Exploring Capacity for Future Sustainability of Healthy Eating Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change Strategies Previously Implemented Through SNAP-Ed Programming.

Limited clinical placements for mental health courses in the United Arab Emirates have made it difficult to provide consistent experiential learning for undergraduate nursing students. As a result, nurse educators are considering technology-enabled learning approaches to deliver clinical skills training. This Viewpoint presents a reflective, theory-informed account of the first-year integration of an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled, voice-interactive simulated patient into an undergraduate mental health nursing practicum. Grounded in Kolb's experiential learning cycle and aligned with established simulation best practices, the initiative was designed to support therapeutic communication, psychiatric assessment, and clinical reasoning through structured prebriefing, immersive interaction, and guided debriefing. The paper describes the educational rationale, scenario development, implementation processes, and contextual challenges encountered during real-world deployment across university and clinical environments. AI-supported simulations offered a standardized and psychologically safe context for students to engage with complex psychiatric scenarios, particularly when direct patient interaction is constrained. We discuss operational insights related to technical reliability, environmental requirements, faculty preparation, and assessment integration alongside considerations for scalability and sustainability in resource-limited settings. While AI-supported objective structured clinical examinations have been incorporated to support assessment consistency, formal psychometric validation and outcome comparisons have not been undertaken at this stage. By sharing lessons learned from early implementation, this Viewpoint contributes practical insights for nursing educators facing similar structural constraints. AI-enabled simulation is presented as a strategic complement to, rather than a replacement for, traditional clinical placements, with future empirical research needed to evaluate educational outcomes and long-term impact.

The article assesses the returns on skills of IT specialists in Russian cities of different sizes. The empirical basis of the study consists of open data on job vacancies published on the HeadHunter platform in March—April 2025. The paper describes the data processing procedures, including the unification of skill descriptions and their transformation into discrete variables. The main research method is hedonic wage modeling in the labor market, which allows for estimating the impact of various factors on the salaries of information technology professionals. The econometric modeling employs a two-step OLS approach with Heckman correction and sequential inclusion of variables into the baseline specification. The results show that professional IT skills, personal characteristics, managerial skills, and employment in Moscow, the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, and cities located outside the Russian Federation have a statistically significant positive effect on IT specialists’ wages. Employment in cities with populations between 250 thousand and one million people, as well as social skills, have a significant negative effect. For professional IT skills, significant positive effects were identified in Moscow, the Moscow region, and St. Petersburg, indicating that the city effect remains even after accounting for cross-city differences in skill valuation. The main findings of the study are relevant for the development and implementation of education, regional, and migration policies aimed at fostering the training and mobility of highly qualified employees. The proposed approach to working with relatively small but easily accessible datasets can also be applied in expert HR analytics, for example, to identify differences among local labor markets.

Purpose This study aimed to investigate the effects of career calling on the learning engagement of medical students, along with the psychological mechanisms of self-efficacy and achievement motivation in the relationship between them. Methods The study used a convenience sampling method to select 1,930 students from two undergraduate medical colleges in Anhui Province, China. The Career Calling Scale, Learning Engagement Scale, Achievement Motivation Scale, and Self-Efficacy Scale were used to conduct the survey. Results The results of the study found that career calling significantly and positively predicted the learning engagement of medical students. In addition, achievement motivation and self-efficacy not only partially mediated the relationship between career calling and learning engagement but also played a chain mediation role between them. Finally, there were significant gender differences in the above chain mediation model, and gender moderated the path from achievement motivation to learning engagement in the model. Conclusion Self-efficacy and achievement motivation act as chain mediators between career calling and learning engagement of medical students, and this path is moderated by gender. This study provides theoretical guidance and empirical evidence for improving the learning engagement of medical students and promoting the development of medical education.

Purpose: This program aims to enhance the capacity of coastal communities in managing marine ecotourism potential while maintaining the sustainability of coral reef ecosystems. Research Methodology: The implementation methods include socialization, Focus Group Discussions (FGD), technical training, and hands-on practice in the creation and installation of BioReefTek media and spiderwebs as tools for coral growth, involving 48 participants (fishermen and Mitra Analaut) on November 8, 2025. Results: The activities resulted in a significant increase in community knowledge and participation in marine conservation, with a 90% improvement measured through pre-test and post-test evaluations. The FGD produced important recommendations regarding the need for synergy between education, conservation, and nature-based economic development. The active role of the Anana Laut Community was a key element of the program’s success through local innovation and cross-sector collaboration involving the community, academics, government, and private sector. Conclusions: This program demonstrates the effectiveness of a holistic approach in integrating simple technology with local wisdom for the sustainability of coral reef ecosystems. Limitations: The limitation of this community service lies in the use of the BioReefTek method, which requires experimentation with more complex methods for coral ecosystem restoration. Contributions: This program contributes to the preservation of coral reefs, which are better preserved and experiencing improved growth. It also impacts the increased fish catch for fishermen.

Teenage and young adult (TYA) patients undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplant have distinct psychosocial needs, yet they are poorly represented in research and their outcomes are not well understood. This study uses prospectively collected data from the British Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (BSBMTCT) registry to explore UK transplant practice and outcomes for TYA patients (aged 16-24) in this healthcare setting, alongside children (aged 1-15) and adults (aged 25-39), transplanted for acute leukaemia (including lymphoblastic, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia [ALL], and myeloid, acute myeloid leukaemia [AML]). Nine hundred and forty TYA patients, transplanted between 1999 and 2018, are included, representing 87% of all UK activity during the study period. On adjusted analyses, overall survival after transplant for ALL worsened from children, through TYA, to adults; survival for patients with AML was similar across age groups. Non-relapse mortality was not significantly worse in TYA patients compared with children (p = 0.117 in ALL, p = 0.379 in AML). The risk of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) was strongly correlated with age, with rates in the TYA group much closer to those seen in adults. While a graft-versus-leukaemia effect may be suppressing relapse, the high rate of GvHD represents an unmet need in this group, who are at a crucial juncture in their personal, educational and social development.

Researchers need training to develop adequate competence before using animals in experimental procedures. In contrast to medical training, there has been almost no scholarly attention to questions of methodology for teaching practical skills with laboratory animals. In this paper, we explore how the experience of laboratory animal trainers can be combined with existing scholarship on learning and teaching practical skills in related fields. Data were collected through facilitated group discussions in a series of workshops involving a total of 72 participants from 18 countries. Participants identified the 'See one, Do one' method as their preferred teaching approach in practical classes, and recognised the importance of strategies for progressive and adapted learning. They also acknowledged different types of challenging situations, including trainees who have previously developed proficiency with incorrect techniques, trainees who appear uninterested, trainees expressing aversion to animals and trainees who are reluctant to subject animals to harmful procedures. Although participants presented strategies for overcoming the majority of these challenges, they also highlighted specific scenarios where they felt unable to provide adequate support or overcome the challenges within the training environment. This work represents a first systematic scholarly effort to capture and describe teaching strategies used by practical laboratory animal science trainers, an essential step for education and competency development research and practice in the field.

Strengthening instructional competence through School-Based Management for sustainable educational development

Islamic education during the Old Order era is a crucial issue in the history of Indonesian education because it developed amidst the country's unstable political dynamics, the ideological struggles of nationalism, Islam, and communism, and the initial efforts to establish a national education system after independence. This topic is relevant to study because Islamic education policies during the 1945–1966 period not only determined the position of madrasahs, religious studies, and Islamic Religious Colleges (PTKI) within the national system, but also laid the foundations that have been influential to this day. This study aims to analyze the politics and policies of Islamic education during the Old Order era by highlighting the influence of national political dynamics, the strategic role of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the process of establishing and developing PTKIs, the regulation of religious studies in the National Education System Law, and the challenges and opportunities faced by Islamic education during that period. This study uses a qualitative, field-study design combined with historical studies. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, observations, documentation studies, and literature reviews of archives, regulations, and institutional records. Then, they were analyzed interactively and thematically through the stages of data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions using source and method triangulation. The results of this study indicate that Islamic education policy during the Old Order era was heavily influenced by the country's political configuration and tended to be compromising. The Ministry of Religious Affairs proved to be a key actor in maintaining the existence of madrasahs, expanding religious instruction in public schools, and building the foundation of Islamic higher education through PTKI (Islamic Higher Education Institutions). This study also found that the regulation of religious instruction in Law No. 4 of 1950 in conjunction with Law No. 12 of 1954 reflected a form of state accommodation to Islamic aspirations, but did not fully guarantee substantive equality in its implementation. This finding contributes to the study of the politics of Islamic education by demonstrating that the development of Islamic education was the result of negotiations between the state, religion, and society, not merely a pedagogical process. Thus, this study concludes that the Old Order era was a crucial phase that shaped the institutional and political foundations of Islamic education in Indonesia.

The purpose of this article is to review current empirical research on language teacher professional development in higher education from Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect and ERIC adopting the PRISMA methodology. This revision led to 10 articles demonstrating that language professors opt for a more student-centered approach and highly communicative lessons demonstrating their openness to new educational paradigms. Second, when institutions offer professional development training programs, their content should be designed considering language educators’ experience, expectations, and necessities. Not following this will favor resistance and dissatisfaction among educators. Third, even though modern e-learning tools are beneficial, language educators do not use them actively due to insufficient IT support and training; they often rely on self-learning. Finally, it is also argued that continuous training, peer observation, senior mentoring, and teacher autonomy are necessary for language teacher professional development.

Adolescents’ internet adaptability (IA) is crucial for their online behavior and mental health. Serious games (SGs), as an emerging educational tool, hold promise for enhancing this adaptability through engaging, goal-oriented learning. Yet, direct evidence in this area remains limited. This viewpoint aims to clarify the mechanisms through which SGs enhance adolescents’ IA and to derive corresponding design principles that can inform educational practice and game development. Drawing on insights from both Chinese and international studies, this study adopts a cross-contextual perspective to explore how SGs can foster IA in varied educational environments. Beyond synthesizing existing findings, this viewpoint provides an integrated account of why IA is essential in contemporary digital life and how SGs can support its development. It proposes a 3-stage framework, illustrating how contextualized design, real-time feedback, and dynamic tasks promote experiential learning, self-regulation, and the transfer of online skills. Based on this framework, the study further articulates 6 core design principles: clear goal definition, interaction diversity, contextual authenticity, immediate, scaffolding and explanatory feedback, a dynamically adaptive learning environment, and safety-by-design for digital well-being. These principles translate the core characteristics and mechanisms of SGs into actionable guidance for developing effective IA interventions. By synthesizing theoretical insights with practical considerations, this viewpoint highlights how SGs can serve as accessible and scalable tools to support adolescents in navigating increasingly complex digital environments. Together, these insights provide practical implications for educators, curriculum designers, and digital game developers seeking to foster adolescents’ safe, responsible, and adaptive engagement in online environments.

In recent years, the impact of education marketization on higher education has been widely concerned and discussed. In the field of international education, the negative effects of marketization are increasing. This study breaks through the traditional argument that "excessive marketization weakens the quality of education", and analyzes the actual performance of higher education in Britain and Australia in the post epidemic era, against the background of Education Marketization from a multi-agent perspective. Specifically, this study adopts a three-tiered framework of "institution-organization-individual" to analyze how the UK and Australia have transformed international students from "educational subjects" into "financial instruments". The study finds that relationships among the state (government), universities, and students are marked by imbalances in rights, gaps in responsibility, and a breakdown of reciprocity. The conclusion is that the international education crisis in the post-pandemic era is essentially a crisis of the global higher education development model. Therefore, this study proposes to establish a sustainable international education ecology with the core principles of "ethical care" and "mutually beneficial development". It also hopes that this research can provide a reference for relevant policies and practices.

This paper examines how cross-cultural encounters shape student learning and development in higher education. Guided by the local adage “If you don’t know, you cannot love,” the study situates intercultural contact theory within Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation and the largest Muslim community. It highlights the experiences of interisland students, who face linguistic, academic, and social challenges similar to those faced by international students. Using grounded theory methodology, the study encompasses document analysis, observations, surveys, and interviews with 650 administrators, professors, and students at a public university. Region of origin, ethnicity, and religion emerge as key markers of identity. Positive contact is the most memorable aspect of college and is fostered through friendships, student organizations, service learning, and the encouragement of authorities. Negative contact is related to religious fundamentalism, minority resentment, and inadequate institutional support.

ABSTRACT This study developed a scale to assess the effectiveness of mentoring for novice sign language interpreters using the Mentor’s Seven Roles framework. The purpose was to construct a reliable measurement tool to evaluate how mentoring supports professional development in interpreter education. Based on a comprehensive literature review and expert consultation, the scale was designed to measure mentoring practices across seven roles: teacher, sponsor, advisor, agent, role model, coach, and confidante. These roles represent key dimensions of mentoring relationships, including knowledge transmission, professional socialization, guidance, advocacy, modeling of professional behavior, skill development, and trusted support. The instrument incorporated latent variables to capture underlying dimensions of mentoring such as emotional support, skill acquisition, and professional identity formation. Statistical analyses, including factor analysis and t-tests, were conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the scale. The findings provide empirical support for structured mentoring practices and contribute to the advancement of interpreter education and professional preparation.

This research examines employee motivation and the effectiveness of work in organizational productivity of community colleges in Nepal and explains that motivated staff is essential for the effective teaching and administrative activity and to an efficient institution operation. The study examines the impact of motivation on both intrinsic and extrinsic factors such as job satisfaction, recognition, leadership style, opportunities for professional development, and work environment in this research. Employing a mixed-methods design, the study synthesizes surveys of faculty and administrative staff with in-depth interviews to present the full picture of motivators as well as the perceived effects of motivational drivers on work performance. Other indices of institutional performance, including student outcomes and research productivity, are also looked through to analyze how this motivational impact drives outcomes, with the intention of finding that there is a link between motivation and specific measure of productivity. Research shows that those employees with supportive leaders, clear communications, and the ability to pursue professional development are greater in engagement, commitment, and effectiveness. Factors such as satisfaction, meaning, personal fulfillment, and a sense of purpose, and extrinsic rewards such as acknowledgement, motivation, and reward, all have positive influence on productivity. For better company performance, you need to understand how college can develop a business and develop culture and ensure these institutions have better staff and organizational outcomes. This study concludes that strategic motivation measures to support the development of motivation of the workforce and its application in community colleges in the context of the institutions of higher education in Nepal is crucial, hence its contribution to the long term development of the community colleges of Nepal as motivation strategies that the institutions are required to implement and it is possible for them to increase human productivity and grow long-term development for the community higher education in Nepal.

This philosophical discourse examines the relationship between temporality and ethical practice in nursing, with particular attention to the distinction between chronos (quantitative time) and kairos (qualitative, opportune time). Drawing upon ancient Greek philosophical thought, contemporary nursing scholarship, and empirical research on moral judgement, the author argues that temporal awareness fundamentally shapes ethical deliberation and action in nursing practice. Despite the existence of multiple ethical decision-making frameworks in nursing (including principle-based approaches, dignity-enhancing care models, and professional codes of ethics) these frameworks remain largely atemporal, emphasising processes and components of ethical decisions rather than their temporal dimensions. Furthermore, empirical evidence demonstrates that time pressure systematically alters moral judgement, yet this phenomenon has received limited attention in nursing ethics literature. Building on classical virtue ethics (particularly the Aristotelian concept of phronesis, practical wisdom, which encompasses knowing not only what to do but when to act) and integrating insights from moral distress, moral resilience, and decision-making literature, the author introduces the construct of kairotic sensitivity (the capacity to recognise moments when patients are particularly receptive to difficult conversations or crucial decisions). This construct represents a significant contribution to nursing ethics, offering a conceptual framework for understanding how experienced nurses navigate the temporal complexities of ethical practice and providing a bridge between established ethical frameworks and the lived experience of temporal decision-making in clinical settings. The author proposes that kairotic sensitivity, alongside moral resilience, constitutes an essential yet undertheorised dimension of ethical expertise in nursing, with significant implications for patient outcomes, professional satisfaction, and nursing education. Practical implications for patient care and recommendations for nursing education and practice development are discussed.

Developing their socio-emotional competence makes a significant contribution to teachers’ well-being, which is key to effective education. Identifying which teacher characteristics are associated with this competence is essential when designing intervention programmes to foster its development. This study employs a multivariate model to examine whether the variables gender, teaching experience, and self-efficacy have a statistically significant effect on the level of pre-service teachers’ socio-emotional competence. A total of 700 students enrolled in the Early Childhood and Primary Education Degree programmes during the 2023/24 academic year at the International University of La Rioja took part in the study. A gender difference was observed in certain socio-emotional skills, with women scoring higher in some categories. The results indicate that teaching experience is associated with a decrease in most subscales of socio-emotional competence during the first three years of professional practice, after which a progressive increase in these competencies is observed. Among the variables analysed, teachers’ self-efficacy regarding teaching and learning strategies showed the strongest statistical association with socio-emotional competence, with significant and substantial effects on virtually all subscales. These findings have important implications for educational practice. They underscore the need to promote training programmes aimed at strengthening teachers’ self-efficacy as a means to support the socio-emotional development of educators.

Beyond red ink: AI feedback and ESL academic writing development in higher education

This study explores the crucial nexus between environmental education (EE) and sustainable development (SD) by investigating students' eco-consciousness in collaboration with the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines. In an era characterized by escalating environmental concerns and the imperative for sustainable practices, understanding the role of education in fostering environmental sustainability is paramount. The research employed a quantitative method approach, using a survey to comprehensively examine students' attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors toward environmental issues and sustainable living practices. Drawing on a diverse sample of students across educational levels, the study found that at Saint Mary’s University, students have a high level of environmental awareness, eco-consciousness, and environmental stewardship. It was further affirmed that those three environmental concepts are intricately influencing one another. The profile variables of gender, age, type of high school they graduated from, and religion are not influential or predictive of their environmental awareness, eco-consciousness, and environmental stewardship. However, school, year level, and ethnicity are influential or predictive. Finally, Saint Mary’s University is fertile ground for environmental sustainability practices, as students have a high level of environmental awareness, eco-consciousness, and environmental stewardship, which are important dimensions of environmental sustainability. It was then recommended that its programs, projects, and activities be sustained and intensified to protect and conserve the environment.

Abstract Key competencies for sustainability (KCS) have been identified as essential for individuals to develop in order to address the complex and interconnected challenges of modern society, many of which involve technology in various ways. Education at all levels—from early childhood to higher education—should provide opportunities for students to cultivate these competencies. This study explores how education prior to university (from preschool to secondary school) can create opportunities for young people to develop KCS, with a particular focus on the subject of technology. The research questions guiding this study are: (1) which KCS are included and taught in technology education at the preschool, primary, and secondary levels? (2) what does the progression of KCS in technology look like from preschool through primary and secondary school? To address these questions, we conducted a systematic literature review and analysed Swedish curriculum documents. The findings reveal that all eight KCS outlined by UNESCO (2017) are relevant and can be developed within technology education at the preschool, primary, and secondary school levels. However, three of the KCS are particularly prominent in the Swedish technology curriculum, while international research studies highlight the relevance of four competencies to technology education. We also identified a progression in KCS development described in the literature, which begins with a focus on “soft” transversal competencies during the early years and advances toward more disciplinary competencies in later years. Finally, we highlight significant gaps in existing research that warrant further investigation.