Individual Context Research Articles

Bridging Success through Comparative: Uncovering the Motivation Potential of Improving Students' Writing, Individually vs Collaboratively

Writing effectively is crucial in upper secondary education, yet many students face challenges with vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Educators can assist by incorporating both individual and collaborative writing methods. This study investigates the impact of these writing activities on students' writing skills and examines the role of student motivation. Using a causal-comparative method, the study involved 35 tenth-grade students from SMA Negeri 2 Tambang, Indonesia. A questionnaire based on Dörnyei (1994) indicators assessed student motivation levels, while a descriptive writing test evaluated their writing skills. Writing samples were scored using an analytical scoring rubric, and a two-way ANOVA analyzed the effects of motivation levels on writing skills in both individual and collaborative contexts. Results showed a significant interaction between the type of writing activity and motivation level, with a significance level of 0.006. The findings indicate that collaborative writing activities significantly enhance writing skills, while motivation levels do not have a substantial impact on writing performance. Educators are encouraged to blend individual and collaborative writing activities to optimize students' writing skill development. Individual writing supports personal reflection and growth, whereas collaborative writing promotes peer learning and idea exchange.

Informing creation of the FEEDS Toolkit to support parent-delivered interventions for eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties in young children with neurodisability: intervention use by neurodevelopmental diagnosis and healthcare professional role

BackgroundThe FEEDS (Focus on Early Eating, Drinking and Swallowing) study focused on interventions used to improve feeding for children with neurodisability and eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties (EDSD), and the...

What Lies Beneath: Critical Contexts in Medical Education Research.

Medical education is a complex field involving interacting contexts of settings, individuals, and institutional culture. Understanding how contexts interact is important for the applicability of research findings. In this article, the authors describe contexts highlighted in this year's Research in Medical Education articles related to being and belonging, the definition of medical education, assessment and feedback, and learning and climate. The authors summarize the various contexts and examine implications for the medical education research community.

Love and pedagogy in doctoral supervision: a duoethnography navigating complex positionings within decolonising contexts

ABSTRACT This article contributes to understandings of how decolonising, hypercomplex contexts can entail challenges and opportunities for supervisors and supervisees, including personal and professional growth, socio-cultural dis-/connections, economic or health-related concerns. Increased complexities of supervisory positionings and relationships are influenced by changing institutional requirements, pluralistic understandings of knowledge, and workloads, recently compounded by the exponential impacts of a global pandemic. We offer insights from engagement in a critical, collaborative dialogue and elaborate on our process, contributing a structured example within the methodology of duoethnography, an approach that foregrounds reflections as resources in critical inquiry. We structured our systematic analysis and reflections about the supervision process by explicitly locating and sharing subjective experiences from each of our positionings within intersecting individual, institutional and structural contexts. Collaborative and ethnographic methodologies are used increasingly in educational research, and we contend that this approach can offer valuable insights for ongoing personal and professional development as educators, learners and researchers. We consider affective dimensions of supervision, recalling Freire’s ‘pedagogy of love’ and argue that collaborative analysis engendering vulnerability offers opportunities to empower and inform the increasingly complex lives and work of supervisors and supervisees.

The ‘Paths to everyday life’ (PEER) trial – a qualitative study of mechanisms of change from the perspectives of individuals with mental health difficulties participating in peer support groups led by volunteer peers

BackgroundWorldwide, peers support has been shown to play a crucial role in supporting people with mental illness in their personal recovery process and return to everyday life. Qualitiative studies underpinning the mechanisms of change in peer support has been reviewed. However, the findings are primeraly based on the perspectives of peer support workers employed in mental health services. Thus, qualitiative studies elucidating the mechanisms of change from the recipient perspective in mental health service independent civil society settings are higly needed to further contribute to the evidence of peer support. The ‘Paths to every day life’ (PEER) is evaluated in a randomized trial and is substantiated by qualitative studies investigating the experiences of PEER from the perspectives of the recipients and the facilitators of peer support. The purpose of this qualitative study underpinned by critical realism was to substantiate the PEER intervention program theory by gaining deeper insight into the change mechanisms and elaborate how, when, and under what circumstances the peer support groups potentially had or did not have an impact on personal recovery from the perspectives of the recipients of peer support.MethodsEleven individuals were interviewed at the end of the ten-week group course. The semi-structured realist-inspired interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The analysis was guided by reflective thematic analysis and through an abductive framework based on the program theory. Data were coded and analysed in Nvivo software.ResultsFour overarching themes were identified that informed and nuanced the program theory: 1) Connectedness as a prerequisite for engagement; 2) A sense of hope by working out new paths to recovery; 3) Seeing new sides of oneself; and 4) Sprout for change.ConclusionsThis study substantiates the program theory and the quantitative results of the PEER trial by elaborating on mechanisms that were felt to be essential for the personal recovery process from the perspectives of the recipients of the group-based peer support. In addition, the study points out that the opportunities to act in everyday life depended on individual context and where the group participants were on their recovery journey.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04639167.

Culturally adaptive healthcare for people with a learning disability from an ethnic minority background: A qualitative synthesis

AbstractBackgroundPeople with a learning disability face health inequality. Those from ethnic minority backgrounds with a learning disability face ‘double discrimination’ as members of two marginalised groups.MethodsThis codesigned review consolidated the evidence on the healthcare experiences of individuals and their carers from ethnic minority backgrounds with a learning disability. Three electronic databases were searched for UK studies from January 1990 to June 2022. Qualitative data from 28 studies were analysed using thematic framework analysis.FindingsThere was an overarching theme of ‘culture, choice and conflicts of control’, which related to the variable preferences for involvement in healthcare decisions. Cultural and individual factors impacted upon experience, with themes relating to ‘misunderstanding and mistrust’, ‘discrimination and stigma’, ‘isolation’, ‘feelings of shame and blame’, ‘burdens of care’ and ‘carer wellbeing’. Factors associated with healthcare‐seeking and care provision are described in the themes ‘triangles of care’, ‘community networks’ and ‘adaptive communication’.ConclusionsPeople from ethnic minority backgrounds with learning disability experience complex barriers which influence their healthcare experiences. Recognising and understanding discrimination can be difficult for people with a learning disability. Carers face challenges which influence their own wellbeing. Services need to be responsive to individual cultural contexts, while addressing potential conflicts of control.

Self-directed discovery in experiential learning: Innovating BSW curriculum design

This paper describes the process of redesigning the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) curriculum for the field education (practicum) courses. Insights from our experiences with self-directed learning in practicum and recognition of the ongoing crisis in field education including the continuous pressures on social work programs to find placements will be discussed. The structure for the community engaged practicum in the redesigned BSW program will guide students through learning experience about themselves and social work practice that is at once situated in both collective and individual contexts.

Framework and Initial Steps Towards Industry-Relevant Undergraduate Electrochemical Engineering Education

It is widely expected that the use of electrochemical processes will grow rapidly in the coming decade. This growing industry requires a commensurate workforce. However, currently there is little educational infrastructure nationally to provide the number of well-educated incoming engineers and scientists that are needed. Using a design-based research approach, we have developed a framework for curricular development in undergraduate electrochemical engineering, and report here on the first author’s first course offering as the beginning of an iterative refinement process.Our education and research framework is outlined in Figure 1, which illustrates the four main aspects of the project – learning goals, tools, courses, and research – and shows how they are connected. There are two learning goals for students. First, the development of conceptual understanding of electrochemical topics enables them to develop the knowledge structures needed to access and operationalize the content in new contexts, such as in industrial practice. Second, engaging students in disciplinary practices provides an authentic experience of the sociotechnical work faced by engineers in industry. These goals will be realized using tools housed in the Concept Warehouse, an online instructional tool constructed by members of our research team. Tools include concept questions provided to students in class to develop their conceptual understanding, which will then be assessed using a concept inventory in development. An industrially-situated virtual laboratory will allow students to experience a realistic task that engages them in both knowledge practices and social practices of professional engineers. Instructors at a range of institutions, beginning with Tufts University, will teach electrochemical engineering courses. They will design the courses according to how they best fit their individual context, but all courses will incorporate the two learning goals and will be supported by the three tools. The project will be supported by a comprehensive research plan that contains two studies – an interview study and a design-based research (DBR) study. First, we plan to interview practicing engineers in the electrochemistry industry to understand both the conceptual knowledge they rely on (for development of the concept inventory) and disciplinary practices they use in their work (to inform the industrially-situated virtual laboratory). Second, using a DBR approach, we will utilize multiple data sources to both improve the instructional design of these courses and develop transferable knowledge about the development of conceptual understanding and disciplinary practices using these instructional tools.In this work, we report on the development of the framework and on the electrochemical engineering course developed and delivered in Fall 2024 by the first author, a post-doctoral fellow at Tufts University, as a pilot. This was also the first author’s first solo course delivery, and general insights on this process will also be shared. The course was offered to 13 students, of whom 8 were undergraduate chemical engineering students, one was a master’s student, and 4 were PhD students. The first half of the course centered electrochemistry fundamentals, using Electrochemical Engineering by Thomas Fuller and John Harb as a reference text, and emphasized conceptual understanding using concept questions and culminating in an entirely conceptual mid-term exam. In the second half of the course, students explored practical applications of electrochemistry, supported by conversations with industry professionals, culminating in a final project on an application of interest for each student.Finally, we discuss next steps in this project, in particular ongoing development of a virtual laboratory and concept inventory, as well as inter-institutional collaboration. Figure 1

Developing a framework for equitable media literacy practice: Voices from the field

Abstract The article presents a framework for equitable media literacy practice (EMLP), which changes structure, action, and agency in service of an imagined and inclusive future and makes space for equitable civic and educational experiences. We derived this framework from 28 in-depth interviews with media literacy practitioners across the US. We asked these practitioners what EMLP would mean to them and what challenges and opportunities for EMLP emerge within their individual and organizational contexts. Interviewees acknowledge that equity is difficult to achieve given daily individual, community, and social concerns but is an important component of civic engagement.

Intersectionality of gender and age (‘gender*age’): a critical realist approach to explaining older women’s increased homelessness

ABSTRACT Older single women in Australia are increasingly experiencing homelessness. Age and gender seem inherently related to single older women’s housing crises, but no attempt has been made to account for the causes of their homelessness through an intersectional lens. This article develops a complex and contingent causal explanation of the structures and mechanisms implicated in growing homelessness for this group. We demonstrate an original use of critical realist-informed intersectional analysis which is characterized by stratified social ontology and emergence. We theoretically reframe existing literature to demonstrate how the intersectional causal powers of gender and age (‘gender*age’) discrimination and conventional life course experiences intersect to generate financial precarity for older women. Our causal model explains how economic insecurity, structural and individual contexts, and crisis events interact, challenging older women’s housing security and precipitating first-time homelessness later in life.

"I Felt Dirty in a Way a Shower Wouldn't Fix": A Qualitative Examination of Sexual Trauma-Related Mental Contamination.

Trauma-related mental contamination (MC) is a distressing sense of dirtiness that arises absent a contaminant following a traumatic event. Existing work has linked MC to more severe posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms among individuals with sexual trauma histories and has begun to characterize some aspects of the experience of trauma-related MC. However, a more nuanced understanding of how individuals experience and respond to trauma-related MC is lacking. The present study explored lived experiences of trauma-related MC among a sample of 34 women with sexual trauma histories using semi-structured qualitative interviews. Women were asked about MC across several domains, including somatic locations where trauma-related MC is experienced; triggers for trauma-related MC; and engagement in MC-related coping strategies, including washing behaviors. Women reported experiencing trauma-related MC in various bodily locations (internal, external, and both). Both overtly trauma-related triggers (e.g., trauma-relevant people or words, sexual contact) and non-trauma-related triggers (e.g., sweating, being around other people) were mentioned. Women also reported experiencing a variety of emotions alongside trauma-related MC (e.g., disgust, shame, anger) and using a range of strategies to cope with trauma-related MC, including washing behaviors, distraction, and substance use. Findings suggest that triggers for and responses to trauma-related MC are heterogeneous. Future work should explore the role of context in individuals' experiences of and responses to trauma-related MC, as well as whether experiences of trauma-related MC may differ by gender or across settings. Increased understanding of trauma-related MC may inform efforts to more readily and effectively identify and target MC in clinical practice.

Metajudgment: Metatheories and Beliefs About Good Judgment Across Societies.

We introduce the concept of "metajudgment" to provide a framework for understanding folk standards people use to navigate everyday decisions. Defined as a set of metatheories and beliefs about different types of judgment, metajudgment serves as the guiding principle behind the selection and application of reasoning strategies in various contexts. We review emerging studies on metajudgment to identify common dimensions, such as intuition versus deliberative reasoning and rationality versus reasonableness. These dimensions are examined across multiple societies. The reviewed findings illuminate an apparent paradox: Universal adaptive challenges produce largely consistent folk standards of judgment across cultures, whereas situational demands drive systematic within-person variability. Metajudgment offers a comprehensive framework for understanding diverse reasoning patterns in individual and cross-cultural contexts, calling for greater attention to the ecologically sensitive study of within-person judgmental variability.

The Role of Cultural Capital in Self-Reported Alexithymia and Empathy.

Sociocultural factors play an essential role in the way we process and express emotions. In this study, we asked whether Cultural Capital (CC)-the set of knowledge, cultural codes, and skills embodied by people-explains individual differences in two constructs measuring the capacity to understand our own emotions (alexithymia) or others' emotions (empathy). A pre-registered survey was conducted with an Italian sample ( = 475). Alexithymia and empathy were assessed respectively via the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Regression analyses confirmed a significant, although limited, role of CC in predicting alexithymia and empathy. People with higher CC showed lower Externally Oriented Thinking, higher Perspective Taking, and higher Fantasy. Self-reported alexithymia and empathy were also impacted by scores on a social desirability scale. These results suggest that i) Cultural Capital influences the ability to analyse one's own feelings and understand others' perspectives, and ii) social desirability threatens the validity of self-report measures of emotional abilities. Overall, this research underlines the importance of studying affective processes by considering an individual's cultural context.

Perceptions of Social Capital Before and After the Perpetration of Femicide, Homicide, and Other Serious Crimes: Evidence from Argentina.

Over the past two decades, femicide-the gender-based killing of women or girls-has become an issue of international concern. Yet relatively little data on perpetrators exist. Current research primarily focuses on individual risk factors with less attention on community and societal factors. We use a social capital approach to examine femicide by analyzing the extent to which crime perpetrators experience and perceive social punishment (exclusion) from their social networks. Using a quota sampling strategy, we administered a cross-sectional questionnaire to perpetrators of femicide (N = 71), male-male homicide (N = 73), and other serious crimes (N = 64) across four prisons in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Other crime perpetrators served as a control to the two lethal crime groups. Perceived social capital scores were assigned based on responses to two scales adapted from the World Bank's "Integrated Questionnaire for the Measurement of Social Capital." Before committing murder, femicide and homicide perpetrators' scores were not statistically different. Yet after the crime, femicide perpetrators retained significantly greater scores than homicide perpetrators. The perceived social capital scores of other crime perpetrators did not change after the commission of their crimes. As a secondary objective, we examined the individual and social contexts of femicide perpetrators. Most (85%) of the femicide perpetrators could name at least one other person in their social network whom they knew to be physically violent during disagreements with their partner, while 11% stated that "everyone" they knew used violence during disagreements. Although the penalty for committing femicide and homicide is ostensibly equivalent-a life sentence of 50 years-we found that the informal social punishment femicide perpetrators perceived is less severe than that experienced by homicide perpetrators. These data indicate a lack of social punishment for femicide, compared to other crimes, showing social legitimization of the crime. These findings support the development of community-level interventions to prevent femicide.

Dairy and Headaches: What is the Connection?

Headaches represent a prevalent and burdensome health condition, affecting individuals of all ages worldwide. While dietary factors have been implicated in headache pathophysiology, the association between dairy consumption and headaches remains controversial and inadequately understood. This comprehensive review systematically examines the existing literature to elucidate the relationship between dairy intake and headaches, addressing methodological challenges, potential biases, and gaps in the current knowledge. A thorough search of electronic databases identified relevant observational studies, clinical trials, and mechanistic investigations exploring the impact of dairy consumption on headache incidence, frequency, severity, and duration. Methodological considerations, including study design, measurement of exposure and outcome variables, confounding factors, and sources of bias, were critically evaluated to assess the strength of evidence and validity of findings. Despite heterogeneity across studies, emerging evidence suggests a complex and multifaceted relationship between dairy intake and headaches, influenced by individual characteristics, dietary patterns, headache subtype, and study context. While some studies report a positive association between dairy consumption and headaches, others indicate no significant effect or potential therapeutic benefits of dairy restriction. Mechanistic insights suggest plausible biological mechanisms, including neuroinflammatory pathways, neurotransmitter modulation, vascular effects, and gut-brain interactions, which may mediate the observed associations. Future research directions encompass longitudinal studies, mechanistic investigations, stratified analyses, randomized controlled trials, and exploration of the gut microbiota to further elucidate the underlying mechanisms and inform evidence-based dietary recommendations for headache management. This integrative review underscores the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and personalized approaches to address the complex interplay between diet, headaches, and overall health.

Envisioning quality education for sustainability transformation in teacher education: perspectives from an international dialogue on Sustainable Development Goal 4

PurposeThe explanatory study aimed to understand the global perspective of quality education and describe transformative strategies that empower teacher educators and equip the education system and future teachers to act as change agents by fostering learning processes that support students towards a sustainable future.Design/methodology/approachThe explanatory study used a descriptive qualitative design. The researchers conducted four semi-structured group interviews of the 23 participants including pre- and in-service teachers, teacher educators, and policymakers from Austria, Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States, and South Africa during the Teach4Reach 1.0 project on SDG4. The inductive thematic analysis of the data was guided by Kuckartz’s six-phase approach for constructing data-driven categories.FindingsThe study identified SDG4 as pivotal in supporting the overall UN Agenda 2030. Furthermore, three distinct themes unequivocally emerged and were developed concerning the imperative nature of envisioning transformation for sustainability: (1) collaboration, (2) well-being and context of individuals, and (3) strategies for skill development.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the qualitative nature of the study, the participants’ comprehensive understanding of the SDGs and their perceptions remained conditional to methodological subjectivity.Practical implicationsThe study enabled a dialogue between educational stakeholders (pre- and in-service teachers, teacher educators, and policymakers), whereby an awareness and encouragement of SDG4 regarding quality education and training of quality future teachers occurred. A further implication includes increased collaboration and dialogue regarding the well-being of individuals (educational stakeholders), the context of individuals, and strategies for skill development.Originality/valueThe study elaborates on reaching the SDGs and identifies themes essential for sustainability transformation in teacher education. It also highlights further research and clarity about the responsibilities of educational stakeholders for quality education, for instance, (1) how to increase the supply of quality teachers by focusing on collaboration, well-being, and the contexts of individuals and (2) how value-embedded skills can support quality education for sustainability.

Cultural-Feminist Tendencies in Turkish Society in the Example of Filiz Bi̇ngölçe’s Creativity

In Turkish society, feminism in themes of women’s emancipation and women’s rights began to develop more intensively in literary and artistic creativity in the second half of the 20th century and continues to varying degrees until today. In addition to literary works, sociological studies, and various forms of artistic creativity expressing feminist content, a unique example of a specific female expression appeared in a specialized dictionary of female jargon. The subject of this paper is the lexicographic and literary analysis of social contribution of the author Filiz Bingolče who devoted a significant part of her work to pointing out the position of Turkish women in a traditional society, which requires them to be humble and obedient wives and mothers, which represents a challenge for new generations of young women who are living in a time of accelerated scientific and technological developments while at the same time trying to find their place as respected individuals in society. Using the method of analyzing the selected corpus of the author’s significant work, which consists of the “Dictionary of Feminine Jargon” and “Threnody of Murdered Women”, our goal is to present to the scientific public the author’s feminist struggle and her contribution to the understanding of the intimate and hidden female being in a traditionally male environment. We can conclude that according to Turkish women, even in the modern era, the constraints of traditions cannot be easily unchained and that the battle for equal existence continues both on a wider social scale and in the individual context of women as individuals.

Analysis of the acceptance of E-learning platform (SIDEK-Edu) among high school students with UTAUT2-TOE approach: implications for digital learning

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the acceptance factors of e-learning among students in high schools. In this study, researchers used a combination of system acceptance models, namely UTAUT2 and TOE. The UTAUT2 framework is used to explore technology acceptance from the context of individual behavior, while TOE is used to understand technology acceptance from the organizational context based on the perspective of students, as it results in a better choice to anticipate the relationship between the acceptance of technological innovation in high schools.Design/methodology/approachThis study used quantitative methods. The sample in this study amounted to 212 people who were high school students who had just tried using SIDEK-Edu. This study uses Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze the measurement model and structural model with WarpPLS version 6 software.FindingsBased on the results of the tests carried out, out of a total of 16 hypotheses, 6 hypotheses were accepted and 10 hypotheses were rejected. Research findings from the individual context show that performance expectancy, social influence, and learning value have a positive and significant effect on behavioral intention to use SIDEK-Edu innovation technology. Furthermore, judging from students' perceptions in the organizational context, only relative advantage has a positive and significant effect on behavioral intention, while compatibility, ICT resources, and competitive pressure do not.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of this research are that this research uses a homogeneous sample of high school students, this research only focuses on the high school level, this research is limited to the dominant variables in measuring the acceptance of SIDEK-Edu innovation technology.Practical implicationsInput to the high school, both the organization, teachers, and also decision makers in the organization. This makes it easier for all parties to design and implement the system they have so that it is as expected, In addition, the existence of SIDEK-Edu also provides a new learning method experience in learning accounting which is very beneficial for high school students, especially vocational high school.Originality/valueSIDEK-Edu is a new innovative technology to research and is an LMS that focuses on accounting learning (theory room and practice room in one learning media). In addition, the model used in the study is a combination of models (UTAUT2-TOE) to indentify e-learning acceptance.

Sistem Pendidikan Agama Islam di Dunia Barat: Sebuah Tinjauan Kualitatif

Today, in western society, religion is more prominent in an individual sense. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how religious education can be implemented in Islamic communities by looking at events occurring in the western world today. Even though capitalism and secularism continue to try to expand their influence throughout the world, humans still try to maintain the religious feeling that has been there since birth. Even in an individual context, religious attitudes and behavior begin to take on new meaning. Of course, the state of society and the serious problems facing humanity play an important role in this. Because religion has always been on of the strongest sources of motivation for individuals an society, and will continue to be so. In addition, the increasing diversity in western society and the development of democratic rights and freedoms throughout the world are also factors that positively influence the development of religion.

How context shapes international English teachers’ TPACK in reflective writings in online training

This study explores how the individual contexts of 146 international English teachers influence their TPACK developed in a Global Online Course (GOC). Employing an explanatory sequential design, the study investigates how teachers evaluated a technologically mediated collaborative writing task in ways revealing their likelihood of TPACK adoption in future pedagogy. Our findings show that teachers from different countries described similar intersections of TPACK shaped by micro situational contexts, seen in evaluations of classroom actions and practices. However, discourse analysis indicates that teachers from different regions differed in evaluating their own and students’ behavior and reactions to TPK, with some teachers not maximizing the affordances of Google Docs. This study provides new avenues for directly understanding how context shapes teachers’ forms of TPACK via analyzing reflective writing.