Important 21st Century Skills Research Articles

Profile Analysis of Creative Thinking Skills and Sustainability Awareness of Senior High School Students in Polewali Mandar Regency

21st century skills are currently very important in the demands of student learning. However, some previous studies have shown that students have low levels of 21st century skills development. One of the important 21st century skills is creative thinking skills. In addition, in the current era, students must also have an awareness of sustainability, given the many natural phenomena that occur in their lives. This study aims to analyze the profile of the level of creative thinking skills and sustainability awareness in one of the senior high schools in Polewali Mandar Regency. This research is quantitative descriptive research conducted by giving a questionnaire of creative thinking skills and sustainability awareness. The questionnaire instrument was made as many as 15 statements, each of which had four alternative answers. The creative thinking skills questionnaire was made using four indicators namely fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration, while sustainability awareness uses three indicators namely behavioral and attitudinal awareness, emotional awareness and practical awareness. The results showed that the profile of creative thinking skills in each indicator was 65% fluency in the moderate category, 74% flexibility in the creative category, 67% originality in the moderate category and 67% elaboration in the moderate category. As for the profile of student sustainability awareness on each indicator, namely behavioral and attitudinal awareness of 68% with the category of habits that are being carried out with a sufficient level, emotional awareness of 78% with the category of habits that always occur, and practical awareness of 59% with the category of habits that are being carried out with a sufficient level.

Critical thinking in the language classroom – an important 21st century skill

Critical thinking in the language classroom – an important 21st century skill

Technology-enhanced self and peer assessment to support student agency during group projects

Teamwork and collaborative problem solving competencies are important 21st century skills and considered key graduate attributes for employability and lifelong learning (e.g., Csapó & Funke, 2017). For students to develop collaborative skills and competencies, group work and peer learning are widely-used approaches in higher education. Effective teamwork skills are often implicitly taught and notoriously disliked by students for many reasons including freeriding (social loafing), member dominance or disengagement. Well-functioning teams are underpinned by social-affective dimensions of group work such as respect for reviewers (Carless & Boud, 2018) and social cohesion (Bakhtiar et al., 2018). To positively influence group cohesion and develop team skills, formative peer evaluation of team members’ contributions have been shown to effectively support student agency in this process (Stenalt 2021, Sridharan et al., 2018). This case study explores the affordances of the digital peer review tools Feedback Fruits and Peer Assess Pro to facilitate feedback processes for the successful completion of high-stakes capstone group projects. Bachelor of Science students engage with anonymous team member evaluations of task completion as well as self-evaluation of team skills. To aid a major curriculum transformation at our university towards relational pedagogies, we embarked on an iterative and deliberate approach to scaling peer feedback. The approach aligns with educational design research integrating research and design processes for theoretical and practical outcomes (McKenney & Reeves, 2012, p. 76). Specifically, we aimed to understand 1) the student perception of technology facilitated peer feedback as learning for improved outcomes and raised self-awareness of teamwork skills, and 2) provide a non-threatening environment that enabled personal and collective agency for students as providers and receivers of feedback underpinned by Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory and human agency. Applying Bandura’s notion to group work, student agency can be enacted through a learner’s capacity to self-reflect on own capabilities (personal agency) as well as socially coordinated and interdependent efforts towards desired outcomes (collective agency). Questionnaire data on self-regulation (N=42) confirmed the usefulness of peer evaluation of team members’ contributions. However, only half of the students thought that peer feedback positively impacted group coherence and effectiveness such as time management, quality of submissions, or their own performance. Feedback and self-reflections on students’ own strengths and weaknesses were found to be empowering and generally supported team effectiveness. This was also evident from students’ comments (N=110) within the Feedback Fruits tool where students rated their self- and peer efficacy on six criteria: initiative, engagement, contribution, ideas and communication, focus, and harmony. We identified issues with timeliness and active engagement of the feedback received requiring further iterations of purposefully designed rubrics for intended learning outcomes. The impact of peer feedback on perceived self- and collective efficacy is highly complex and influenced by personal as well as sociocultural values (Bandura, 2001, p. 14). Our emphasis on feedback as a learning-centred process under controlled conditions (technology enhanced with clear rubrics) has shown that students can make the information work for themselves and their teams to improve high-stakes group project outcomes. Importantly, in agreement with Molloy et al. (2019), the development of feedback literacy helps to build academic skills, supports self-regulation and acknowledges feedback as a reciprocal process for future employability.

Changes in Assessment Modality in Saudi Higher Education: Lessons Learnt Post-COVID-19

This article examines the changes in academics' assessment practices, the contributing variables in response to the transition to the online modality during the pandemic, and the most important 21st-century skills that academic programs should assess post-COVID. The study used a descriptive methodology with both quantitative and qualitative analyses via survey-based research. A total of 225 faculty members from different academic clusters, of different educational levels, genders, and assessment-related work experiences completed the questionnaire. The findings of this research identified interesting shifts in the academics' assessment practices upon 100% transition to the online modality. Specifically, most of the academics modified their assessment plans by lowering the workload of assessment tasks while retaining the same assessment methods. Additionally, a higher weightage of marks was allocated to the use of alternative/ authentic assessment. There was a noticeable increase in the employment of online assessment methods such as examinations, oral exams, assignments, and participation. Furthermore, both the academic cluster and course type had impacts on the utilization of online assessment methods. Lastly, the study identified critical thinking and problem-solving skills, information and computer technology-related skills, and creativity as the top skills to be assessed post-COVID-19. By examining the academics' assessment practices in response to the complete transition to the online modality, this research contributes to the sustainability of best practices in online assessment modalities in higher education. Finally, this study provides recommendations for academics: collaborative assignments, valued as a high-impact assessment practice, should be used to embed and sustain learning. Additionally, academics should be encouraged to adopt authentic assessment methods for online assessment.

Creativity development through questioning activity in second language education

IntroductionCreativity is an important 21st-century skill that also plays an important role in second language use and development. This study examined the effects of creative pedagogy centered on student questioning activities for second language learners’ creativity, language proficiency, and questioning ability.MethodsIn the Japanese second language course, a creative activity intervention involving questioning activities was conducted for 81 university students. The students were taught how to ask higher-order questions, and they performed questioning activities and discussions about their questions after reading articles for eight lectures in 4 weeks.ResultsAfter the intervention, the quantity and quality of questions asked by participants increased and improved in the Questioning ability test. In the Creative thinking test, the three subscales of creative thinking (fluency, flexibility, and originality) improved after the intervention. In the Language proficiency test, there were also significant changes in vocabulary, grammar, and total scores after the intervention compared to before the intervention.DiscussionThe creative pedagogy significantly improved learners’ creativity, second language performance, and questioning ability, with a particularly positive impact on questioning ability, representing innovative thinking skills. The findings of this study not only contribute to future research on the development of creativity in second language instruction and deepen the exploration of the development of questioning ability for innovative thinking skills.

THE EFFECTS OF EXTENDED REALITY TECHNOLOGIES IN STEM EDUCATION ON STUDENTS’ LEARNING RESPONSE AND PERFORMANCE

STEM education is a crucial learning area to understand important concepts and gain 21st-century skills in different disciplines, explore scientific knowledge, and solve problems in daily life. However, research in STEM education is scarce on extended reality technologies. This research examined the effects of extended reality integrated STEM on students’ learning response and performance. A quasi-experimental research design was used to find answers to the research questions. The same lecture taught the experimental and control groups but preceded STEM experimental activities at a different time and with distinct instructional strategies and teaching aids. The participants were students in two classes at a university in Taiwan. The research results showed that students in the experimental group applying extended reality-integrated STEM had better learning responses than students in the control group using teaching materials. The results also showed that students in the experimental group learning with an extended reality system could apply the STEM curriculum knowledge acquired in classes and reflect the learning outcomes on the test assessment for better learning performance than students in the control group. In addition, the results revealed that good learning responses could enhance students’ higher learning performance. In light of the results, educational implications are made. Keywords: extended reality, STEM education, learning response, learning performance, experimental research

The Online Training on English for Teaching Science for Primary and Secondary School Teachers

Communication is one of the important 21st century skills to teach to the students. The ability of using international laguage supports the global communication. English is the official international language as the media of communication in all important fields. In order to enable good teaching English in science, teachers need to improve their competence. One of the ways is participating in trainings. In current global era, technology facilitates the trainings effectively. The online training of English for Teaching Science held by BBGP Jawa Barat that previously named PPPPTK IPA was attended by primary and secondary school teachers. It provided the positive impacts of improving knowledge and skill of using English especially in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The average score gain of pretest and posttest is 26.95. The available data is analysed by counting N-Gain to find out the significance of participants’ improvement and training effectivity. The result shows that the normalized value of the online training of English for Teaching Science is 0,598 indicating fair and the percentage 59,76% shows the quite effectiveness of fulfilment. However, there was only 60% of participants met all training sessions. The obstacles faced by participants were technicals and facility availabilities.
 
 Keywords: training, online, English, competence, effectiveness

The Task-Based Approach to Teaching Critical Thinking for Computer Science Students

Critical thinking (CT) is one of the most important 21st-century skills that employers believe will grow in prominence. However, many higher education (HE) graduates often lack it. This is also true for graduates in computer science (CS) and related disciplines, who need CT to drive social and organizational digitalization. There are a number of strategies for teaching CT. However, there is no evidence regarding how to effectively teach CT in CS. To address this gap, this study proposes an educational approach that aims to promote CT to the students of CS and related disciplines. An educational experiment using this approach was conducted in two modules with similar content. The written reflections of 11 students on their development in CT and the quantitative data of students’ self-assessments of their CT skills and dispositions before (N = 20) and after (N = 11) the experiment were analyzed. Priority was given to the qualitative data. The results of this study support the hypothesis that the proposed approach has a positive impact on the development of students’ perceived CT skills. They also show that this approach stimulates and promotes students’ ability to transfer CT to other tasks and domains and to other contexts and situations. However, the positive development of students’ CT dispositions could not be demonstrated in this study, which can be explained by the short duration of this intervention.

Cross-cultural critical thinking profiles: A multigroup latent profile analysis

BackgroundCritical thinking (CT) is an important 21st-century skill which enables individuals to actively use their knowledge and problem-solving skills to overcome life challenges. Educators, employers, and policymakers focus on CT skills to foster scientific thinking in education. In many countries, the development of CT skills has become a major component in education. CT skills training is offered to students based on the assumption that every student learns these skills in the same manner (i.e., homogeneity assumption). However, if heterogenous groups exist, accounting for this may provide more effective CT skills training. MethodsLatent profile analysis (LPA) was applied to the Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CCTT) with middle school students from South Korea (N = 520), Turkey (N = 996), and the United States (N = 1,599), separately, to determine if CT subpopulations exist for each country. Generalizability of the latent profiles across countries were investigated through a multi-group LPA similarity assessment. ResultsEmploying multiple fit criteria, a three-profile solution was identified for each country, and multi-group LPA analysis supported the similarity of the profiles across countries. ConclusionSimilar CT skill profiles across countries suggest that interventions for developing CT skills may be appropriate across educational contexts. Further work is needed to understand the mechanisms behind a student's CT profile and inform interventions or curricula for fostering CT skills. Future directions and limitations were discussed.

Demystifying visual design: a sequential analysis of design processes in infographic visual composition

New technologies have made the world highly visual, making visual literacy an important and relevant 21st-century skill. Educators and students are often required to produce visual communication products such as infographics, but they often lack the confidence and proficiency in visual design skills to create higher-quality infographics. We conducted a case study to examine how graphic and instructional designers perform the visual design process (i.e., a series of actions performed in composing an infographic, such as creating layout and alignment) when applying visual design principles. The goal was to investigate the visual design processes and identify differences in the strategies used to develop higher versus lower quality infographics rated across 18 design criteria. We identified the design actions and computed the transitional probability between the design actions to construct a process model for composing effective infographics. Results reveal that high-rated infographics were developed using a more systematic approach, starting by creating a well-planned structure (e.g., setting margins and columns) followed by setting spatial zones to map out a visual hierarchy prior to working on fonts, colors, and graphic elements, and using a consistent application of visual rules. These target processes were encapsulated into a five-stage Infographic Visual Design Model.

Using Minecraft as an educational tool for supporting collaboration as a 21st century skill

Collaboration is an important 21st century skill, and there is an increasing interest in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) in teaching and learning practices regarding the necessary knowledge and skills for 21st century learners. However, solutions are still lacking concerning how to enable learners to collaborate when working with a specific subject. This study developed and tested a learning design using Minecraft as an educational tool in math classes in higher education over a 2-year period. The research questions are: 1) How can Minecraft be used as an educational tool for learning subject-specific skills, and what are the implications for the development of 21st century skills? 2) How can social network analysis (SNA) and interaction analysis (IA) be used as a research methodology for analyzing the use of Minecraft as an educational tool for learning subject-specific skills? Data was analyzed using a mixed-methods approach, in which both a quantitative perspective through SNA and a qualitative perspective through IA were employed. Findings of the study: 1) suggested that using Minecraft for learning a subject-specific skill triggered collaborative learning processes, 2) facilitated the development of 21st century skills in math classes, and 3) combining SNA and IA as a research methodology for analyzing the use of Minecraft for learning subject-specific skills. These findings serve as a stepping stone for teachers and researchers to create learning designs that use a digital educational tool to facilitate collaborative learning and advance the literature on CSCL and educational practice.

Enhancing Students' Self-Efficacy in Creativity and Learning Performance in the Context of English Learning: The Use of Self-Assessment Mind Maps.

Creativity is an important 21st Century skill that enhances students’ ability to see new opportunities, confront new challenges, and adapt flexibly to the changing study, work and life situations. To nurture students with strong self-efficacy in creative thinking is as important as the contexts and strategies involved in its application. But how to develop sustainable interventions (without generating excessive workload for teachers) to promote students’ self-efficacy in creativity is a long-lasting challenge. This study presents a simple and relatively cost-effective instructional intervention, i.e., self-assessment mind maps, and examines its effect on students’ self-efficacy in creativity, self-efficacy in learning English, and academic performance in English language tests. A pretest-posttest non-equivalent design was adopted for the experimental and control groups of students in a Hong Kong primary school in 2021/22 Spring semester. The results show that students from the experimental group significantly outperformed those from the control group on self-efficacy in creativity after the intervention. However, the intervention did not improve students’ self-efficacy and test performance in English learning. The findings demonstrate the potential of self-assessment mind maps as an effective and sustainable instruction intervention to promote students’ higher-order abilities. This study sheds light on designing sustainable instructional strategies for empowerment in creativity.

ISLAMIC AND WESTERN PERSPECTIVES OF CRITICAL THINKING

Critical thinking (CT) has today gone beyond borders, beliefs, and disciplines. It is naturally connected to human nature as the quality of human life is determine by the quality of his thinking. Recent studies prove and common sense recognizes the need to embed the teaching of Critical thinking across the curriculum (Geertshuis & Albashiry, 2019). As valuable as this most important 21st century skills there is still growing misconception about its meaning, and applications moreover many consider Critical thinking as alien to Islamic teaching. This paper therefore, attempts to humbly give a substantive definition of Critical thinking from both the modern and Islamic perspectives, with particular reference to Paul Elder framework for Critical thinking and show the origin of critical thinking from the Islamic world view. It is quite troubling to find teachers of Islamic studies today not responsive to the contemporary global challenges (Nordin & Surajudeen, 2015; Rosnani, Suhailah, & Adesile, 2014; Sahin, 2018; Sciences et al., 2018). Islamic knowledge integration which is based on Tawhidic epistemology is increasingly attracting attention of intellectuals across the globe, especially as the prevalent view on critical thinking is mostly rooted from the modern secularistic system that emphasized on materialism and lead humanity to a narrow mindedness and focusing only to the things of the life here without given premium to the afterlife. Al-Qur’an being the compendium source that comprehensively contained all that human kind need to know about this life and the life hereafter, has left no stone unturned. Finding the Qur’anic perspective about thinking generally and Critical thinking particularly is not only relevant but indispensable. The knowledge of it will help in supplementing the limitations of the modern perspectives of critical thinking which give emphasis to the mundane while Islamic or Qur’an goes beyond that. Consequently, the authors attempt to analyse and discuss Critical thinking from the lens of Qur’an and show areas of similarities and differences between the modern and Quranic Paradigm with the hope that the humble efforts will clarify the much misconception on the central position of CT from the Islamic perspectives, also to serve as reference material to both teachers and students of knowledge.

21st Century Skills for Higher Education Students in EU Countries: Perception of Academicians and HR Managers

The main objective of the study is to analyze the EU labor market needs and expectations in 21st Century skills in five countries from the point of view of academicians and HR managers. The meta-analysis research method was used to analyze the current reports of Turkey, the Czech Republic, Italy, Bulgaria, and Spain. The research results and findings of each country report have been comparatively analyzed. The research sample consists of five national reports. All views obtained from 28 human resources managers and 14 academicians were examined. According to research results, HR managers have more practical and pragmatist expectations from graduates such as business intelligence, knowledge of foreign languages, and continuous learning. Academicians emphasize graduates’ data mining ability, which refers to critical thinking. While academicians give high priority to communication and problem-solving, HR managers prioritize collaboration/team working skills. Agility skills defined as the ability to adapt to the changing conditions, are put in the second place by HR managers. According to academicians and HR managers, the most important 21st Century skills, in five countries, are communication, collaboration, and self-direction. There exists a need for innovative teaching materials to teach aforementioned skills to higher education students.

Computational Thinking Assessment – Towards More Vivid Interpretations

Computational thinking (CT) is an important 21st-century skill. This paper aims at more useful CT assessment. Available evaluation instruments are reviewed; two generally accepted CT evaluation tools are selected for a comprehensive CT assessment: the CTt, a performance test, and the CTS, a self-assessment instrument. The sample comprises 202 high school students from German-speaking Switzerland. Concerning the CTt, Rasch-scalability is demonstrated. Utilizing the approach of the PISA studies, proficiency levels are formed that comprise tasks with specific characteristics that students are systematically able to master. This could help teachers to offer individual support to their students. In terms of the CTS, the original version is refined using confirmatory factor and measurement-invariance analysis. A latent profile analysis yielded four profiles, two of which are of particular interest. One profile comprises students with, on the one hand, moderate to high creative thinking ability, cooperativity, and critical thinking skills and, on the other hand, low algorithmic thinking ability. The second remarkable profile consists of students with particularly low cooperativity. Based on these strength and weakness profiles, teachers could offer support tailored to student needs.

Metacognitive and Metaemotional Training Strategies through the Nine-layer Pyramid Model of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence constitutes an important 21st century skill that impacts positively several areas of everyday life. It contains competencies that enhance the ability of other significant skills for self-development. The main purpose of this study is to present the way we can develop and improve our emotional intelligence based on the pyramid model and its nine layers. To achieve this goal, the paper seeks to address the following question: What are the metacognitive and metaemotional skills and strategies that can play a key role in developing, enhancing and improving emotional intelligence?Extensive reference is made to the skills that involved in each layer and have been identified as necessary and should be cultivated by the individual leading gradually to the higher levels of self-actualization and transcendence. Furthermore, we suggest some strategies in each layer that work auxiliary and supportive for the cultivation of the specific skills.Metacognitive and metaemotional skills and strategies are necessary to conquer the levels of emotional intelligence and to apply in a variety of contexts with the aim of developing emotional intelligence and self-improvement.

Literature Review on Co-Located Collaboration Modeling Using Multimodal Learning Analytics—Can We Go the Whole Nine Yards?

Collaboration is one of the important 21st-century skills. It can take place in remote or co-located settings. Co-located collaboration (CC) is a very complex process that involves subtle human interactions that can be described with indicators like eye gaze, speaking time, pitch, and social skills from different modalities. With the advent of sensors, multimodal learning analytics has gained momentum to detect CC quality. Indicators (or low-level events) can be used to detect CC quality with the help of measurable markers (i.e., indexes composed of one or more indicators) which give the high-level collaboration process definition. However, this understanding is incomplete without considering the scenarios (such as problem solving or meetings) of CC. The scenario of CC affects the set of indicators considered: For instance, in collaborative programming, grabbing the mouse from the partner is an indicator of collaboration; whereas in collaborative meetings, eye gaze, and audio level are indicators of collaboration. This can be a result of the differing goals and fundamental parameters (such as group behavior, interaction, or composition) in each scenario. In this article, we present our work on profiles of indicators on the basis of a scenario-driven prioritization, the parameters in different CC scenarios are mapped onto the indicators and the available indexes. This defines the conceptual model to support the design of a CC quality detection and prediction system.

Towards Automatic Collaboration Analytics for Group Speech Data Using Learning Analytics.

Collaboration is an important 21st Century skill. Co-located (or face-to-face) collaboration (CC) analytics gained momentum with the advent of sensor technology. Most of these works have used the audio modality to detect the quality of CC. The CC quality can be detected from simple indicators of collaboration such as total speaking time or complex indicators like synchrony in the rise and fall of the average pitch. Most studies in the past focused on “how group members talk” (i.e., spectral, temporal features of audio like pitch) and not “what they talk”. The “what” of the conversations is more overt contrary to the “how” of the conversations. Very few studies studied “what” group members talk about, and these studies were lab based showing a representative overview of specific words as topic clusters instead of analysing the richness of the content of the conversations by understanding the linkage between these words. To overcome this, we made a starting step in this technical paper based on field trials to prototype a tool to move towards automatic collaboration analytics. We designed a technical setup to collect, process and visualize audio data automatically. The data collection took place while a board game was played among the university staff with pre-assigned roles to create awareness of the connection between learning analytics and learning design. We not only did a word-level analysis of the conversations, but also analysed the richness of these conversations by visualizing the strength of the linkage between these words and phrases interactively. In this visualization, we used a network graph to visualize turn taking exchange between different roles along with the word-level and phrase-level analysis. We also used centrality measures to understand the network graph further based on how much words have hold over the network of words and how influential are certain words. Finally, we found that this approach had certain limitations in terms of automation in speaker diarization (i.e., who spoke when) and text data pre-processing. Therefore, we concluded that even though the technical setup was partially automated, it is a way forward to understand the richness of the conversations between different roles and makes a significant step towards automatic collaboration analytics.

Science competencies in kindergarten: a\xa0prospective study in the last year of kindergarten

Science competencies are considered an important 21st century skill. How this skill develops in childhood is, however, not well understood, and in particular little is known about how different aspects of science competencies are related. In this prospective study with 58 children aged 5–6 years, we investigate the development of two aspects of science competence: scientific thinking and science content knowledge. Scientific thinking was assessed with a comprehensive 30-item instrument; science content knowledge was measured with an 18-item instrument that assesses children’s knowledge with regard to melting and evaporation. The results revealed basic competencies in scientific thinking and science content knowledge at the end of kindergarten (46% and 49% correct, respectively, both different from chance). In mid-kindergarten, children performed better than chance on the assessment of science content knowledge (40% correct) but not on the assessment of scientific thinking (34% correct). Science content knowledge in mid-kindergarten predicted children’s science content knowledge at the end of kindergarten, as well as scientific thinking (both at 6 years). The opposite pattern did not hold: scientific thinking in mid-kindergarten did not predict science content knowledge at the end of kindergarten. Our findings show initial science competencies during kindergarten, and they suggest that children’s science content knowledge and scientific thinking are interrelated in a meaningful way. These results are discussed with respect to the different hypotheses that connect scientific thinking and science content knowledge as key features of science competencies. Implications for research and teaching are discussed.

Journal of Scientific Temper

The skill of analysing and evaluating information is very important in the 21st century knowledge economy. Scientific temper is such a bent of mind which helps one in this skill by thinking rationally and logically. Scientific temper is considered as one of the fundamental duties which is also identified as the most important 21st century skill in the National Education Policy, 2020. Hence, it is expected that the present youth comprising school and college should have scientific temper as per the need of the time. It is also important to know the level of scientific temper among our school and college going students so that required measures can be taken up to develop this skill. The present study is an attempt to find out the scientific temper among secondary school students. Descriptive survey method was adopted for this purpose. 272 IX standard students were taken as the sample from the schools of Vadodara District using convenient sampling method. A scale was prepared, validated and used by the researchers to measure the scientific temper. Mean, SD and Mann Whitney U test were used for statistical analysis of data. The findings of the study revealed an above average level of scientific temper among secondary school students as a whole and in all the eight components of scientific temper with high deviation. No significant differences were observed between the mean scores of secondary school boys and girls in scientific temper as a whole and in all the eight components.