University Research Articles

Pre-service EFL teachers’ emotional experiences, emotion regulation strategies and influencing factors in research: A Chinese case study

Currently, teacher emotion in the context of conducting research has drawn much attention in the field of teacher development. However, existing empirical studies mainly focus on in-service teachers’ emotional experiences in conducting research, thus overlooking pre-service teachers. This study involving seven pre-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers from a comprehensive university in mainland China as participants adopts a qualitative method to explore their emotional experiences, emotion regulation strategies and influencing factors in research. The first major finding is that the participants experienced positive, negative and complex emotions throughout their research journeys. The negative emotions left the deepest impression, with confusion being the most common emotion. Second, the participants employed both antecedent-focused and response-focused strategies to regulate their negative emotions and sustain the positive ones, but they favored the response-focused strategies. The antecedent-focused strategies included attention deployment, cognitive change, separation, expectation lowering and situation selection, while response-focused strategies cover communication, self-improvement, action taking, relaxation, adaptation and expressive suppression. Third, both personal and environmental factors played a part in the participants’ emotion regulation in conducting research. Personal factors included participants’ past experiences, agency, and personality, while environmental factors included relationships with others and the research support they received. The findings have some implications which may be helpful for pre-service EFL teachers, educators and policy makers in conducting and supervising research.

Pathways to building strong IR professional identities in Taiwanese higher education

ABSTRACT Institutional Research (IR) is an emerging profession in the context of Asian Higher Education. Consequently, understanding of the pathways leading to the development of IR professionals’ identities, crucial for IR capacity building, is limited. The study aims to investigate the contextual and psychological antecedents necessary to attain high levels of professional identity for institutional researchers in Taiwan’s higher education. Using the convenience-sampling, this study recruited IR professionals to participate in the online survey during the spring semester of 2022. A total of 84 participants responded with experience working in a university’s IR office, and multivariate analysis techniques adopted include descriptive statistics, factor analysis, reliability analysis, and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Results indicate that high levels of both structural and psychological empowerment (PE) are necessary conditions for cultivating strong professional identities. For IR professionals working in public comprehensive or technical universities, particularly in high levels of PE led to strong professional identities. Conversely, those working in private comprehensive or technical universities were able to attain high levels of professional identity despite low levels of structural and PE. Policy implications are also discussed.

Alternative ways to initiate students’ intuition, and hence internalization, of why zero factorial is equal to one

Zero factorial, defined to be one, is often counterintuitive to students but nonetheless an interesting concept to convey in a classroom environment. The challenge is to delineate the concept in a simple and effective way through the practice of justification, a familiar concept in mathematics and science education. In this regard two algebraic and one statistical justification using the squeeze theorem are presented. To assess the effectiveness of the justifications, a student survey was conducted at a comprehensive university incorporating the analysis of the pre- and post-presentation statements. They clearly present that the justifications are useful in giving credence to zero factorial equals one. Overall, the result from the online survey supports that the students preferred Justification 1. The justifications provide instructors alternative ways to initiate exploration of students’ intuitive set up of comprehending unobvious facts like zero factorial equals one. For a range of learners with their varied abilities to perform various mental activities most closely associated with learning and problem-solving, the justifications as simple alternative methods offer the potential to raise the current level of cognitive skills to inspire differentiated paths of learning. These are evident from survey results noting the role of statistical thinking and techniques.

Navigators in Training: First-Generation Graduate Students in College Student Affairs

ABSTRACT This qualitative case study explored the experiences of first-generation graduate students (FGGS) enrolled in a college student affairs (CSA) master’s program at a comprehensive university. Findings demonstrated how students identified as, learned from, acted as, and aspired to be cultural navigators. Participants drew upon their own experiences and institutional knowledge to help students and champion institutional change. Implications suggest that as change agents, FGGS promote equitable student success. CSA programs should provide opportunities that empower FGGS to recognize their identity-based strengths and drive institutional transformation. Institutions should recognize, value, and support FGGS and other cultural navigators as they promote student success.

Linking nursing students' professional identity, clinical learning environment, financial incentives, and career opportunities with migration intent: Structural equation modeling.

To investigate how nursing students' professional identity, clinical learning environment, financial incentives, and career opportunities influence their intention to migrate. There is a preponderance of studies about nurse migration and its impact on the global nursing workforce. However, a critical gap remains about nursing students' intentions to migrate, particularly among developing countries like the Philippines. Using a cross-sectional design, third- and fourth-year nursing students (n=316) from the largest comprehensive university in Manila were conveniently recruited. Data were collected from November to December 2023 using five validated self-report scales. Descriptive (e.g., mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (e.g., Spearman rho, covariance-based structural equation modeling) were used to analyze data. The emerging model demonstrated acceptable model fit indices. Nursing students' professional identity (β=0.18, p=0.043) and financial incentives (β=0.10, p=0.046) significantly and positively influence the intention to migrate. The satisfaction with future career opportunities (β=-0.12, p=0.038) and clinical learning environment perception (β=-0.15, p=0.048) negatively influence the intention to migrate. These four predictors accounted for 4.60% of the total variance of intention to migrate. Nursing students' professional identity and financial incentives directly impact intent to migrate, whereas future career opportunities satisfaction and clinical learning environment inversely affect intent to migrate. This study underscores the imperative for nursing colleges and faculty to promote positive professional identity and provide a conducive clinical learning environment to develop sustainable nurses' migration policies.

Actor as expert: Developing an improvisational actor training approach for social work simulations

The increased reliance on online platforms such as Zoom and Teams for skills training for allied health specialists has presented new challenges for the actor and the actor trainer. The research reported in this article grew out of a project set up to investigate these challenges. Since 2021, members of the Deakin University Theatre Department have been collaborating with the charity Anglicare Victoria to deliver online training for Rapid Response social workers who work with families in danger of having their children removed. This has involved recruiting and training actors to act as family members in relevant scenarios in ‘real play’ online simulations so the Anglicare Rapid Response trainee can develop essential skills. Within a practice-led research approach, we ask what might be required when this live embodied skillset is moved online. The article utilizes observations of the video recordings of the training sessions, recordings of debrief sessions and reflections from the author-actors to report on an emerging approach for preparing actors for this type of engagement. We reflect on the ways improvisation is impacted using the ‘online performance’ space, especially how status, eye gaze, body positioning and mise en scène can be utilized in the online environment. We also consider the importance of actor self-care. The article offers a basis of training for a field of endeavour that is becoming more prevalent in the post-COVID world: online simulation scenarios for care workers.

CHALLENGES IN NAVIGATING THE ACADEMIC WORLD: A PERSPECTIVE FROM EARLY-CAREER ACADEMICS

Higher education (HE) is a dynamic sector that is constantly experiencing changes due to the rapidly changing world. Today, academics are not just expected to deliver lectures, but they also need to contribute to other aspects of academia such as publishing scholarly works, securing grants, innovation and holding administrative positions. The multiple demands and responsibilities that an academic need to meet in their career can be overwhelming especially for those early-career academics (ECAs). Understanding the challenges they face in the early years of career is important to facilitate universities in devising effective strategies to develop this group of employees. Following a qualitative, case study method, we explored the challenges facing ECAs serving in two comprehensive public universities in Malaysia. Data were collected using individual, semi-structured interviews on six ECAs. Findings revealed that ECAs faced challenges in terms of support they received, workload, and networking opportunities. Looking at the future, universities need to think of ways to manage and support ECAs which can help with their successful integration into the academic world. Our study contributes to the growing global research on ECAs and talent management initiatives in higher education.

Assessment and Scalability

The concept and practice of experiential education is rapidly expanding as universities seek to strengthen and integrate high-impact practices under experiential education plans and centers. While this integration has the potential to create synergy across disparate experiential learning offerings and to provide the benefits of experiential learning to all enrolled students, across majors and modality, scalability and assessment present a challenge. Many experiential learning practices were designed to serve a subset of enrolled students, and are resource-intensive in terms of faculty development and content delivery, assessment, and financial resources required. This paper presents the development and in-progress refinement of a experiential learning program at a regional comprehensive university in the southeast. The goal is to provide a detailed description of one EL program at one particular type of university, in order to add heterogeneity to the options university leaders can use as models. In addition, while this program has faced stumbling blocks, we believe it presents a strong template for other EL programs, with particular strength in comprehensive assessment.

Students speak: Academic, career, and sociocultural experiences of African American college students

This manuscript presents the outcomes of a qualitative research investigation centered on the experiences of African American college students in terms of their preparation for high school, college, and careers within a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) situated in rural southeastern Wisconsin. At the time of this research, the comprehensive public university had an undergraduate enrollment of 10,196 students. Among these students, 82.1% self-identified as White, 7.8% as Hispanic or Latinx, 5.4% as African American, 3.2% as Asian or Southeast Asian, and 0.9% as American Indian or Alaskan Native. Using semi-structured interviews with willing student participants, the primary objectives of this study were twofold: (1) to recognize the sociocultural and institutional elements that influence the career trajectories of African American students attending the institution and (2) to effectively capture the educational and career viewpoints and voices of these students as they navigate the complex sociocultural and institutional landscape. Key findings from the research highlight the students’ perspectives on the substantial connections between their high school experiences, particularly those in and around a major urban center in the Midwest, and their subsequent college and career paths. Additionally, the study underscores the challenges these students encounter while navigating the physical and social spaces on a rural PWI campus. Recommendations are made for creating a more welcoming space for African American students and for supporting those engaged in the work.

Do teachers colleges prepare more effective teachers? Evidence from a top school district in China

This paper provides the first empirical evidence on the value of teacher education by comparing the effectiveness of traditionally trained teachers from teachers' colleges and non-traditionally trained teachers from comprehensive universities in China. We utilize the unique data of 424 traditionally and 40 non-traditionally trained teachers from a top school district in China and a cross-subject value-added model to address teacher-student sorting bias. Our results indicate that, on average, traditionally trained teachers contribute approximately 0.1 standard deviations higher value to students' high-stakes test scores over a three-year period than non-traditionally trained teachers. Behavioral analyses on the district's teacher survey suggest that while teachers from both routes are similar in time allocation and professional psychological characteristics, traditionally trained teacher report being better in applying multitudinous pedagogies and teaching strategies. We find similar results using two administrative data sources from another province. The findings of this study contribute to the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of alternative routes to teaching and the importance of teacher education.

A.M.Aminee, J.Taylor. Generative AI Results and Reality

The accuracy of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) tools is the product of the quality of underlying data used to train models, and the models themselves. This interplay between data and models can lead to differences in the accuracy of outputs provided to common prompts across different GAI tools. This study investigates the disparities in accuracy related to representativeness between the outputs of GAI tools and demographic data from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and large enrollment, regional comprehensive university in the western United States (CSU). Three GAI platforms - ChatGPT, Co-pilot, and Gemini were evaluated using five samples each, with the same instruction across all platforms: “Show a class of graduate students.” The GAI outputs were analyzed based on three demographic variables: gender, race, and age group. These outputs were then compared to national averages from the NCES for gender and race and the CSU for age group. Notably, the variances in the results showed broader distributions across the demographic variables. To assess accuracy, a representation rate metric was calculated, reflecting the average absolute variance from the NCES and CSU benchmarks. The findings highlight the opportunity of higher quality data in model training, as well as the necessity for improved algorithms and methodologies in GAI systems to represent complex demographic information more accurately.

A CURE Lab in Introductory Biology at a Regional Comprehensive University Negatively Impacts Student Success in the Associated Lecture Course Among Students from Groups Underrepresented in Science.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been proposed as a mechanism to democratize access to the benefits of apprentice-style scientific research to a broader diversity of students, promoting inclusivity and increasing student success and retention. As we evaluate CUREs, it is essential to explore their effectiveness within the environments of regional comprehensive universities and community colleges, because they are important access points for a wide variety of students. It is also important to address the potential influence of volunteer bias, where students can opt to enroll in either the CURE or a traditional lab, on the outcomes of CUREs. We evaluated a CURE at a regional comprehensive university under conditions both with and without volunteer bias. We find that nonvolunteer students report a lower sense of discovery and relevance of the CURE compared with students who volunteered for the course. Importantly, we also find that our replacement of the traditional lab class with a CURE resulted in lower scores on exams in the associated lecture course among students who are both BIPOC and Pell eligible. We call for additional research on the effects of CUREs at nonresearch-intensive institutions and without volunteer bias, to better understand the impact of these classes.

Berpikir positif dan efikasi diri pada mahasiswa yang sedang menyusun skripsi

Abstract. Students, in completing their thesis, brought up certain reactions, and this was related to positive thinking and self-efficacy. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between positive thinking and self-efficacy in students who were preparing a thesis. The sampling technique used was a probability sampling technique with a saturated sampling method. The sample in this study amounted to 150 students and female students who were completing their theses at the Faculty of Psychology, Riau Islamic University (UIR). The data collection method used was a positive thinking scale and a self-efficacy scale that was modified from previous research. The reliability coefficient of the positive thinking scale was 0.865, and the self-efficacy scale was 0.854. Statistical analysis using Spearman's Rho correlation was processed through SPSS version 23.0 for Windows. It was found that there was a positive relationship between positive thinking and self-efficacy (r = 0.275, p = 0.001). This meant that the higher the positive thinking, the higher the self-efficacy; otherwise, the lower the positive thinking, the lower the self-efficacy. Positive thinking and self-efficacy had a relationship and were essential in academic situations, including students who compiled a thesis. It was hoped that students would prioritize themselves and always think positively, especially when doing their final project.

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AT SEVERAL OF THE BEST UNIVERSITIES IN INDONESIA

The strategic management process of each category of organization will undoubtedly be distinctive. This study aims to ascertain the strategic management process in higher education institutions in Indonesia. This research is a qualitative case study that examines the University of Indonesia (UI), Gajah Mada University (UGM), Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB), Telkom University (TELU), Indonesian Islamic University (UII), and Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta (UMS). The strategic management process at Indonesian HEI is described or concluded by analyzing secondary data in the form of strategic plan documents compiled with analysis of primary data in the form of interviews with experts in the field of higher education. The research findings indicate that the strategic management process in Indonesian higher education institutions is comprised of four stages: (1) environmental analysis, (2) strategy formulation, (3) strategy implementation, and (4) evaluation control. An example of the originality or uniqueness of the strategic management process in Indonesian higher education institutions is internal environmental analysis, which employs its criteria rather than the commonly used value chain analysis or functional analysis approach criteria.

Blue-Green Algal Flora on Archaeological Monuments of India

Forty-six blue-green algal species belonging to fifteen genera, e.g. Gloeocapsopsis, Gloeothece, Myxosarcina, Chroococcidiopsis, Lyngbya, Phromidium, Plectonema, Nostoc, Calothrix, Tolypothrix, Chtorogloeopsis, Fischerella, Hapalosiphon, Westiellopsis and Stigonema occurred on the exposed surfaces of various archaeological monuments from different regions of India. All these blue-green algal species have been isolated and maintained in the culture collection at the Department of Botany, Utkal University.

Medicinal and Aromatic Weed Diversity in Botanic Garden and their Sustainable Utilisation for Conservation

Total 81 weeds belonging to 59 genera and 31 families growing in the University botanic garden at Sagar were found medicinally important. Various parts of all the weeds have been analyzed for their medicinal utility. Out of 81 weeds, leaves of 64 plants are found useful for various disorders. This is followed by root of 25 plants which are medicinally important. Disease wise analysis has also been carried out. Analysis reveals that for cut, wounds, boils and burns about 29 weed plants are used, whereas 21 weed species each are used for asthma and skin diseases.

Looking back to move forward: comparison of instructors’ and undergraduates’ retrospection on the effectiveness of online learning using the nine-outcome influencing factors

This study delves into the retrospections of undergraduate students concerning their online learning experiences after the COVID-19 pandemic, using the nine key influencing factors: behavioral intention, instruction, engagement, interaction, motivation, self-efficacy, performance, satisfaction, and self-regulation. 46 Year 1 students from a comprehensive university in China were asked to maintain reflective diaries throughout an academic semester, providing first-person perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of online learning. Meanwhile, 18 college teachers were interviewed with the same questions as the students. Using thematic analysis, the research identified 9 factors. The research revealed that instruction ranked highest among the 9 factors, followed by engagement, self-regulation, interaction, motivation, and others. Moreover, teachers and students had different attitudes toward instruction. Thirdly, teacher participants were different from student participants given self-efficacy and self-regulation due to their variant roles in online instruction. Lastly, the study reflected students were not independent learners, which explained why instruction ranked highest in their point of view. Findings offer valuable insights for educators, administrators, and policy-makers involved in higher education. Recommendations for future research include incorporating a more diverse sample, exploring relationships between the nine factors, and focusing on equipping students with skills for optimal online learning experiences.

화제 구조 분석을 활용한 보고서 고쳐쓰기 교수-학습 모형의 효과 연구

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a teaching-learning model that focuses on revising report introductions to enhance academic writing skills. Devel oped as an interactive activity grounded in various pedagogical theories, this model was analyzed for its influence on student proficiency in academic writing. The investigation focused on identifying changes in both the control and experimental groups enrolled in a writing course tailored for international students at S Univer sity during the first semester of 2022. Text coherence, topic structure, and genre adaptation were examined by analyzing 21 sets of initial and revised introductions from the control group and 25 sets from the experimental group. The findings revealed noticeable fluctuations in the composition of both groups following the rewriting process, with the experimental group exhibiting a marked enhancement in conveying essential themes. These results suggest the potential utility of this instructional approach in enhancing academic writing skills among foreign college students, offering valuable insights for future educational practices and evaluation methodologies.

The influence of environmental factors on the job burnout of physical education teachers in tertiary education

This study takes environmental factors and individual factors as variables to explore the deep internal mechanism of the impact of a comprehensive environment on higher education physical education (PE) teachers’ job burnout. Little research has been done on how environmental factors affect the internal mechanism of college and university PE teachers’ job burnout through individual factors (e.g., professional pressure and teaching efficacy). In this study, the participants were 231 PE teachers from seven comprehensive universities, and four questionnaires were administered to measure the participants’ job burnout, perceived overall environment, teaching efficacy, and occupational stress. Research has found that environmental factors have a significant negative impact on occupational stress, and occupational stress plays an important mediating role between environment and occupational burnout. Research has shown that differences in external environments lead to varying levels of personal stress among college physical education teachers, which in turn affects their level of occupational burnout. The study concludes that a good social, working, and living environment helps to reduce the work pressure on PE teachers, improves their sense of teaching efficacy, and inhibits the occurrence of teachers’ job burnout.

Incremental Reorganization at a Regional Comprehensive University: A Case Study

This paper will discuss a series of incremental reorganizations, prompted by a variety of simultaneous challenges, which presented opportunities to reconfigure staffing to update or add services and meet new needs. This paper will also discuss how best to approach staffing re-organizations for increased chances of success.