Introduction. The global shift towards digital education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the landscape of higher education. Public health and social care programmes have adapted to this transformation, embracing online learning strategies to engage students. This study focuses on the assessment of online learning experiences in public health and social care education, particularly during the post-COVID-19 period. Materials and Methods. This qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 49 university students in England. These phases, conducted both in person and via video, were audio and video recorded and transcribed verbatim. A purposive sampling technique was employed to gather data, and framework analysis facilitated data management and interpretation. Results. The presentation highlights three main themes and 12 accompanying sub-themes that capture the clear preferences of students for both in-person and online learning methods. The findings elucidate the merits and demerits of online learning strategies in contrast to traditional face-to-face classes. Online classes offer distinct advantages in terms of flexibility, cost-effectiveness, time efficiency, and technological proficiency. However, they also bring to the fore concerns related to social isolation, mental health challenges, technical challenges, and distractions within the home environment. Conclusion. Considering the global transition to digital education, this study contributes to the dynamic discourse surrounding online learning in the post-COVID-19 era. The diverse preferences expressed by students highlight the importance of personalised and flexible teaching methods in online education, underlining the need for adaptability and inclusivity to meet the diverse needs of today’s learners.
The current research aimed to know the effect of phonological and phonetic interventions in enhancing proficiency in English pronunciation and oral reading among teacher trainees. This study was of single-group pretest and posttest intervention designs. The sample size was selected through a stratified random sampling technique from teacher training colleges in Bengaluru. Two hundred and seven teacher trainees with L1 proficiency were chosen proportionately from Bangalore strata and orientated. Participants (N = 32) enrolled voluntarily in the intervention program for 20 hr. Intervention modules on phonology and phonetics were developed by the researcher and a segmental approach was adopted to teach modules in 20 sessions. After every session, the participants were allowed to record the modules in Audacity, a multiaudio recorder application. The recorded modules were interpreted, and scores were determined on number of intelligible words pronounced by the participants. Further, it was validated by the experts to authenticate the determined scores. The researcher applied oscillographic and observation methods to analyze the participants’ progress in pronunciation and oral reading proficiency levels during the experiment. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to test the impact of intervention between the pretest and posttest (before and after intervention). The hypotheses testing revealed the difference between preintervention and postintervention scores in phonological and phonetic awareness and oral reading among teacher trainees, and the sig. value is less than 0.05 across all the attributes. This study insists that English phonology and phonetics must be a crucial part of the English language teaching (ELT) curriculum and highlights that teachers must be able to spot the most appropriate pronunciation teaching and train the students of English as a foreign language (EFL) with intricates of intelligible pronunciation. This study navigates the need for language proficiency among teacher trainees, especially in English pronunciation and oral reading, and substantiates the evidence that effective intervention and teachers’ knowledge of pronunciation enhance proficiency levels in pronunciation and oral reading among teacher trainees. Finally, it hopes that B.Ed colleges and teacher educators will be beckoned to use technology-integrated intervention to teach phonology and phonetics.
Concerning the complexities that are closely related to the rapid spread of English around the world over the past few decades, English as an international language (EIL) was proposed to represent a revisiting of the established notions within the field of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) by holding a positive attitude toward non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) and their cultures. Given that English is not their first language, non-native English language learners, such as Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners, may feel frustrated by the current status of EIL discussion. Consequently, searching for the challenges that they may struggle against seems to be an unexplored issue, which is the purpose of this qualitative study. Six Iranian Ph.D. students of TEFL who attended their EIL course were selected. The collection of student journals was combined with semistructured interviews with each participant. After analyzing the data using MAXQDA software and grounded theory, the challenges of EIL in Iran were categorized into five categories: (a) disownership of English, (b) Iranian cultural dominance in high school English textbooks, (c) prevalence of discrimination against NNESTs, (d) acceptance of only American and British varieties, and (e) lack of intercultural competence. The findings bear some implications for TEFL professionals to to explore the effects of challenges associated with employing the EIL tenets in EFL settings and to suggest potential solutions.
Ethiopian children in early grades were found to be significantly nonreaders after 2–3 years of schooling regardless of linguistic variation. This is mainly attributed to the way children are taught basic literacy skills, which is attributed to teacher preparation and training. This research aimed to examine Ethiopian early grade teachers’ preparedness to teach basic reading skills. Five schools were randomly selected out of 44 public primary schools in the research site. Among 40 teachers of English in the selected schools, 32 teachers were willing to take knowledge assessment test and fill in the questionnaire. Two of knowledge test papers and two pieces of questionnaire were rejected because the responses were incomplete. The data were gathered from (n = 30) randomly selected primary schools English teachers by using a questionnaire and knowledge assessment test. Data analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 25.0). Descriptive statistics were calculated for the responses to knowledge test and questionnaire. Pearson’s correlation was calculated for the relationship among teacher preparation coursework emphasis, practicum attention, and teachers’ felt preparedness to teach basic reading after categorical data were transformed into scale. The results have shown that primary school English teacher preparation designated only certain lecture sessions of coursework and few of activities of practicum to teaching early reading. The average knowledge assessment test score of teachers was 43.4%; 21 (70%) of the teachers achieved below 50% while 9 (30%) of them achieved 50% and above. There is a statistically significant relationship among teacher preparation coursework emphasis, practicum attention, and teachers’ felt preparedness to help Ethiopian children learn to read. It can be concluded from the results that teacher preparation both in its courses and practicum activities did not place due emphasis on teaching teachers to teach basic reading skills. Participant English teachers also had knowledge gap about early reading instruction. Thus, participant English teachers were not adequately prepared to teach early grade reading. Teacher preparation coursework emphasis, practicum attention, and teachers’ felt preparedness to teach early grade reading have a strong positive relationship.
This investigation was made necessary as a result of the inconsistently poor achievement that secondary school students have repeatedly achieved on chemistry exams in Nekemte Administration Town throughout the years. These poor results can be credited with the reality that the majority of secondary school teachers use ineffective teaching strategies that do not encourage students’ active learning through involvement. Therefore, this investigation examined the contribution of cooperative learning on high school students’ chemistry achievement and retention. Quasi-experimental research with a pretest–posttest nonequivalent control group design was adopted. One hundred twenty-eight students were involved, drawn from two intact classes in two different schools. A reliability value of 0.89 for the chemistry achievement test was employed. The findings of this investigation demonstrated a significant difference between students instructed through cooperative learning and students instructed using lecture-based teaching in terms of their chemistry achievement and retention (t (126) = 5.544, p<0.001) and (t (126) = 4.167, p<0.001), respectively. Pretest, posttest, and retention test results of the treatment group showed a significant difference that favors the posttest (r = 0.91, p<0.001) and retention test (r = 0.81, p<0.001). Gender differences did not exist in chemistry achievement (t (62) = −1.243, p<0.001) and retention (t (62) = −1.036, p<0.001).
A study was conducted to identify the components of competency in general that are considered important in improving the work efficiency of team of specialists under the organization and personnel department at public universities in Vietnam. Data have been collected through a management questionnaire to team of specialists under the organization and personnel department (n = 106) managerial staff (n = 50), and lecturers and other specialists (n = 245). Analysis of deductive content and statistics of technical description are used for qualitative and quantitative analysis of data, respectively. The results show that there are five important components of competency of specialists under the organization and personnel department that need to be formed, including professional quality, professional competence, consulting competence, competence of planning and implementation organization, competence of self-improvement, and professional development. In addition, there are three groups of complementary competencies, including communication competence, foreign language competence, and information technology competence. The main objective of the article is to identify the components of competency in general that are considered important in improving the work efficiency of team of specialists under the organization and personnel department at public universities in Vietnam. The findings can be used by administrators at public universities as a basis for them to have specific strategies and solutions in the university’s team development to meet the requirements of higher educational renovation today.
This study investigated the effects of a process-genre approach on EFL students’ use of writing strategies when writing paragraphs. To ensure the reliability of the writing strategy inventory questionnaire, Cronbach’s alpha was calculated. A quasi-experimental research design was used, and strategy questionnaires were used to collect data. The experimental and control groups were assigned using the lottery method. Independent and paired-sample t-tests were used to determine if there was a statistically significant difference due to treatment between the students’ before and after treatments. Before treatment, the students completed the writing strategy questionnaires, and after 12 weeks of treatment, they were given after-treatment questionnaires. The results revealed that students in the experiment group outperformed the control group in terms of using different writing strategies based on the process-genre approach. The study concluded that the process-genre approach could significantly improve students’ paragraph writing. Therefore, university-level English language teachers are strongly recommended to be aware of the role of the process-genre approach and to follow the process-genre model in improving their students’ use of writing strategies in writing paragraphs.
Introduction. Communication skills (CS) play a paramount role in medical students’ (MS) interaction with patients. They are essential when approaching a patient holistically to provide comprehensive care with the aim of both treating an illness and improving patient satisfaction. However, there seems to be a deficiency in communication skills training (CST) for students in Sri Lanka. Enhancing CS at an early stage will give rise to patient-centered doctors in the future, thus augmenting patient care. This study aimed to evaluate the level and patterns of attitude toward (CST) and the weight of patient-centeredness on such attitudes. Materials and Methods. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using self-administered questionnaires among MS in the final 2 years. The Communication Skills Attitude Scale and Patient–Practitioner Orientation Scale were used to determine attitudes toward CST and patient-centeredness, respectively. Independent sample t-tests and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were used to evaluate intervariable relationships. A statistical significance of p <0.05 was used. Results. Students had high positive attitudes (mean 3.80) and lesser negative attitudes (mean 2.16) toward CST, in general. A greater positive attitude was associated with prior attendance to a CST session, female gender, and patient-centeredness. Female students and final-year students showed higher levels of patient-centeredness and also scored more on the caring subscale. There was a significant association between the sharing subscore and a positive attitude toward CST. Conclusion. Our findings suggest that improving patient-centeredness among MS via a CST program would enhance the essential CS required of them. Integration of such a program as a formal subject into the medical curriculum of Sri Lanka, both at the beginning and latter part of the undergraduate course, would lead to better patient-centeredness, thus leading to improved patient care.
This research measured the links between R&D and economic growth in Ethiopia employing multiple regression models. Citable journal articles, patents, technology exports, and research expenditures are the four predictor variables that are the focus of the study. GDP per capita growth is the outcome variable of the study, which serves as a proxy indicator for economic growth. The study used a panel dataset with data from a sample of 21 years between 2001 and 2021. The results show a significant link between growth of GDP per capita and citable journal articles, patents, and technology exports, demonstrating that these factors are essential for fostering economic growth. However, government expenditure on research and development has no discernible impact on economic growth, which accordingly, raises the possibility that raising research spending by itself may not be sufficient to boost the economy. These findings have tremendous policy implications because they emphasize the importance of concentrating on particular R&D initiatives that have a direct impact on economic growth. The study adds to the existing frontiers of knowledge inline with the connection between R&D and economic growth by demonstrating the value of citation-worthy journals, patents, and technology exports in fostering economic growth.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused higher education institutions to switch to online learning. This unique endeavor is being investigated to protect high-quality education. Due to its hasty and emergency implementation, students may have different opinions about this new education system. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the relationships between constructs such as students’ perceived effectiveness, institutional facility, teaching material, and overall satisfaction during the COVID-19 outbreak. Adopting a quantitative research approach, this study was conducted between November 8, 2020, and February 12, 2021, in private universities in Bangladesh. Data were utilized in structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings revealed that perceived effectiveness (0.68, p-value = 0.01), institutional facility (0.23, p-value = 0.01), and teaching material (0.14, p-value = 0.01) are all positively and significantly associated with satisfaction with an online class module. In addition, trajectory analysis establishes a link between satisfaction and effectiveness in e-learning through the SEM. The results of the study also indicate a strong and positive correlation between satisfaction with an online class module and perceived effectiveness, institutional setting, and teaching material. This study will serve as a catalyst for understanding students’ satisfaction in an online environment, as well as a benchmark for various stakeholders, particularly policymakers, practitioners, academicians, and institution owners, to take the necessary steps to ensure a sustainable online learning platform.
The socioeconomic vulnerability of youths in developing economies is a challenge that can be mitigated by quality education and digital learning skills. However, it is increasingly demanding for developing economies still struggling with universal access to preadult education to provide their youths with quality education. Mitigating this challenge, therefore, will require a social reengineering of the educational system of developing economies. Critical to this, reengineering is a comprehensive appraisal of their educational system’s support for digital learning. We set two objectives for this study: (i) examine the digital learning culture (DLC) of secondary education in Nigeria—a typical developing economy and (ii) estimate the digital learning culture index (DLCI) of secondary education in readiness for a lifelong learning skill among the Nigerian youths. Data were collected using the questionnaire survey and the stratified random sampling technique. A total of 2,107 students’ questionnaire feedback and 666 secondary schoolteachers’ questionnaire feedback at all secondary education levels across communities in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria were analyzed. The DLCI of secondary education in Nigeria has been estimated to be 0.21. The results revealed two key findings: (1) evidence of sharp divides in DLC of secondary education among the communities in Nigeria and (2) statistical evidence that secondary education in the North-East zone of Nigeria has a higher DLCI than all other zones in the country except for the South-East zone.
Understanding how individual, school, and social factors interact to shape students’ academic achievement gives a better insight into the relative effects of these factors in the presence of other variables. The current study (N = 604) utilized a mediation model to examine the mediation role of two dimensions of students’ self-concept (academic and social) in the relationships between teaching and parenting styles and students’ Mathematics achievement. The researchers used a non-Western sample of middle school Omani students. Direct significant effects were found for permissive mothers, permissive teachers, and Mathematics self-concept on students’ Mathematics achievement. Mothers’ parenting styles’ effects were more pronounced than fathers’ styles on children’s self-concept and Mathematics achievement. All three teaching styles significantly predicted Mathematics achievement directly or indirectly through self-concept. Mathematics self-concept acted as a mediator in this model while social self-concept did not. The findings are discussed within a cultural context.
Politeness and impoliteness strategies create a vital social practice in our daily and professional interactions. Being once an issue in the code of conduct protocols, (im)politeness nowadays marks an interdisciplinary scientific field. Regarding this importance, this study explored the politeness and impoliteness strategies used in changing direct speech to indirect speech among male and female Persian speakers. Eighty Iranian Persian speakers (36 males and 44 females) were given a discourse completion task. Brown and Levinson’s taxonomy of politeness strategies and Culpeper’s impoliteness taxonomy were used to analyze the sample. The findings revealed that the propositional content of a direct speech was maintained in the indirect speech in Persian with different attitudinal manners. The results also demonstrated a significant difference between the male and female participants in terms of impoliteness indirect strategies; however, there was no significant difference between them on the output strategies. Additionally, the results revealed that the most frequent politeness strategies used by Persian speakers included positive politeness, negative politeness, off-record, and bold on-record, respectively. The implications of the current research may lead to a deeper and greater understanding of the role of politeness strategies applied in language learning and teaching in EFL contexts.
Background. Research has suggested that exposure to reading can act positively on vocabulary development and other cognitive skills required in the early-school years. This paper presents the results of a quasi-experimental study that analyses the relationship between exposure to reading aloud to children and the development of basic cognitive skills, which are essential from the first days of school for the acquisition of all subsequent learning. This research has two objectives: first, to highlight the benefits of reading aloud in the first years of schooling, with particular reference to cognitive skills; second, to propose the Cognitive Assessment System Second Edition (CAS-2) as an instrument able to monitor and quantify the cognitive effects of this practice. Methods. This research involved a sample of 152 children from primary schools in Italy. After thorough teacher training on the proposed method of reading aloud, the teachers undertook daily reading training for approximately 3 months. The children in the experimental and control groups underwent ex ante and ex post individual administration of the CAS-2 test. A mixed model with a 2 × 2 design was used to verify the effect of the training. Results. With regard to the first aim, this study confirmed the hypotheses by highlighting the benefits of reading aloud training. The results on the Full CAS-2 Scale show significant increases in the experimental group compared to the control group. Furthermore, the improvement of the experimental group is evident in all the sub-dimensions investigated (Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, Successive). Conclusions. These results confirm the effect of reading aloud on cognitive skills development and the sensitivity of the CAS-2 as an instrument to detect its effects. Future research could explore the use of the CAS-2 battery in student populations of higher school grades, as well as observe the stability of the benefits over time.
An increasing number of studies have confirmed that written corrective feedback (hereafter WCF) is vital for improving learners’ L2 writing. However, many scholars could not agree whether this improvement was due to direct, indirect, or both forms of WCF. Thus, this study first investigated the role of WCF students’ writing achievement; it then investigated if there was a statistically significant difference in writing achievement between groups that received direct and indirect WCF forms. To this end, a quasi-experimental research design involving three intact first-year classes from a university found in northwest Ethiopia was used. Two experimental groups and one comparison group of learners were participants in this study. Test scores analyzed by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that WCF has an influential role in enhancing learners’ writing performance. Moreover, this study showed that learners in the direct WCF accompanied by a metalinguistic explanation group outperformed their counterparts in the indirect WCF group in writing paragraphs. Based on the study’s findings, it is possible to conclude that the provision of WCF is vital in the Ethiopian context; moreover, learners could benefit more from using linguistic structures correctly if metalinguistic explanations accompany the provision of direct WCF.
Background. A culture of quality is believed to drive institutes toward excellence through feedback. Multiple surveys at educational institute help to get a deeper insight into institutional performance and curricular execution. Since problem-based learning (PBL) is an important component of the hybrid curriculum, thus stakeholders’ opinion on PBL satisfaction is worth discussing. This study intended to determine the trends in students’ satisfaction with PBL over the years and to report on the importance of curricular changes that can be incorporated based on students’ needs. Methods. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study that was conducted at the College of Medicine (COM), King Saud Bin Abdul Aziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. All male and female medical students, using consecutive sampling technique, were included in the study. End-of-course evaluation reports for the academic years ranging from 2013 to 2019 on PBL satisfaction, with a response rate of ≥60%, were included in this study. Results. Overall, students at the COM, Jeddah were satisfied with PBL. A declining but satisfactory trend followed by a sharp rise in satisfaction was observed in this study. Pearson correlation reported a positive relationship between PBL problems, tutors, and PBL sessions (r = 0.82, p < 0.001 ). Conclusions. Transition from three sessions to two sessions per PBL case can be considered as an effective and efficient way of curricular execution. We found that the tutor, the case, and session dynamics were positively correlated after the incorporation of the feedback. Thus, highlighting the facts that inculcating a culture of responding to feedback can lead to innovations in medical teaching and can help to improve the curricular execution and students’ satisfaction.
The dynamics of content knowledge among Indonesian Arabic teachers is a critical area of research due to the increasing demand for Arabic language education. This study aims to investigate the content knowledge of Arabic teachers in Teacher Professional Education Programs at UIN Malang, Indonesia. The research utilized factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis to explore the structure of the developed instrument measuring teachers’ content knowledge. The findings revealed that the reliability of the test items in the instrument was in the moderate category, with variations in difficulty levels between two test packages. The components of Nahwu and Shorof were found to have the strongest influence on Package 1, while Balaghah had the strongest effect on Package 2. The results of Rasch model analysis indicated three categories of proficiency levels among Arabic language teachers (low, moderate, and high), providing insights for developing more accurate assessment instruments and training programs. The limitations of the study include the focus on content knowledge only and the need for further analysis with relevant methods in future studies. The implications of this research contribute to the understanding of Arabic language teachers’ content knowledge dynamics and can inform the development of effective training programs and assessment instruments for Arabic language education.
The COVID-19 pandemic compelled the educational sector to act quickly, resulting in the adoption of replacement online learning platforms (OLPs) to keep the educational system running throughout the crisis. This study explored how language teachers in Ethiopia are prepared in terms of their experience and preference toward OLPs. To achieve this goal, data were collected from 203 participants (aged 22–46, including 81 males and 122 females) using a self-perceived questionnaire. The data was then analyzed using descriptive statistics, including means and standard deviations, and inferential statistics, including ANOVA tests, to determine the teachers’ experiences and preferences toward OLPs. The mean score of the teachers’ experience findings revealed a score of 3.406 out of a five-point Likert scale, and the preference subdimensions mean scores ranged from 3.164 to 3.476. The ANOVA findings revealed that, in the mean scores of language teachers’ experience toward OLPs (p>0.05) and preferences toward OLPs, there were statistically significant differences for video streaming platforms (p>0.05), digital reading materials platforms (p>0.05), and mixed OLPs (p>0.05). Regarding the statistically significant correlation between language teachers’ experiences and preferences (LTEP) toward OLPs (except between video streaming platforms and digital reading materials platforms (r = −0.011, p=0.878)), there was a statistically significant impact. Post hoc results showed, however, that there was no statistically significant correlation between language teachers’ preference dimensions. To summarize, Ethiopian language teachers preferred video streaming platforms and mixed OLPs over digital reading materials platforms. Moreover, further research into the LTEP toward OLPs in various ecological aspects is required.
Dictionaries are an integral part of language learning process to fulfill learners’ linguistic and academic needs. Recently, COVID-19 pandemic has had many effects on students’ life and learning styles, forcing them to switch to electronic learning during lockdown restrictions. As a result, electronic and Internet-based dictionaries became more available, altering learners’ attitudes in dealing with various types of dictionaries. This study aims at presenting an overview of Iranian university students’ attitudes, habits, and preferences in dictionary use in light of recent changes in their learning environment. Our goal is to gather data from Iranian students of translation studies through conducting a small-scale survey, adopted from the literature, and a number of semistructured interviews in order to explore their dictionary use and habits, means of obtaining dictionaries, types of dictionaries used for translation purposes, and the instructions they received on using dictionaries. The findings presented that the majority of students prefer electronic dictionaries; however, gender does not have a significant effect on the educational use of dictionaries. This study has some implications that could help authorities to advance electronic-based learning at universities.
