Collaborative learning has gained considerable attention in EFL education for its role in fostering peer interaction, shared meaning-making, and communicative participation. Yet, much of the existing scholarship has treated engagement and emotion as individual learner states, with limited attention to their collective emergence through interdependent classroom interaction. To address this gap, the present study examined the contributions of Quantum-Entangled Collaboration (QEC), compared with Conventional Cooperative Learning (CCL), to EFL learners’ collective engagement and emotional synchrony. Using a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, upper-intermediate EFL learners in China were assigned to QEC and CCL groups. Both groups received instruction through the same core coursebook, Unlock: Listening, Speaking, and Critical Thinking (B2), while the QEC group participated in interdependent role-based tasks, synchronized reflection, shared emotional regulation, and collective responsibility routines. The CCL group engaged in conventional pair and group activities through teacher-guided cooperative practice. Data were collected through collective engagement and emotional synchrony measures and analyzed through descriptive statistics, independent-samples t-tests, and ANCOVA models with pretest scores entered as covariates. The findings indicated that the two groups were comparable before instruction, whereas the QEC group showed stronger collective engagement and higher emotional synchrony after the intervention. These results suggest that EFL collaboration becomes more generative when learners’ attention, roles, emotions, and responsibilities are purposefully connected within a shared learning system. Pedagogically, the study highlights the value of designing group-based language tasks in which peer responsibility, emotional support, and collective regulation become explicit features of classroom interaction.
The influence of a recent meal on dogs’ scent-detection performance has not been systematically evaluated. The motivating operations account of motivation suggests that, when hungrier, scent-detection animals will treat a broader range of stimuli as target stimuli, thereby resulting in higher false alarm rates. In the present study, we tested this prediction by evaluating six dogs’ performance in a mixture-detection task using an alternating-treatments design in which they received breakfast prior to the task on some days and after the task on other days. Following training to use an airflow olfactometer, dogs’ indication responses in the presence of the target mixture were reinforced while indications to a non-target chemical or mixture were not reinforced. A key finding from this study was that, as predicted by the motivating operations account, dogs produced significantly more false alarms when they were working before compared to after breakfast. There was no difference in dogs’ mean hit rates between the two conditions, and there were no significant effects on log d (a measure of sensitivity to the target) or log B (a measure of bias). We predicted that dogs would take longer to complete the task in the breakfast compared to the no-breakfast condition, but no significant difference in session duration was found between the two conditions. These findings have important implications for applications involving scent-detection animals. They also raise a variety of additional questions related to the role of motivation and nutrition in scent-detection performance that should be addressed in future research.
This study set out to examine whether Quantum-Inspired Adaptive Pedagogy (QIAP), compared with Static Pedagogy (SP), could foster stronger motivation regulation, uncertainty tolerance, and academic resilience among intermediate-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest comparison-group design was employed with 91 learners attending local language programs in China. Over 11 weeks, the QIAP group received context-sensitive instruction incorporating differentiated scaffolding, responsive task adjustment, reflective activities, open-ended learning tasks, and strategy-focused feedback, whereas the SP group followed a predetermined instructional sequence based on standardized activities and general feedback. Adapted self-report instruments were administered before and immediately after the intervention to assess motivation regulation, uncertainty tolerance, and academic resilience. Separate analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were conducted for the three outcomes, with the corresponding pretest scores entered as covariates. The findings indicated that the QIAP group obtained significantly higher baseline-adjusted posttest scores than the SP group across all three outcomes. These results suggest that systematically responsive instruction can assist EFL learners in sustaining motivational effort, engaging more constructively with ambiguity, and responding more adaptively to academic difficulty. In light of these findings, incorporating calibrated scaffolding, reflective monitoring, flexible task pathways, and context-sensitive feedback into EFL curriculum design and teacher development appears to hold considerable pedagogical value.
When a compound stimulus comprising multiple elements signals the contingencies for responding, not all those elements necessarily come to control behavior. Previous research suggests that such stimulus overselectivity depends on the strength of the associations between the elements, with stronger within-compound associations attenuating overselectivity. We investigated whether establishing associations between stimulus elements in a separate pretraining phase would modulate overselectivity. During pretraining, 384 adult human participants completed a matching-to-sample task in which associations between elements were trained directly, indirectly via many-to-one training, or not at all. Then, they chose between two compound stimuli composed of pretrained elements, or of novel elements, in a simultaneous-discrimination task. Overselectivity was assessed by measuring choice of individual stimulus elements in an unreinforced test phase. There were no significant differences in overselectivity levels depending on pretraining history, perhaps because the effects of pretraining did not generalize or the type of association formed during pretraining differed from the within-compound associations that modulate overselectivity. Nevertheless, overselectivity did tend to be lower when elements had been associated together directly or indirectly, providing some preliminary evidence that pretraining associations may reduce overselectivity. Overall, the present study highlights the need for further work to establish the generality of our findings, and to identify the boundary conditions under which prior experience with individual stimulus elements does, or does not, modulate stimulus overselectivity.
Previous research has demonstrated that when behavior relapses, it may be due to caregiver nonadherence to the treatment plan. This research has primarily focused on caregivers within a clinical setting; therefore, the present study had two primary objectives: (1) to expand the scope by evaluating teacher responding within a classroom environment, and (2) to assess the feasibility of using a virtual reality program to conduct this evaluation. The present study focused on reprimanding out-of-seat behavior in a resurgence procedure. Using virtual reality technology, we immersed participants in a virtual classroom environment while we manipulated virtual student behavior. In baseline, participants’ undesirable responding (i.e, reprimanding out-of-seat behavior) was reinforced by having the virtual student sit down in their seat. Prior to the next phase, we conducted a training on differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) procedures with the participants. In the DRA phase, desirable (i.e., praising in-seat behavior) and undesirable responses were differentially reinforced. Finally, a treatment adherence challenge was implemented in which participants’ responding was placed on extinction. Recurrence of undesirable responding was observed in 50% of participants during the final phase.
This quantitative study examined the impact of a micro-learning program on Saudi university teachers’ self-efficacy and their skills in designing, producing, and evaluating digital content. Addressing the growing need for effective digital pedagogy, the study involved 26 teachers (13 humanities and 13 science) who completed pre- and post-tests using an achievement test, product evaluation card, and self-efficacy scale. Paired-sample t-tests showed a significant increase in achievement scores from 5.00 to 9.42, t (12) = 9.73, p < .05, η² = .79. Post-initiative means exceeded the hypothetical mean (educational = 28.12, technical = 32.85, total = 60.96; all p < .05). Self-efficacy improved across dimensions (general: t = 2.04, η² =.08; technical: t = 4.23, η² =.26; overall: t = 3.40, η² =.19). The humanities group outperformed the science group in achievement t (24) = 2.03, p < .05), though evaluation results were comparable. Significant correlations between self-efficacy and achievement (r = .68) and evaluation (r = .66) confirmed their interdependence. These findings highlight micro-learning’s effectiveness as a flexible professional development approach for improving teachers’ digital competence and confidence.
Feedback has long been central to second language learning research, particularly in relation to accuracy, explicitness, timing, and learner uptake. Less attention, however, has been given to the ways in which feedback framing may influence learners’ motivation, emotional control, and conceptual understanding while they are engaged in classroom tasks. The present study addressed this issue by examining the effects of Quantum-Contextual Feedback (QCF), a reflective and context-sensitive feedback approach informed by quantum-cognitive principles, on EFL learners’ situational motivation, emotion regulation, and conceptual change. A ten-week quasi-experimental pretest-posttest comparison-group design was used with 83 intermediate-level EFL learners, selected from an initial pool of 126 learners at English language institutes in Saudi Arabia through the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). The learners were assigned to a QCF group and a Traditional Feedback (TF) group. Both groups completed instructional tasks from Connect Book 2, but the QCF group received prompts that encouraged learners to rethink their responses through contextual clues and alternative interpretations, whereas the TF group received conventional corrective feedback. Data were collected before and after the intervention through validated measures and were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U tests. The pretest results showed no significant group differences, while the posttest findings indicated that learners who received QCF showed higher situational motivation, more adaptive emotion regulation strategies, and greater conceptual change than those who received TF. These findings approve that QCF can offer teachers a useful way of moving beyond correction alone and of using feedback as a means of supporting learner agency, emotional resilience, and deeper linguistic understanding.
Psychosis is a severe neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and cognitive dysfunction, often resulting from dopaminergic hyperactivity. Current antipsychotic therapies are limited by adverse effects and incomplete symptom control. This study investigated the antipsychotic and neuroprotective potential of berberine chloride hydrate (BCH), a plant-derived isoquinoline alkaloid, in an amphetamine-induced psychosis model. Albino Wistar rats were divided into five groups (n = 6): vehicle control, amphetamine control (5 mg/kg, i.p.), BCH (30 mg/kg, p.o.), BCH (60 mg/kg, p.o.), and chlorpromazine (5 mg/kg, p.o.). Treatment was administered for 21 days with behavioral assessments (stereotypy, locomotor activity, forced swimming, pole climbing) conducted on days 7, 14, and 21. Biochemical evaluations included neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine), inflammatory markers (TNF-α, IL-6), and antioxidant parameters (SOD, CAT, GSH, MDA), followed by histopathological examination. BCH demonstrated significant dose-dependent attenuation of stereotypic behaviors and locomotor hyperactivity (p < 0.001), with 60 mg/kg showing efficacy comparable to chlorpromazine. BCH normalized elevated dopamine (2.462 ± 0.005 vs 3.235 ± 0.057 μg/ml) and norepinephrine levels (2.935 ± 0.017 vs 4.307 ± 0.029 μg/ml, p < 0.001), reduced neuroinflammatory markers TNF-α and IL-6, and enhanced antioxidant defenses by elevating SOD, CAT, and GSH while reducing MDA levels (p < 0.001). Histopathological analysis revealed complete neuronal preservation with absence of gliosis and apoptosis in BCH-treated groups. These findings demonstrate that BCH exhibits significant antipsychotic and neuroprotective effects through multi-mechanistic pathways including neurotransmitter modulation, anti-inflammatory action, and antioxidant enhancement, suggesting its potential as a promising natural therapeutic candidate for psychosis management.
Resurgence refers to the reappearance of a previously reinforced response following the extinction of an alternative behavior that had replaced it. Research on this phenomenon has examined the recovery of previously reinforced responses and the variables that modulate response recovery, yet the role of shifts in reinforcer value remains insufficiently understood. The present experiment evaluated the effects of reinforcers differing in palatability (low vs. high) on resurgence magnitude within an operant framework. During Phase 1, responses to either a chain or a lever (R1) were reinforced. In Phase 2, responses to R1 were extinguished while responses to an alternative behavior (R2) were reinforced. In Phase 3, when reinforcement for R2 was discontinued, responses to R1 recovered. A subsequent preference test evaluated reinforcer value. The results indicate that the group reinforced in Phase 1 with the higher-palatability reinforcer and in Phase 2 with the lower-palatability reinforcer showed greater resurgence than the other groups. In contrast, all groups exhibited a robust preference for the more palatable reinforcer. Additionally, a Proportional Resurgence Index was introduced to estimate resurgence magnitude relative to each subject's Phase 1 baseline response rate. These findings indicate that shifts in reinforcer value modulate resurgence magnitude and contribute to theoretical accounts of motivational control and response recovery within operant learning.
Decreases in alternative reinforcement and contextual changes produce resurgence and renewal, respectively. Combining these changes in Phase 3 of a relapse preparation can produce higher magnitudes of relapse compared to either change in isolation. Although tactics exist to minimize resurgence and renewal, little research has evaluated strategies for mitigating relapse under these combined conditions. We examined the efficacy of context fading to mitigate combined relapse in a human-operant study. Participants included 24 college students who completed a three-phase relapse preparation and were assigned to one of four groups: resurgence alone, renewal alone, combined resurgence and renewal, or combined with context fading. Results indicated that combined contingency and context changes produced an overall additive effect, and that the combined group with context fading exhibited significantly less relapse than the combined group without context fading. These outcomes point to context fading as a potentially efficacious mitigation strategy for combined relapse and underscore the importance of continued research on the topic of combined relapse.
Recently, while the importance of feedback has been emphasized, the concept of feed-forward has also become the focus of attention of researchers in education. The aim of this paper is to illuminate the initial findings of the meta-analysis to investigate feed-forward process by all means, especially on the no-consensus issues with different moderators deduced from the first-order research. A total of 14 studies retrieved from the literature were combined according to a random-effects model to determine the mean effect of feed-forward on cognitive outcomes. In this meta-analysis, conducted to determine the effect of feed-forward on cognitive outcomes, the mean effect was calculated as g = 0.556. Results showed that feed-forward activities have "moderate" effect on cognitive outcomes and may not lead to a significant difference in favor of the experimental group across all populations. Categorical moderator analyses were conducted to determine the sources of variance. The results indicated that cognitive outcomes (achievement, performance, skill), graduation state (undergraduate vs. postgraduate), experimental design (quasi-experimental vs. pre-experimental), type of feed-forward (dialogical vs. direct), feed-forward delivery format (digital vs. non-digital), feed-forward implementation method (tutorial vs. assessment), and feed-forward tools (homework vs. exemplars) were non-significant moderators to explain the variance.
