Learning Goals Research Articles

How to Support Parent-Educators Homeschooling by Open Projects? A Case Study of Two Families Developing Strategic Knowledge

The COVID-19 pandemic allowed several parents to immerse themselves into homeschooling. In the province of Quebec (Canada), homeschooling is on the rise, increasing from 6,000 children in 2019 to 14,000 in 2021. While integrating learning objectives prescribed by current educational curriculum, parents who act as educators also wish to prioritize pedagogical strategies that are congruent with their preferences and values, such as undertaking open projects involving the whole family. However, these parents face challenges in linking learning goals with their projects. As a result, they require support with project design, among other things, through effective planning, autoregulation, and evaluation mechanisms. Therefore, a study involved six novice families who started homeschooling because of the pandemic impact on the provincial school system. Interviews were conducted with the parent-educators before and after providing them with pedagogical support over a 12-week period, during which a metacognitive guide served as a modelling tool. Our findings reveal that continued support is crucial, particularly for two mother-educators who developed strategic knowledge that set them apart from the other participants. This exploratory study motivates further research on homeschooling, given the renewed interest in this form of education and the need to ensure quality education for all children.

Maintaining life satisfaction when faced with multiple crisis episodes: the role of entrepreneurs’ goal orientation

PurposeThe aim is to understand how goal orientation may help entrepreneurs maintain life satisfaction when faced with multiple crisis episodes. To do so, the authors study the early impact of COVID-19 on the life satisfaction of entrepreneurs who were previously faced with venture distress.Design/methodology/approachData on 164 Belgian entrepreneurs, who were faced with previous venture distress, are used. The analysis is quantitative, and uses survey data, in combination with databases. The survey was administered in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (June 2020).FindingsEntrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely, and those high in performance-avoidance orientation are more likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction. Additionally, the time span between the two crises moderates the relationship between learning goal orientation and life satisfaction. Particularly, entrepreneurs high in learning goal orientation are less likely to experience a decline in life satisfaction if more time has passed between venture distress and the COVID-19 crisis.Practical implicationsOften, entrepreneurs are faced with multiple episodes of distress. The authors study entrepreneurs who have been in venture distress before and are then confronted with the COVID-19 crisis. The study shows that goal orientation, which is a type of self-regulation, plays an important role in how entrepreneurs’ life satisfaction is affected. Also, the authors find that the time between distress events matters. These are important insights for practitioners, including entrepreneurs and support providers.Originality/valueThe study adds to the emerging discussion on the impact of crises on entrepreneurs. It studies life satisfaction (a measure of well-being) and complements studies that examine the impact of crises, on entrepreneurs’ actions and firm performance.

Precision feedback: A conceptual model

AbstractIntroductionWhen performance data are provided as feedback to healthcare professionals, they may use it to significantly improve care quality. However, the question of how to provide effective feedback remains unanswered, as decades of evidence have produced a consistent pattern of effects—with wide variation. From a coaching perspective, feedback is often based on a learner's objectives and goals. Furthermore, when coaches provide feedback, it is ideally informed by their understanding of the learner's needs and motivation. We anticipate that a “coaching”‐informed approach to feedback may improve its effectiveness in two ways. First, by aligning feedback with healthcare professionals' chosen goals and objectives, and second, by enabling large‐scale feedback systems to use new types of data to learn what kind of performance information is motivating in general. Our objective is to propose a conceptual model of precision feedback to support these anticipated enhancements to feedback interventions.MethodsWe iteratively represented models of feedback's influence from theories of motivation and behavior change, visualization, and human‐computer interaction. Through cycles of discussion and reflection, application to clinical examples, and software development, we implemented and refined the models in a software application to generate precision feedback messages from performance data for anesthesia providers.ResultsWe propose that precision feedback is feedback that is prioritized according to its motivational potential for a specific recipient. We identified three factors that influence motivational potential: (1) the motivating information in a recipient's performance data, (2) the surprisingness of the motivating information, and (3) a recipient's preferences for motivating information and its visual display.ConclusionsWe propose a model of precision feedback that is aligned with leading theories of feedback interventions to support learning about the success of feedback interventions. We plan to evaluate this model in a randomized controlled trial of a precision feedback system that enhances feedback emails to anesthesia providers.

Learner Experiences of Mobile Apps and Artificial Intelligence to Support Additional Language Learning in Education

This study examines learners’ experiences and the use of language learning applications (“apps”) as a primary source of second or additional language learning (“L2”) instruction and assessment in higher education. It purviews the integration of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered features that support technology-enhanced language learning experiences. Principles of pedagogy, heutagogy, and self-determination theory are used to inform the appropriate design and application of AI to support language learning. We examine the congruence between learner's goals with perceived outcomes following a 4-week language learning intervention using an app. A survey of n = 151 adult learners across two Canadian universities revealed: (a) apps are perceived as an engaging, convenient, and structured approach to early stages of L2 learning and (b) the integration of AI for conversation-based simulations or speech recognition would enable more adaptive, personalized L2 learning experiences. The authors discuss implications for future developments and AI uptake for language learning apps.

Developmental leadership as a driver of employee feedback behaviors: the roles of learning goal orientation and leader high performance expectations

PurposeDrawing on goal orientation theory, this study intends to investigate whether, how and when developmental leadership influences employees’ feedback seeking behavior (FSB) and feedback avoidance behavior (FAB).Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a two-wave survey of 416 full-time employees in China. The hypotheses were tested with path analyses.FindingsDevelopmental leadership exerts a positive influence on employees’ FSB and a negative impact on FAB through learning goal orientation (LGO). Additionally, leaders’ high performance expectations (LHPE) not only strengthen the positive effects of developmental leadership on FSB but also intensify its weakening effects on FAB.Originality/valueThe findings enrich current understanding by associating developmental leadership with employees’ FSB/FAB, offering a new viewpoint on its positive impacts. This study also provides deeper insights into when the benefits of developmental leadership are intensified.

Advancing Household Robotics: Deep Interactive Reinforcement Learning for Efficient Training and Enhanced Performance

The market for domestic robots—made to perform household chore, is growing as these robots relieve people of everyday responsibilities. Domestic robots are generally welcomed for their role in easing human labour, in contrast to industrial robots, which are frequently criticised for displacing human workers. But before these robots can carry out domestic chores, they need to become proficient in a number of minor activities, such as recognizing their surroundings, making decisions, and picking up on human behaviours. Reinforcement learning, or RL, has emerged as a key robotics technology that enables robots to interact with their environment and learn how to optimize their actions in order to maximize rewards. However, the goal of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DeepRL) is to address more complicated, continuous action-state spaces in real-world settings by combining RL with Neural Networks (NNs). The efficacy of DeepRL can be further augmented through interactive feedback, in which a trainer offers real-time guidance to expedite the robot's learning process. Nevertheless, the current methods have drawbacks, namely the transient application of guidance that results in repeated learning under identical conditions. Therefore, we present a novel method to preserve and reuse information and advice via Deep Interactive Reinforcement Learning (DeepIRL)—it utilizes a persistent rule-based system. This method not only expedites the training process but also lessens the number of repetitions that instructors will have to carry out. This study has the potential to advance the development of household robots and improve their effectiveness and efficiency as learners.

Generalization Memorization Machine with Zero Empirical Risk for Classification

Classifying the training data correctly without over-fitting is one of the goals in machine learning. In this paper, we propose a general Generalization Memorization Machine (GMM) to obtain zero empirical risk with better generalization. The widely applied loss-based learning models can be extended by the GMM to improve their memorization and generalization abilities. Specifically, we propose two new models based on the GMM, called Hard Generalization Memorization Machine (HGMM) and Soft Generalization Memorization Machine (SGMM). Both HGMM and SGMM obtain zero empirical risks with well generalization, and the SGMM further improves the capacity and applicability of HGMM. The optimization problems in the proposed models are quadratic programming problems and could be solved efficiently. Additionally, the recently proposed generalization memorization kernel and the corresponding support vector machine are the special cases of our SGMM. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed HGMM and SGMM both on memorization and generalization.

Students' perspectives of a hybrid learning system in Kazakhstani higher education: A case study

Hybrid learning is a relatively new approach in Kazakhstan's educational system. The transition to a new format necessitates a significant amount of effort and restructuring at the universities. The problems of researching the advantages and disadvantages of implementing this kind of instruction in the classroom are very relevant. The study's goal was to investigate students' attitudes towards implementing a hybrid learning environment. A qualitative method of data analysis was applied in the study. 1,186 students participated in hybrid learning at various universities in Kazakhstan. According to the findings, students value the flexibility and convenience of attending classes remotely through a two-way video conference. However, the findings also indicate that this new learning environment faces several pedagogical and technological challenges. These findings emphasize the importance of assisting students in understanding hybrid learning resources and goals thereby creating opportunities for success in hybrid learning. Policymakers in education can use it as a guide to develop policies related to crisis management or inclusive education as well as curriculum documents and resources for hybrid learning.

Role of Social and Self-Regulated Learning in School Contexts

Self- and socially regulated learning skills allow students to develop soft skills or competencies to tackle learning tasks. Self-regulated learning skills help students set learning goals, choose learning strategies, monitor their progress, and control their affective and motivational states when working on learning tasks. Socially regulated learning skills help students to use self-regulated learning practices recognizing the reciprocal influence of other people, technology, and environment, creating opportunities for joint regulation of learning. However, it is still not clear how social regulation of learning relates to self-regulated learning. The purpose of this article is to describe the constructs of self- and socially regulated learning, report on the results of recent research studies of their components, introduce a theoretical model of the self- and socially regulated learning, discuss the results of our studies, and identify the areas for future research. The scientific contribution of this article is an attempt to compare the scholarly evidence and theoretical views of Russian and foreign researchers in order to understand the state of research of self- and socially regulated learning in authentic school contexts.

Adaptation of Academic Self-Efficacy Measuring Tools using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Students with higher self-efficacy, are more self-confident, can set higher learning goals, and are better at problem solving, which may lead to better academic performance. This research aims to adapt and validate The Scale of Sources of Self-efficacy in Mathematics (SSSEM) in the context of Indonesian culture and language and test its reliability in high school students. The research sample consisted of 200 students from six high schools in the city of Palangkaraya. All items were analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The research results show the construct validity of the instrument with the index criterion value 𝜒2 = 170.749 p = 0.97 or (p-value > 0.05) meaning there is a match between the data and the model, then the RMSEA value = .028 (≤ 0.09), CMIN/DF = 1.154 (≤ 2.00), GFI = 0.920, CFI = 0.994, TLI = 0.993 and AGFI = 0897 (≥ 0.90). The results of the reliability analysis show that the scale has an adequate level of reliability. Then the construct reliability has good reliability with coefficient values for each dimension of 0.89 0.88, 0.89 and 0.87. Cronbach's Alpha value is above 0.70. This adapted scale had a good fit with empirical data after several modifications. Therefore, the Indonesian version of the SSSEM can be used as a valid and reliable measuring tool to measure self-efficacy in high school students in Indonesia.

Powtoon Media for the Understanding of Deaf Mathematics

This study aims to determine the role of Powtoon animation media on the understanding of deaf students in mathematical arithmetic operations. This study uses mixed methods so that the data is generated from the observation process described in percentages. The subjects of this study were 3 deaf students of class VIII SMP-LB. The research data collection used observation sheet instruments, test questions instruments, and open questionnaires. The results showed that the animated Powtoon media played a very good role in the interests, attitudes, motivation, and involvement of students in the learning process that increased students’ understanding abilities. The research is expected to contribute in creating an innovative learning process with the help of visual media for deaf students. It is hoped that there will be more attractive visual media, so that the deaf students can achieve their learning goals in the process of learning mathematics.
 Keywords: deaf, powtoon media, understanding mathematics.

Emancipatory education in the Ecuadorian context: a systematic literature review

Emancipatory education is presented as an educational methodology that promotes the empowerment of students to achieve concrete learning goals. In this context, this paper presents a detailed literature review on the subject, to know the characteristics and global trends in emancipatory education. For this, the PRISMA methodology of the bibliographic review was used, and published works from the years 2023 and 2024 were selected, in Scopus databases. The main findings reveal that the topic of the study had a great emphasis in 2023 and that the main countries conducting research in this area are the United States and Brazil. This indicates that emancipatory education continues to be an issue of great international importance and therefore, it is necessary to develop a Latin American initiative.

Goal Setting and Goal Orientation as Predictors of Learning Satisfaction and Online Learning Behavior in Higher Education Blended Courses


 
 This study investigated how goal setting and goal orientation are related to student learning behavior and engagement in an online learning environment, and how learning behavior, goal setting, and goal orientation are related to student satisfaction with the course they are studying. A total of 882 students from 76 different courses participated in this study, which used both self-reported data from a questionnaire and indicators based on digital traces in an online learning environment. The results of multilevel regression analyses showed that student ability to set learning goals (i.e., goal setting) was positively related to both student learning satisfaction and student learning behavior. Intrinsic goal orientation positively predicted student satisfaction with the course. Extrinsic goal orientation did not show a significant effect in any of the observed relationships. The analyzed indicators of student learning behavior showed no statistically significant association with learning satisfaction. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed, and limitations and directions for future research are suggested.
 

Practical Exploration of Myanmar Language Teaching Model in Applied-Oriented Universities under the OBE Concept: A Case Study of the Jewelry School of West Yunnan University of Applied Sciences

The outcome-oriented OBE (Outcome-Based Education) concept has far-reaching implications in the exploration of new curriculum teaching models in Applied-Oriented Universities. It helps teachers and students clarify learning goals, highlights the cultivation of practical application abilities, and provides personalized learning and evaluation methods. This concept has significant guiding value for improving students’ Myanmar language ability and application skills. This article takes the Jewelry School of West Yunnan University of Applied Sciences as an example to analyze the current situation of Myanmar language teaching in this institution. Through specific practical approaches such as clarifying teaching goals, optimizing teaching content, exploring diversified teaching methods, and reforming evaluation methods, the Myanmar language courses under the OBE concept are discussed as teaching models.

Arabic Language Implementation Viewed from A Social and Cultural Perspective at Maitreechit Withayattan School Bangkok

This research explores the implementation of Arabic language learning at the Maitreechit Withayattan School in Bangkok, Thailand. With a population dominated by a Muslim minority, this research aims to understand the challenges and potential for developing Arabic language education in this context. The research background reflects Thailand's uniqueness as an ASEAN country with a Muslim minority that is recognized and regulated by national law. The focus of the research is on issues of student interest, teaching methods, hidden learning goals, and the role of teachers in the learning process. The research method uses modern ethnographic studies at Maitrechit Wittaayathan School Bangkok. Research findings show that students' low interest is influenced by less innovative teaching methods and a need for more variety in learning. Hidden learning goals, which include students' political aspirations to support the position of Muslims in government, become a complex dynamic in Arabic language learning. The importance of Arabic in the government context was a significant finding, with students being taught that Arabic language skills can provide a competitive advantage in careers in the government sector. Despite challenges regarding student interest, school administrators' high enthusiasm for Arabic creates the potential for solid collaboration between education and religious identity development. Implications for Arabic language education management include the need for more exciting learning strategies, teacher training, and collaboration with external parties to increase the relevance of learning to careers. This research provides in-depth insight into the complex dynamics of Arabic language education in Muslim minority school environments in Thailand. However, it should be acknowledged that the research findings are limited to one school in Bangkok, and generalization of the findings must be done cautiously.

Solutions for Independent Goal Setting and Implementation of Primary School Students Fostering the Competence of Learning to Learn

The paper analyzes what personal goals primary school pupils are able to set on their own and how they achieve them in their decision-making process, thereby developing competence in learning to learn. In this work, the reader will be able to get acquainted with the theoretically grounded concept of the development of competence in learning and the possibilities of developing this competence in primary schools. In addition, it provides practical tools for the quality development of students’ learning competence, where students not only set personal goals and plan the steps to achieve them but also reflect on their experiences. An action research study analyzed the content of students’ (N = 50) personal learning diaries, discussing the students’ learning goals and the choices they make to achieve them and reflecting on the efforts made, and results were obtained in the development of the competence to learn. Based on the study findings, it is evident that fourth-grade students exhibit distinct patterns in individual goal setting, action-planning, and reflection processes. The analysis presented in this paper analyzes the general highlights and overarching themes and provides specific instances of goals, activity tasks, and reflections, offering insight into the cognitive processes of fourth-graders and their perceptions regarding the benefits and challenges of learning.

ENHANCING STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN STEAM THROUGH GAMIFICATION: A SWOT ANALYSIS

Teungku Chik Pante Kulu Secondary School examines how well gamification-based education strategies can be incorporated into STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education. The teacher uses Scratch to assess how gamified learning affects student performance and engagement in this particular educational setting using a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis approach. The study highlights the potential benefits of gamification in STEAM education, including increased student engagement, improved problem-solving abilities, and collaborative learning opportunities catered to the needs of Teungku Chik Pante Kulu students. It does, however, also recognize the difficulties, such as the necessity for teachers to have proper training and resources, as well as any potential issues with sustainability and long-term effects. Furthermore, by taking into account the particular cultural and contextual characteristics of Teungku Chik Pante Kulu Secondary School, the analysis identifies chances for utilizing gamification to satisfy particular learning goals and curriculum requirements. On the other hand, risks like technology limitations and the requirement for ongoing assistance and assessment systems are also covered concerning the educational setting. Through an examination of gamification in the unique context of Teungku Chik Pante Kulu Secondary School, this study provides insightful information for teachers and administrators looking to improve student engagement and performance in STEAM subjects through creative teaching strategies. With the ultimate goal of enabling educators to design engaging learning experiences, this study adds to the expanding corpus of research on successful teaching tactics catered to varied learning settings.

Generalized Weakly Supervised Object Localization.

With the goal of learning to localize specific object semantics using the low-cost image-level annotation, weakly supervised object localization (WSOL) has been receiving increasing attention in recent years. Although existing literatures have studied a number of major issues in this field, one important yet challenging scenario, where the test object semantics may appear in the training phase (seen categories) or never been observed before (unseen categories), is still beyond the exploration of the existing works. We define this scenario as the generalized WSOL (GWSOL) and make a pioneering effort to study it in this article. By leveraging attribute vectors to associate seen and unseen categories, we involve threefold modeling components, i.e., the class-sensitive modeling, semantic-agnostic modeling, and content-aware modeling, into a unified end-to-end learning framework. Such design enables our model to recognize and localize unconstrained object semantics, learn compact and discriminative features that could represent the potential unseen categories, and customize content-aware attribute weights to avoid localizing on misleading attribute elements. To advance this research direction, we contribute the bounding-box manual annotations to the widely used AwA2 dataset and benchmark the GWSOL methods. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed learning framework and each of the considered modeling components.

Learning path recommendation with multi-behavior user modeling and cascading deep Q networks

An online learning platform has become an important channel for learners to obtain knowledge due to its easy access and rich resources. In order to meet online learners' short-term needs with frequent changes and long-term learning goals during learning process, this paper focuses on user modeling and learning path recommendation, and we propose a new method for learning path recommendation through multi-behavior user modeling and cascading deep Q networks (cDQN-PathRec). Our model uses a knowledge graph-based multi-behavior transformer architecture for users’ state modeling, in which a learner's knowledge background, learning styles, learning settings, and learning preferences are taken into consideration. We use a cascading DQN with a two-level reward function to help an agent converge towards a balanced overall and local optima and to generate a learning path recommendation. Comprehensive experiments on two real-world online learning datasets demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed cDQN-PathRec method.

Teaching Fin Regeneration Using a Dominant Negative Receptor.

Rising in popularity as a model organism in the classroom, zebrafish have numerous characteristics that make them ideal for teaching. In this study, we describe an experiment that helps students better understand the concept of tissue regeneration and the genes that control it. This experiment utilizes a dominant negative transgene for fgfr1 and allows students to observe the consequences of its activation. The first part of the laboratory is hands-on, and includes details of the amputation of caudal fins, heat shocking, general fish care, and visual observations. Over the course of a week, students observed the differences between the activated and unactivated transgene in the zebrafish. The second part was literature based, in which students tried to determine which gene is responsible for inhibiting regeneration. This encouraged students to sharpen their skills of deductive reasoning and critical thinking as they conduct research based on the information they receive about dominant negative receptors and transgenes. Having both a hands-on and critical thinking component in the laboratory helped synthesize the learning goals and allowed students to actively participate.