pre-Requisite General English course. It seems that the implementation of this tailored program, which is based on learner-needs-analysis, can enhance the effectiveness of the English for General Purposes (EGP) course, compared to the standard one.

This paper presents an analysis of fractions errors displayed by learners due to deficient mastery of prerequisite concepts. Fractions continue to pose a critical challenge for learners. Fractions can be a tricky concept for learners although they often use the concept of sharing in their daily lives. 30 purposefully sampled learners participated in this study. The research instrument consists of fractions test whose questions were selected from various Annual National Assessment examination papers containing in addition, subtraction multiplication and division of fractional operations. The different types of errors displayed by learners were then identified, coded and categorized. The analysis showed that the main sources for errors were lack of understanding of the basic concepts, learners' prior knowledge, misconceptions and misapplication of rules. This study recommends that teachers should help their learners to develop fractions conceptual understanding. Learners need to be explicitly taught that errors are opportunities for learning, and that they are springboard of inquiry.

This study investigates the work of second language teachers in two institutional settings responsible for integration training. By exploring teachers' accounts in Finland and Germany, we seek to deepen the understanding of the daily practice of second language education. Bridging conceptual and practical approaches, the aim is to contribute to the current discourse on the development of adult second language education in Europe. A phenomenographic analysis of semi-structured interviews reveals challenges that influence instruction from inside and outside institutional practice. Accounts in the Finnish setting depict issues in how language education, teachers' work, and adult education are perceived. Administration and language teachers disagree on what needs to be improved in a changing societal environment. Professional pride and appreciation are strongly demanded in a profession that is still being established, and challenges specific to adult education translate into priorities in delivering instruction. In the German setting, expressions culminate in prerequisites, and challenges lie in the way external factors influence course design and instruction. They also touch upon learning: methods, materials, and abilities. Feelings of inadequacy describe teachers' psychological working environment. A comparison concludes a need to defend contact teaching in Finland and to improve tracking of slower learners' progress in Germany.

The Faculty of Medicine at Mandume Ya Ndemufayo University began teaching in 2009, taking on the challenge of outcomes-based education and aiming to train qualified professionals according to the needs of the community. This article aims to describe and analyze how the teaching of physiology is organized in the medical program at this university. This is a descriptive study of the course pedagogical plan from 2009 to 2020. The results revealed that there is a correspondence between learning outcomes of the Physiology course, the competencies set out in the Profile of the Angolan Doctor, and internationally established sets of competencies. Some weaknesses were identified in relation to the development of skills, pedagogical methodology, and the evaluation process. The recent educational context of this medical school poses great challenges, which require the contextualization and periodic adjustment of its pedagogical plans.

This study focuses on the reasons why students from private universities who have finished their studies, but not their research work, a requirement to obtain their degree. Several studies agree that the supervision process is a fundamental factor to complete the thesis successfully. Thesis development and successful thesis completion are conditioned by a number of factors, one of which is supervisor performance. This study explores the limitations on supervision, time, and money, which are resources students need in order to finish their theses, and suggestions for improvement. The sample of the study consisted of 129 graduate candidates from different careers at a private university in Peru. The findings show that lack of supervision during the thesis development process, lack of time to develop the thesis and finance have an impact on finishing a thesis. Supervisors must have cognitive competences in scientific methodology, statistics, and the research topic, and help the students to transition from course work to independent research.

The transition of the educational system in the Philippines vastly affects basic and higher education. A mismatch of pre-requisite Mathematics learning competencies from the basic education level occurred when the student reached higher education. This descriptive-developmental method of the study utilized the developed contextualized learning modules for the bridging course on the identified learning gaps in Calculus with Analytic Geometry for the Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSEd) major in Mathematics. Real-world concepts and situations featuring the Province of Sorsogon, Philippines were integrated into the learning modules while promoting independent learning. The content, format, presentations and organizations, accuracy, and up-to datedness of information of the learning modules passed the evaluation of 13 experts (Mathematics Professors) from the different Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the Bicol Region, Philippines. Also, the 18 student participants were very much satisfied with the utilization of the learning modules that bridged their learning gaps in the conic section through independent learning.