Effective Learning Contexts Research Articles

Enhancing Career Decision Status of Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Students Through Learning Engagement: Perspective of SOR Model.

Higher education plays the role of cultivating talents in national development and meets the talent sources needed by the development of the state, industries and enterprises. Besides, for students, higher education can provide stimuli to improve the development of family and personal career. Especially for socioeconomically disadvantaged Students, higher education means the main factor for turning over the Socio- Economic Status. Universities endow students with abundant employment skills, so as to make them more confident in contending with the challenges in the job market. However, innate pessimism or negative attitudes and cognition may exist in socioeconomically disadvantaged Students, thereby providing effective learning context to improve their learning engagement. This study explores the influence on students’ career decision status from deep approach to learning, problem-based learning, self-efficacy and employability. A total of 627 valid questionnaires are collected in this study. PLS-SEM was adopted to verify the structural relationship in data analysis via SmartPLS. The results indicate that deep approach to learning and problem-based learning have significant impacts on students’ self-efficacy and employability; self-efficacy has significant impacts on employability and career decision status; employability has significant impact on career decision status; and that self-efficacy and employability play significant mediating roles in the research framework.

The adoption of corporate social responsibility active learning methodology with management accounting students

The aim of this paper is to integrate active methodology on corporate social responsibility (CSR)11CSR: Corporate Social Responsibility. learning into management accounting studies. The linkages between sustainable management and management accounting demand those future managers integrate CSR into their training in an effective way, as they will become change agents for CSR. A representative sample of students at the University of Jaen has been selected in order to adopt CSR active learning, which allows us to draw conclusions about how they perceive CSR and its management. Qualitative methodology has been integrated in this project-based learning using flipped classroom. Our evidence full supports the validity of the CSR active learning methodology to create an effective learning context that involves professional and emotional competences, as the answers offered mainly included some relevant topics covered by CSR research and social and environmental accounting (SEA). This study contributes to previous literature assessing the potential of active methodologies in CSR learning. Also, it provides important insights for university and business school managers to design or modify curricula that are related to management accounting in line with sustainability.

L1 in the IRF cycle: a case study of Chinese EFL classrooms

The Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) cycle (teachers’ initiation, students’ response and teachers’ feedback) has been a key focus in studies of second language classroom interaction and participation. This paper aims to examine the influence of the first language (L1) in the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) cycle commonly appearing in teacher-fronted classroom interaction. Previous studies have come to different conclusions about the role and value of L1 in the IRF cycle. The direct method underpinning the avoidance of L1 has been adopted since 1880s. The use of L1 is not discussed in language pedagogy in the last decade or two and some researchers consider the occurrence of the L1 as a problem. On the other hand, recent studies show that L1 can be used as a mediating language to create effective learning context for second language acquisition. However, these arguments are discussed either from a theoretical position or in a general classroom context and pay less attention to what is happening in micro interactions. This paper addresses the effect of using L1 in English as a foreign language classroom through an examination of the micro IRF cycle in English language classrooms in China. The data was collected through video recordings in a senior high school in China and analysed through conversation analysis. The analysis suggests that L1 used in the IRF cycle can function as a key to open up dialogue and bring more target language into the conversation. I argue that L1 in the IRF cycle can be used as a mediating tool and promote acquisition of the target language. This study will provide new insights into the role of L1 in teaching and learning interactions.

Learning to Live in a Global World: Project-Based Learning in Multicultural Student Groups as a Pedagogy of Tolerance Strategy

Reforming in the 21 century education has increased: both in its organization and contents. The role of a teacher has shifted from an expert to a designer of reflective and collaborative projects as means of providing students with effective learning contexts. In cultural diversity and assimilation educators are universally concerned with implementation of pedagogy of tolerance principles to grow up a new generation, prepared to communicate successfully in the globalization world. The problem is how we can facilitate tolerant thinking among students. The authors of the present paper generalize their experience of providing cooperative learning environments to MA course students at Zabaikalsky State University, which is in Transbaikal Siberia (Russia). The region borders on Mongolia and China, offering a perfect experimental platform to implement pedagogy of tolerance strategies through creative educational programs. The programs are developed in accordance with the recently adopted international and federal laws and conceptions, to which the authors of the present paper refer. Professor Tatyana Voronchenko, designed multicultural programs for MA and PhD students in World Literature Studies. They are aimed to increase all possible contacts among culturally diverse students. Russian and Chinese, Buryat and Mongolian student groups, involved in project-based studies, are an example to illustrate an effective way of learning to live in globalization word. The authors analyze and describe the students’ experience during project-based studies. They conclude that the students who participated in such projects showed higher tolerance to their neighbors. Project-based learning helps to master professional communication culture, overcoming communication barriers and becoming specialists with higher tolerance, ready to live and work in multicultural society.

Preparing Business and Information Technology Students to Contribute to Organizational Cultures Grounded in Moral Character

The ethical crisis in business and information technology is very real. Countering this crisis by creating organizational cultures grounded in moral character is the challenge people face as leaders if they are to regain the respect and confidence of the public. As educators of future business and information technology leaders, how can educators prepare their students to understand, appreciate, and contribute to the establishment of cultures of character in the organizations which employ them—and which they may ultimately lead? In this article the authors distinguish among four corporate cultures with respect to ethics —cultures of defiance, compliance, neglect, and character—and present a blueprint for constructing an organizational culture grounded in moral character. With respect to showing students how to contribute to such a culture, the authors then (a) describe how to establish an effective learning context for teaching about ethics, (b) proffer a number of practical suggestions for student assignments and experiences that can empower students to understand, appreciate, and contribute to organizational cultures of character, and (c) explain how to enhance experiential learning by conducting an effective debriefing session. The authors conclude the article by providing three examples from their own experience illustrating how these ideas can be incorporated into programs designed to show business and information technology students how to contribute to organizational cultures grounded in moral character.

Development of A Mobile Learning Application to Support E-Learning and Analysis of Its Effects

It should not be disregarded that e-learning applications have some limitations although they provide many opportunities to people who have different expectations and characteristics and who want to make use of educational opportunities. When the limitations of e-learning and the advantages of m-learning applications which these limitations provide are considered together, they may serve more effective learning contexts for individuals. In this study, an m-learning application was developed to assist elearning and it was supplied for learners who attend distance education to use. As a result of the study, it was provided for learners to attend educational events without real time and place limitation in reality via using m-learning as an assistant for e-learning. Furthermore, learners were provided to be informed about course cancellations, assignment deadlines, exam dates, the announcement by school administration immediately, and so on. As a result of the study, learners’ views for this application were taken into consideration and it was stated that m-learning application was effective for learners in education at anytime and anywhere.

Effects of evaluativevs. co-constructive interactions on learning in physics

We conducted an experimental study to assess the effects of two physics-learning situations that differed in the type of teacher-student interactions that took place: evaluative or co-constructive. As found in various studies on physics teaching and social psychology, the results showed that co-constructive interactions generated a more effective learning context for students than evaluative ones did.

The Practice of University History Teaching

Provides a guide to good practice and its development in the teaching and learning of history in universities and colleges. Its contributors examine recent thinking on the teaching of the subject, survey current practices, and provide practical advice to teachers and departments at a time of considerable change. Using a variety of approaches grounded in research, experimentation and reflection, the authors address central issues facing history teaching today. Topics covered include: scholarship and history teaching; teaching adn academic careers; creating an effective learning context; skills and the history curriculum; modularization; teaching students through active learning; devising imaginative seminars; teaching with larger classes; using the Web as a teaching and learning resource; and integrating IT into the history curriculum. There are also essays on the role of fieldwork, teaching oral history to undergraduates, rethinking the history essay, practices of seminar assessment, developing assessed group-work, assessing learning outcomes, and learning from feedback on assessment.