While game-based learning is a growing field, city games remain an underresearched area. This study examined a custom-designed city game and the learning outcomes, motivation, and engagement of 49 visiting American university students in the city of Stockholm, Sweden. The game's design was grounded in game-based learning, self-determination theory, and situated cognition, featuring four puzzles designed to activate specific learning mechanisms: a logic puzzle (deductive reasoning), a wordplay puzzle (associative learning), a task-based puzzle (scaffolding), and a rebus puzzle (insight learning). Participants completed a post-survey assessing knowledge retention, motivation, and engagement. Results revealed a positive relationship between motivation and learning outcomes, while the measurement of engagement did not show any relationship with learning. These findings suggest that while city games show potential as educational tools, their effectiveness hinges on designs that successfully foster motivation, as mere engagement with the game environment is not sufficient to ensure learning.

With the in-depth development of information technology, the digital learning environment has become a crucial domain for information technology education in secondary vocational schools. This study addresses the problem of insufficient adaptation between traditional teaching strategies and the digital environment. It deconstructs the core elements and interactive characteristics of the digital learning environment and analyzes the structural features of the information technology curriculum in secondary vocational schools, thereby revealing the systemic tension between existing teaching strategies and the digital environment. Grounded in constructivism and situated cognition theory, the research constructs an innovative framework for teaching strategies, which incorporates the principles of adaptability, interactivity, and generativity. It proposes a digital tool-based task-driven strategy and a human-computer collaborative integration model. Furthermore, the study designs a three-phase implementation pathway comprising the preparation, transition, and execution stages. It also establishes a feasibility evaluation system based on three dimensions: technical compatibility, instructional effectiveness, and operational sustainability. Ultimately, a data-driven mechanism for iterative optimization of the strategies is formed. This research provides theoretical reference and practical guidance for the innovative development of information technology teaching in secondary vocational schools within the digital context.

Multidimensional pedagogical framework for interprofessional education: Blending classroom, high fidelity and extended reality simulation.

Educational institutions play a prominent role in human development and must adapt to the transformative demands of a globalized world. One of the key challenges they face is integrating digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools into the educational process. Specifically, in mathematics education, it is essential to prepare students for this technological reality while maintaining effective teaching and learning strategies. This article presents, a scoping review has been carried out by adapting the PRISMA protocol of studies on situated cognition and the use of AI as a pedagogical tool in relation to the teaching of mathematics, whose activity, in addition to giving a perspective on the research background, offers epistemological foundations, methodological and operational methods to propose a pedagogical innovation strategy that confirms the effectiveness of ICT in mathematics teaching from situated cognition.

Honor is universally comprehensible, varies regionally in frequency, chronicity, and intensity, and looks different at each time and place. We use culture-as-situated-cognition theory (CSCT), an integrating situated social cognition account of culture, to understand why. Human culture addresses recurrent problems; how frequently, chronically, and intensely each comes to mind depends on their ecological niche; the practices addressing them vary in time and place. We articulate the costly morality theory of honor (CMTH) within CSCT to distinguish honor from related constructs by theorizing two axes (morality-immorality and costly-cost-free) at each of CSCT’s three levels. In our formulation, honor is costly morality, resolving the recurrent problem of regulating relationships through costly signals of trustworthiness (human-universal). Societies embedded in harsher ecological niches require more cost to find a signal to be honest and focus on particular relational aspects of morality (niche-linked). Honor specifies how to be a person in the world (time-and-place-specific). Public People have an everyday understanding of honor, what it is, and who has it, but what they mean can be hard to put into words, and what actions in service of honor look like vary across times and societies. We build on culture-as-situated-cognition theory, which accounts for honor’s importance in human culture, its variable centrality across societies, and differing specific norms and practices connected to it within societies, to posit that honor entails moral action, a duty of care, that is costly to the actor. We apply our honor-as-costly-morality theory to distinguish honor from related ideas in the hope that our framework helps people better understand and communicate across time-and-place divides, even while disagreeing on to whom and in what way the duty of care extends.

Purpose Digital literacy has become a crucial personal competency in digital transformation across society, and its enhancement is increasingly recognized as an urgent issue. Design/methodology/approach This study employs the grounded theory method of qualitative research, collecting data through semi-structured interviews, to explore older adults’ digital literacy practices from a situated cognitive perspective, revealing that the acquisition, development, and application of digital literacy are strongly influenced by various situational factors. Findings Thematic, task, external, and internal situations affect digital behavioral intentions, acquisition strategies, digital analysis, and digital problem-solving, leading to diverse digital behavioral outcomes. The influence of composite situations on digital literacy can be summarized through three pathways: the endogenous motivation path of “wanting to” in terms of willingness, the cognitive level path of “can it” in terms of thinking, and the behavioral ability path of “can it work” in terms of operation. Originality/value This study outlines a situated acquisition framework for cultivating digital literacy: first, re-examining the situated attribute of the connotation and denotation of digital literacy from the perspective of situated cognition; second, promoting the acquisition and development of digital literacy through the suitability supply of digital resources and the cognitive transformation of individuals, focusing on both the external “affordance” of the environment and the internal motivation of individuals.

Abstract This paper introduces "EnvironMentalism," a novel theoretical framework that foregrounds the constitutive role of material environments in shaping mental health and illness. Drawing on principles from Material Engagement Theory and situated cognition, we argue that mental disorders—exemplified by schizophrenia—cannot be fully understood without considering the dynamic and reciprocal interactions between brain, body, and the affordances of the surrounding physical environment. We distinguish between weak and strong versions of EnvironMentalism, advocating for the latter as a more integrative, process-oriented approach to the study of self-disorders. Strong EnvironMentalism challenges internalist models of psychopathology by conceptualizing the self as a relational and ecologically embedded process. Through empirical and theoretical examples, we demonstrate how this perspective can reconfigure our understanding of psychopathological phenomena and open new avenues for research and clinical intervention.

Purpose Anchored in embeddedness, embodiment and extension principles from situated cognition theory, this study aims to propose a model to explain customer experience in the metaverse. Design/methodology/approach This study tests the proposed model using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on usable data from 816 individuals who attended a metaverse food festival. Findings This study demonstrates the role of authentic experiences in activating customers’ mental imagery in the metaverse. This mental imagery, in turn, enhances customers’ sense of presence, which is crucial for an immersive metaverse experience. The study also shows how this heightened sense of presence, alongside subjective well-being, plays a critical role in shaping purchase intentions, both directly and indirectly, in the metaverse. Practical implications The insights suggest that prioritizing authenticity is a viable strategy for brands seeking to leverage the metaverse, as fostering enriched mental imagery and a strong sense of presence can strengthen subjective well-being and stimulate purchase intentions among customers. Originality/value This study enriches understanding by establishing a model that offers a seminal explanation of customer experience in the metaverse from a situated cognition perspective supported by field data from participants of a metaverse food festival.

Purpose With novel application of situated cognition theory (SCT) in interactive marketing and customer behavior, this study is conducted to investigate the effect of augmented reality (AR) marketing on customer delight in the soft drinks market through customer experiences, brand love and customer engagement. Design/methodology/approach Stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory, SCT and flow theory were analyzed in parallel for the first time. Data were processed using PLS–SEM through Smart PLS4 after being gathered from 594 valid responses from young customers from 18 to 30 years old. Findings The findings show that interactivity and spatiality exert a positive effect on both entertainment and aesthetic experiences while emotionality only positively impacts entertainment experiences. Moreover, customer experiences, brand love, customer engagement and customer delight are positively impacted by AR marketing through entertainment and aesthetic experiences. Originality/value This study is the first to pioneer to apply SCT in AR marketing, to integrate SOR, SCT and flow theory simultaneously which would upgrade the significance of SOR. This study is one of the few research works investigating AR marketing and customer delight which is a tenuous variable as well.

This Special Issue began as a call to evaluate religious media as examples of situated cognition [...]

ABSTRACTExpanding the social identity view of creativity from the situated cognition perspective, this research examined how the perception of an innovative organizational identity influences cognitive flexibility, one of the pathways to creativity, through the mechanism of creative self‐efficacy. The results from experimental Study 1 (128 respondents) demonstrated that the perception of an innovative organizational identity is more likely to foster one's belief in their creative abilities (i.e., creative self‐efficacy) than the perception of a conventional organizational identity. Experimental Study 2 (163 participants) provided evidence of the positive relationship between creative self‐efficacy and cognitive flexibility and the mediating effect of creative self‐efficacy in linking innovative organizational identity to cognitive flexibility. Finally, in Study 3 (202 respondents), a survey was conducted at an actual organization to rule out the impact of organizational identification on the proposed mechanism. The results showed that the mediating effect of creative self‐efficacy remained significant even when controlling for organizational identification. This work enriches the existing literature on the social identity approach to creativity by proposing that innovative organizational identity is a determinant of creative self‐efficacy and cognitive flexibility.

This presentation discusses a practice-led PhD thesis that considers how artistic action in a heavily polluted, localised environment might lead to an experience and expression of embodiment. Accordingly, the research question asks: How might lens-based recording serve in communicating an embodied connection to land? The research investigates alternative ways of considering value from embodied localised engagement with the land. In adopting this position, the study considers the Anthropocene as inseparable from cognition and shifts its focus from global, political mobilisation, to embodied relationality (Ingold, 2021). The project, that is currently 18 months into development, explores the subjective relationship between the practitioner and his environment, where an intrinsic connection is actioned between knowing and doing. This perspective aligns with the concept of ‘situated cognition’ where knowledge is inherently located within the context of activity (Brown et al., 1989). The presentation uses composited photographic images, and moving image sequences of Lake Waikare, to consider the nature of duration (Bergson, 1957) and an intimate connection with a single site. Methodologically, the project constitutes a heuristic inquiry that utilises a subjective, iterative, reflective approach to problem-solving. The significance of the study lies in its contribution to existing discourses surrounding how embodied experiences of land (interpreted through multi-mediatic approaches) can be used to elevate the intimate and the visceral and negotiate a narrative of experience that considers processes of disconnection, destruction, and reconnection.

Abstract Based on Krashen's Input/Output Hypothesis, Situated Cognition Theory, and Constructivism Theory, this study designed a teaching plan for oral hotel English in secondary vocational schools. The study targeted Class 5 (the control group, receiving traditional teaching methods) and Class 6 (the experimental group, receiving multimedia-assisted situational teaching methods) of the Tourism major at School A. Through questionnaires, classroom observations, educational experiments, and interviews, the study explored the impact of this teaching approach on students' learning interest, academic performance, and classroom enthusiasm. The experiment employed SPSS for descriptive statistics, correlation, and T-test analyses. The results indicated that multimedia-assisted situational teaching significantly enhanced students' learning interest (as evidenced by increased scores across all dimensions of the interest scale), oral English performance (with the experimental class demonstrating a greater average score improvement compared to the control class), and classroom participation (as reflected by an increased frequency of voluntary speaking and role-playing activities). This study confirms the promotional value of the multimedia-assisted situational teaching method in vocational English education and provides a direction for future research endeavors. Keywords: multimedia-assisted instruction; situational teaching method; oral hotel English; second language acquisition theory

Language plays a pivotal role in shaping political discourse, particularly in the Philippines, where campaign slogans serve as potent tools of persuasion and ideological communication. In the context of the 2025 midterm elections, these slogans function not merely as rhetorical accessories but as discursive instruments that construct political identities and mediate relationships between candidates and the electorate. In contrast, slogans are a common feature of political campaigns, and limited scholarly attention has been paid to their metaphorical structures and ideological implications during the pre-campaign period, where early impressions and messaging often shape voter perception. This study addresses this gap by conducting a preliminary assessment of political slogans disseminated between October 2024 to January 2025. It aims to identify the conceptual metaphors, socio-economic promises, and ideological messages embedded within these slogans and analyze their functions in shaping political narratives. Anchored in Conceptual Metaphor Theory and situated cognition, the study employed a qualitative descriptive design and analyzed 135 slogan posters collected from various Philippine regions. Findings reveal six dominant thematic categories: integrity, health, development, public service, action, and grassroots connection. Each theme utilizes culturally resonant metaphors to convey leadership ideals. The study affirms that political slogans are symbolic acts of persuasion, reflecting and shaping the collective political imagination in Philippine electoral culture.

Many definitions exist to define giftedness. A common denominator in these definitions is that they are ‘classical theories of concepts’ based on a set of necessary and sufficient conditions. As a result, a clear borderline is drawn between those belonging to the category and those outside, supposedly making identification of gifted students easy. In this article, a new way of defining giftedness is suggested by a cluster concept. In addition, the article argues that giftedness is situated - a property of the individual in the environment. These two factors are judged to have significance for understanding giftedness in relation to students who are at risk of being left without provision, such as creative students who perform well in a practical setting. Above all, the paper challenges the idea of provision being based on identification which is based on definition. Instead, it is argued that identification should take place within provision.

The article aims to demonstrate the role of creative activity in the process of adaptation of foreign students to a different culture. The analysis is based on Immanuel Kant’s concept of the productive power of imagination. It has been established that creativity serves as a basis for communication, while the productive power of imagination is an integral part of the communication process. Creativity is understood here as a collective process of communication contributing to the formation of shared experiences among representatives of different cultures. The author emphasizes the importance of using modern cognitive theories, including the concept of situated cognition and cognitive linguistics, which provide effective models for explaining the process of forming intercultural experience in the context of creative communication. As an example of how joint creative practices of students from different countries lead to successful intercultural interaction and adaptation, the article presents the experience of Kenozero National Park (Arkhangelsk Region) and Etnomir Ethnographic Park (Kaluga Region). A conclusion is made that the productive power of imagination generates shared narratives that facilitate intercultural dialogue. Additionally, the paper outlines prospects for further development of intercultural interaction. The theoretical significance of the research lies in demonstrating the heuristic potential of Kant’s theory of creativity and imagination for studying the cultural adaptation of foreign students. When it comes to the practical importance, the study outlines prospects for further elaboration of the project “Development of New Cooperation Practices for the Sociocultural Adaptation of Migrants in the Arkhangelsk Region”, which was implemented as part of the Arkhangelsk Region Governor’s Grant Competition in 2023–2024.

This illustrated paper discusses a practice-led thesis that considers how the artistic action in a heavily polluted, localised environment might lead to an experience and expression of embodiment. Accordingly, the research question asks: How might lens-based recording serve in communicating an embodied connection to land?The research investigates alternative ways of considering value from embodied localised engagement with the land. In adopting this position, the study considers the Anthropocene as inseparable from cognition and shifts its focus from global, political mobilisation, to embodied relationality (Ingold, 2021). The project, that is currently 16 months into development, explores the subjective relationship between the practitioner and his environment, where an intrinsic connection is actioned between knowing and doing. This perspective aligns with the concept of ‘situated cognition’ where knowledge is inherently located within the context of activity (Brown et al., 1989). The presentation uses photographic images, synthesised audio and moving image sequences of Lake Waikare, to consider the nature of duration (Bergson, 1957) and an intimate connection with a single site. Methodologically, the project constitutes a heuristic inquiry that utilises a subjective, iterative, reflective approach to problem-solving. The significance of the study lies in its contribution to existing discourses surrounding how embodied experiences of land (interpreted through multi-mediatic approaches) can be used to elevate the intimate and the visceral and negotiate a narrative of experience that considers processes of disconnection, destruction, and reconnection.

This paper aims to provide a framework for educators to effectively navigate the complexities of artificial intelligence (AI) integration while maintaining the core principles of effective teaching and learning, specifically through the lenses of Dewey’s experiential learning, situated cognition, and distributed cognition. By examining these principles, we explore the essential role of the teacher in this context and the implications of ignoring AI. The integration of AI can enhance personalized learning experiences, facilitate adaptive learning systems, and support educators in fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills among students. Additionally, we highlight the challenges and ethical concerns associated with AI use in education. We argue that AI should be viewed as a tool that enhances, rather than replaces, the role of educators, emphasizing the importance of maintaining the educator’s role in guiding and supporting student learning. This framework serves as a valuable resource for educators seeking to embrace AI’s potential while ensuring that teaching remains centered on student engagement and successfully achieving learning outcomes as we prepare the next generation to be an AI-ready workforce.

Digital technology is reshaping the landscape of higher education, especially in the field of computer science. As digital platforms become central to the learning process, understanding student engagement in these continuously evolving environments is increasingly vital. This study explores the current state of online learning among undergraduate computer science students, investigates factors influencing their engagement, and proposes strategies to enhance online education. The research framework is grounded in the TPACK model, behaviorist learning theory, learning engagement theory, and situated cognition learning theory, encompassing student characteristics, multidimensional online learning engagement, and key influencing factors. Data on participants’ basic attributes, levels of engagement, and the major determinants of these engagement levels were collected via a questionnaire survey. Analyses using SPSS 25.0—employing t-tests, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation—revealed significant trends and relationships. Findings show a notable positive correlation between the duration of online learning and overall engagement, whereas gender, home location, and academic major exerted relatively limited influence. Subjective intention, attitude, and motivation emerged as crucial determinants, and interactions with instructors and Peers—reinforced by teaching approaches and feedback—played an essential role in fostering emotional involvement. Building on these insights, the study recommends initiatives to strengthen self-motivation, nurture meaningful online interactions, enhance technical support systems, and reinforce mechanisms for assessing learning outcomes. This work provides empirical evidence for a deeper understanding of online education while indicating directions for ongoing improvement.

Empathy is a pivotal capacity that is essential for human interaction. It encompasses cognitive empathy, which is the ability to understand another individual's emotional state, and affective empathy, which is to express an appropriate affective response to another person's emotional state. Recent advancements in empathy research have highlighted the contextual nature of both cognitive and affective empathy, signifying their susceptibility to modulation by situational factors. Despite this progress, a comprehensive mechanistic understanding of empathy as a form of situated cognition that integrates both state and trait dimensions remains scarce. This review outlines the interplay of trait and state empathy and how state empathy emerges from a dynamic interplay between bottom-up processes and top-down control mechanisms. It further covers which situational factors increase versus decrease state empathy. In addition, to assist in selecting appropriate measurement tools for measuring trait and/or state empathy, the review categorizes existing empathy measurement instruments. Taken together, this review provides a roadmap for enhancing the efficacy of future empathy studies by: (1) outlining the current theoretical and methodological considerations for disentangling trait and state empathy; (2) organizing existing empathy measurement tools to aid researchers in selecting appropriate tools for future studies; (3) describing the interplay between bottom-up processes and top-down control mechanisms for state and trait empathy; and (4) reviewing factors that increase or decrease state empathy to prevent their potential interference and enable a more accurate assessment of empathy.