With the growing prevalence of online, flexible-delivery higher education programs, supporting students in developing higher-order thinking and the ability to apply theoretical knowledge in practical work situations poses a significant challenge for educators in health disciplines. This exploratory study aims to address the gap in empirical research on how higher-order thinking skills—cognitive presence, self-regulated learning, and learning transfer—interact to influence student learning in online environments. To investigate this, three survey instruments—measuring cognitive presence, self-regulated learning, and learning transfer—were combined into a single online survey questionnaire to evaluate their relationship. Participants are students from multiple courses in a medical sonography postgraduate program, with an online delivery. Their perspectives of their online learning environment are evaluated through quantitative and qualitative data. Responses from 89 out of 262 students (34% response rate) were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and qualitative deductive analysis. Results suggest that students perceived stronger development in cognitive presence and learning transfer skills compared to self-regulated learning. Students perceived real-life case studies and presentations as the most relevant summative assessments for applying knowledge in the workplace. Qualitative data identified four themes related to the development of higher-order thinking skills that support learning transfer. Results show a statistically significant correlation between cognitive presence, self-regulated learning, and learning transfer. No significant differences were found across demographic groups in relation to the study variables, except for training hours per week. The key contribution of this study lies in offering an initial understanding of student perspectives on cognitive presence, self-regulated learning, and learning transfer in online environments. The limitations of this study point to areas requiring further research.

This article presents a case study of the relationship between the scope of inquiry that classroom teachers provided to Year 4 students during inquiry-based science lessons and the learning autonomy evidenced by those students. This study investigated the practices of two primary school classroom teachers engaging in similar teaching contexts and curriculum imperatives, but each teacher provided a different scope of inquiry to students during their learning. The findings indicate a complex, non-linear relationship between the scope of inquiry provided by teachers and the student learning autonomy demonstrated. Predictably, students who experienced a narrow scope of inquiry, as provided by teachers, demonstrated a low level of learning autonomy. However, this study found that when students experienced inquiry with a broad scope provided by the teacher, they demonstrated a large range of learning autonomy, not only high levels of learning autonomy but also low levels. Moreover, when students experienced inquiry with a broad scope provided by the teacher, they manifested more diverse emotions, ranging from frustration to enjoyment, when compared with times that they experienced a narrow scope of inquiry. The findings demonstrated that students could remain on task in a broad scope of inquiry environment, but found that the minimal guidance provided was challenging. The results of the current study underscore the importance of a balance between a broader scope and a narrower scope of inquiry to optimise student learning. The non-linear relationship between the scope provided and the student level of learning autonomy experienced has ramifications for unresolved conflicts about closed vs open inquiry and for quantitative research on this complex construct.

Introduction Clinical reasoning underpins safe and effective practice across health professions. However, limited empirical research has examined how clinical reasoning is enacted and developed within naturopathic medicine, where existing models are largely theoretical or consensus-based with little attention to developmental differences between practitioners. This study aimed to explore how clinical reasoning is enacted by novice and experienced naturopathic practitioners, and to examine differences in reasoning processes across levels of experience to inform the development of an empirically grounded clinical reasoning framework. Methods A qualitative descriptive study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with novice (n = 15) and experienced (n = 16) naturopathic practitioners in Australia. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, followed by interpretive synthesis to organise findings into higher-order process and determinant facets. Results Five process facets were identified: Explore, Understand, Determine, Manage, and Consolidate. Four determinant facets, The Patient, The Practitioner, Naturopathic Medicine Principles and Philosophy, and The Thinking Process, shaped clinical reasoning across naturopathic consultations. Both novice and experienced practitioners engaged in all facets; however, differences in timing, integration, fluency, and confidence reflected developmental progression rather than categorical distinction. Together, these findings supported development of the Naturopathic Medicine Clinical Reasoning Framework. Conclusion Clinical reasoning in naturopathic medicine is dynamic, non-linear, and developmentally acquired. The Naturopathic Medicine Clinical Reasoning Framework provides an empirically grounded model that integrates reasoning processes with contextual, philosophical, and cognitive influences shaping clinical practice. The framework offers a foundation for supporting clinical reasoning development in naturopathic education and practice.

The application of extended reality (XR) technologies is transforming the education of the physical sciences. These technologies translate elements of a user's lived experience into digital experiences. This study undertook a systematic review using a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method. The study investigated the relationship between XR spatial presence, user visuospatial processing, and the associated levels of cognitive load (CL). After the initial identification and screening of data, 44 papers were assessed and included in the study. The study found that the application of XR can reduce CL and improve learning outcomes when applied to physical science learning contexts that require the use of visuospatial abilities, where effective implementation is influenced by the level of spatial presence the technology offers. By carefully ensuring congruency between the use of the technology and the goals of the learning task, the results of this review can assist in enhancing task design that utilizes XR.

Connection to nature has been recognized to be critical for health, wellbeing and eco-supportive actions. While measures of children’s connection to nature are relatively high, studies indicate a decline during early adolescence. Inconsistencies in existing research on conceptualization and measurement, along with the need to consider the unique experiences and perspectives of younger generations, highlight the need for an improved conceptual framework that guides the development of instruments that assess connection to nature. This article presents an integrative review that synthesized empirical literature from diverse fields to identify key dimensions of nature connectedness: emotional and relational connection, cognitive connection, experiential and sensory engagement, philosophical-ethical-spiritual connection, sustainable practices and stewardship, and psychological and physical wellbeing. An iterative integrative review methodology involving concept mapping and peer review feedback was employed to develop the Integrated Nature Connectedness Framework. The resulting framework is expected to guide the development of age-appropriate instruments for assessing connection to nature. By providing a holistic understanding of human-nature relationships in the context of a rapidly changing, technology-driven world, the Integrated Nature Connectedness Framework aims to inform educational strategies that effectively nurture nature connectedness and sustainable behaviors of adolescents.

Critical Thinking development in Indonesian secondary schooling has been paired and emphasized in English as an Additional Language in order to respond to global changes and position the nation for better engagement with global concerns. This article presents a qualitative study that investigated in-service teachers' perceptions about facilitating Critical Thinking in their English language classes in an Indonesian high school through in-depth interviews. Teacher interviews in this study were analyzed with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, and the findings revealed that teachers appeared to lack Critical Thinking concepts and were faced with constraints in their English language classes. Substantial obstacles such as inadequacies of students' English language proficiencies, authentic Critical Thinking materials in English as an Additional Language as well as appropriate assessment tasks also minimized teachers' efforts in facilitating and developing Critical Thinking in their English language classes. As a result, teachers claimed that they required further professional learning about Critical Thinking practices and related assessment tasks before they would be able to effectively facilitate students' Critical Thinking. The need to overcome these barriers to effective Critical Thinking facilitation in English language classes provides a rationale for including observations of teacher and student practices in classrooms, as well as policy.

Online learning has become more common since the COVID-19 pandemic, but limited research has examined factors affecting students' ability to transfer learning from online to the real world. This mixed-methods study explored the relationships between higher-order thinking skills, namely cognitive presence and self-regulation, and their roles in learning transfer in an online postgraduate medical sonography course in an Australian University. Performance data was evaluated for 53/54 students who allowed their online learning platform data, grades, and written contributions to learning tasks to be collected. Students also completed questionnaire measures of cognitive presence and online self-regulation, and seven students were interviewed about learning transfer. Cognitive presence and online self-regulation strategies were positively correlated. Interviews revealed that internal factors, such as cognitive presence and self-regulation, and external factors, such as supervisor support and workload, affected online learning transfer. Student performance indicated a high percentage of the Resolution phase of cognitive presence, which means near transfer. Our results suggest that cognitive presence and self-regulation can enhance students’ ability to transfer learning within and beyond the course. Despite the complexities in online pedagogy, educators should create online content to foster cognitive presence and self-regulation to enhance students’ ability to transfer learning to the real world.

AbstractIn a world of unpredictable change, we need preservice and in-service school teachers, and university educators who can respond dynamically to students’ diverse needs and the evolving demands on their lives. In this book, research thinking is used as an umbrella term for the raft of skills associated with such responsive teaching. Research thinking is needed so that teachers are both able to react quickly to contingencies and systematically adapt their practice through consolidation and change. The chapters of this book show how responsive research thinking in its various guises can help Preservice Teachers, In-Service Teachers, and University Educators to consolidate, change and connect through each chapter’s use of the Research Skill Development (RSD) conceptual framework. This chapter outlines the need for teachers’ research thinking, the nature of the RSD framework and what research thinking looks like with reference to the framework. This chapter then overviews how each chapter contributes to the book’s theme of research thinking for responsive teaching before concluding with implications of the book for educational theory and practice.

AbstractThis chapter reports a Participant Observation study of a teacher’s explicit facilitation of student research skills in a combined Year 9/10 subject that was designed to prepare students for a subsequent year-long Research Project. The Research Skill Development framework was used by the teacher to inform his planning for students’ learning when they conducted their research. The setting is a geographically remote Kindergarten to Year 12 school in Australia, with very limited resources. The data, collected by a Preservice Teacher, is presented as research vignettes, stories of student engagement in the classroom. The focus of the vignettes and subsequent discussion is the teacher’s research thinking and students’ experiences of the development of their research skills in the classroom.

IntroductionThis survey aims to understand how postgraduate sonography students perceive to apply knowledge from online coursework to traineeships. It also explores the impact of students' age, gender, traineeship duration and geographic location on learning transfer. The ability to apply learnt knowledge is a key factor for student success in higher education and the workplace, yet it is an under-researched topic.MethodThe Human Research Ethics Committee of an Australian university granted ethical approval. A pilot online survey was sent to 279 medical sonography students enrolled in an online postgraduate program. These students had an industry traineeship as a corequisite to online coursework. The survey was sent via email on Microsoft Forms from October to December 2023. Descriptive, Likert scale and free-text data were analysed using Microsoft Excel, IBM SPSS Statistics (version 29) and Lumivero NVivo (version 14).ResultsThe response rate was 38% (n = 106). Most respondents agreed that they developed transfer skills from online courses. Practice questions, lectures and interactive sessions emerged as the key online learning activities that helped to facilitate knowledge transfer. With summative assessments, case studies enhanced knowledge transfer. No significant difference was seen in the transfer ability based on geographical location, age and gender.ConclusionIt is challenging for online educators to foster transfer skills to prepare safe, competent, job-ready graduates. Our study has provided initial insights on enablers of online learning transfer to online educators on students' perspectives of how they see the relevance and how they apply knowledge from online courses to traineeships.

This article presents a qualitative case study of a teacher facilitating Critical Thinking (CT) through listening and speaking in an English as an Additional Language (EAL) Year 10 Indonesian high school class. Such CT facilitation and development are required not only by the Indonesian government's EAL policies, but also in other countries with developing economies. CT is thought to promote language acquisition as well is being developed through language learning, if well-facilitated. This article presents a case study of a teacher and her class based on triangulated data comprising pre- and post-interviews with the teacher, student classroom observations and documents on lesson plans, content materials, syllabus and assessment practices. The findings revealed evidence for rich CT when analysed through the analytical framework of Critical Thinking in English Listening and Speaking (CTELS). However, factors were identified as obstacles for CT development, including first language interference, insufficient authentic content materials and constraints on the design of appropriate assessment tasks. These barriers to effective facilitation of CT in EAL listening and speaking form the basis for further investigation of the areas of CT in EAL listening and speaking pedagogy and assessment. Moreover, the CTELS shows promise to illuminate CT as evidenced by students and has the potential to guide teacher facilitation of CT.

The development of student metacognition has the potential to provide some of the greatest learning gains in science education, even outstripping the contribution of general intelligence. While models for metacognition are in broad agreement about their nature, they vary widely in essential elements and the relationships between them, especially between metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills. Recent systematic literature reviews have not untangled the concept of metacognition as they are not suited to crafting a synthesised conceptualisation for a controversial topic. This article, then, presents an integrative literature review of metacognition studies that draws together metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills into a hierarchical framework. The framework comprises, from the foundational level, metacognitive knowledge, called self-Aware of cognition, then various metacognitive skills; self-Monitor cognition, self-Evaluate cognition, self-Regulate cognition and self-Transfer cognition (AMERT). As a preliminary test of its viability, the AMERT framework is used to analyse interview data in which there was evidence of rich metacognitive thinking by students in the fourth, research-focused, year of a science degree. Rich epitomising statements were found in interviews for each level of the AMERT hierarchy, providing tentative evidence of its viability for understanding metacognitive processes when students learn in science.

Indonesian government policy has emphasised Critical Thinking development in secondary school students to position the nation for better engagement with global concerns, including the Industrial Revolution 4.0. A vehicle of choice to achieve this Critical Thinking development is English as an Additional Language in Secondary Schooling. This article presents a qualitative study that investigated the characteristics and prevalence of Years 10, 11 and 12 Critical Thinking in English listening and speaking tasks in an Indonesian high school. Data were generated through sustained engagement with one class in each year level, providing rich and detailed classroom data. These data were analysed with a conceptual framework of Critical Thinking in English Listening and Speaking to determine the characteristics of student Critical Thinking. Frequency counts of the characteristics yielded the prevalence of Critical Thinking in the period of engagement with each class. The point of intersection between Critical Thinking policy and its implementation demonstrates the congruence and dissonance between the actualised student Critical Thinking and teacher documents. Results showed that the characteristics and prevalence of Critical Thinking were fundamentally different for each year group, in large part due to the differences in teacher facilitation of Critical Thinking, despite, or because of, the overarching policy directives.

The gradual shift to online modes of learning in higher education institutions over the past 2 decades accelerated drastically on a global scale between 2020 and 2022. Students and educators, who have initially grappled with the shift, have now become accustomed to online teaching; however, there are concerns about the quality of learning that has resulted. To enable a sustainable and effective online pedagogy, educators may need to learn about fostering higher-order thinking skills, which can be challenging even for experienced educators. To conceptualise effective online pedagogy, the community of inquiry (CoI) framework emphasises cognitive presence (CP), which focuses on the higher-order thinking process. The CoI is the most widely researched framework in online pedagogy, yet contemporary CoI literature lacks collective evidence of factors that influence CP. This scoping review of the CoI literature explores the factors that influence the higher-order thinking that is indicative of CP. Inclusion criteria included evidence of CP in online learning contexts and published between January 2000 and March 2022, providing a total of 121 studies. Results suggest that teaching presence, structure of learning activities and student characteristics all influence CP. Implications for practice or policy: Higher education students enrolled in online courses should be taught how to learn effectively in an online mode. Online course educators must embed learning tasks that foster self-regulation and higher-order skills in students. Online course design should include authentic tasks for students to apply new knowledge to real-life scenarios. Educators must be offered ample professional development activities to build their skills in online pedagogy. Institutions should encourage translation of online educational research to practice.

The development of student metacognition has the potential to provide some of the greatest learning gains in science classes, even outstripping the contribution of general intelligence. However, some science educators not only struggle with successfully prompting students to develop metacognition, but also find understanding the concept itself problematic. This struggle is compounded by models for metacognition that are in broad agreement about its nature, but vary widely in essential elements and the relationships between elements. This article presents a synthesis of metacognition studies in science education and further afield that draws together non-contested elements into a readily understood hierarchy of metacognitive knowledge and skills. The hierarchical framework comprises, from the foundation level, self-Aware of cognition, self-Monitor cognition, self-Evaluate cognition, self-Regulate cognition and self-Transfer cognition (AMERT). As a preliminary test of its viability, the AMERT framework is used to analyse interview data in which there was evidence of rich metacognitive thinking by students in the fourth, research-focused, year of a science degree. The degree used the six facets of the Research Skill Development (RSD) framework as labels for cognition. Rich epitomizing statements were found in interviews for each level of the AMERT hierarchy, providing tentative evidence of its viability for understanding metacognitive processes. The AMERT hierarchy of metacognition provides opportunities for teaching and learning, teacher action research, and research teams to investigate metacognition in the contexts of school and university science programs.

AbstractThis Chapter, ‘How much guidance?’ addresses the scaffolding of student learning, using the MELT consideration of learning autonomy. The chapter further considers teacher autonomy and the amount of guidance that may be needed to make the MELT work in various settings, including broader issues around policy settings.

AbstractThis chapter is titled ‘What should we use?’ to achieve the educational purpose discussed in Chap. 1, and so the Models of Engaged Learning and Teaching (MELT) are offered for use and explained in detail, emphasising the shared features of the six facets of sophisticated thinking and a consideration of how much guidance students need in terms of learning autonomy. The chapter reveals the MELT features by analysing stories from primary school, high school and the account of a university graduate.

There are many evaluation frameworks for blended teaching; however, there are few suitable frameworks for Blended Learning (BL). This chapter presents an evaluation framework that was designed to span school and university BL, including Initial Teacher Eduction (ITE). An appropriate evaluation framework must show how effective each BL design and implementation is, at the level of a term or semester of study, and at the larger scale, such as across primary, middle, or secondary school, or programmes of study such as an ITE bachelor or master’s. This chapter first identifies eight features from the literature that are necessary for a BL evaluation framework, and shows that existing models do not satisfy these requirements. Next, the chapter introduces the Blended and Engaged Learning Zones (BELZ), designed specifically for BL across schooling and university studies, and that satisfies these eight features. An example follows of a version of BELZ used to evaluate BL in the years prior to a substantial three-term long inquiry task. BELZ addresses the imbalance in the literature, as well as the needs in teaching practice, for an evaluation framework for BL across schooling and university study.