Zone Of Proximal Development Research Articles

Upgrading English Public Speaking Skills in Thai EFL Students through Imitating TED Talks Videos

This research investigates the enhancement of English public speaking skills among Thai EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students through imitating TED Talks videos. By applying Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and Krashen's Input Hypothesis, the study integrates authentic materials for effective learning. A mixed methods approach, incorporating quantitative surveys, qualitative interviews and observation was used to assess students' perceptions and improvements in speaking skills. Fifty-five students from a government university in Northeastern Thailand participated in activities involving watching, imitating, and recording their own videos posted in a Facebook group. Results show significant improvements in vocabulary, grammar, body language, and overall speech structure. Students reported increased confidence and more engaging presentations. Initial challenges included understanding diverse accents and reliance on scripts, which decreased with practice. The study underscores the benefits of selective imitation over full imitation, allowing students to maintain individuality while acquiring new skills. These findings suggest that TED Talks are a valuable resource in English language teaching, fostering both linguistic and communicative development, and highlighting the importance of authentic materials and guided practice in language acquisition.

Integration of Rapid Cycle Deliberate Practice Into Prelicensure Nursing Curricula: Preparing Nursing Students for Cardiac Arrest Care.

Nursing students are not consistently trained on how to care for patients experiencing sudden cardiac arrest. In rapid cycle deliberate practice (RCDP), learners perform a simulation with micro-debriefs interjected by the instructor. RCDP has been used to train health care students on how to respond during a sudden cardiac arrest, but its application to prelicensure nursing students is underreported. A curricular innovation was implemented based on RCDP and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) to educate prelicensure nursing students on how to care for patients experiencing sudden cardiac arrest. The outcome of the curricular innovation was evaluated via assessment of students' perceptions following participation in the curriculum innovation. Eighty-four prelicensure nursing students completed the curricular innovation survey, with most student perceptions favorable. Evaluation supports the integration of this curricular innovation into nursing curricula for sudden cardiac arrest training.

Groupwork skills training in social work education: practicing skills training in a Norwegian context

ABSTRACT In research as well as in the field, concerns have been raised that the academization of education in social work contributes to an increased distance from the field of practice. As a core element in the education of social workers, skills training serves an important function in integrating theoretical knowledge and bridging a gap between education and professional practice. Using Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development, this article takes as its starting point the experiences of BA social work students with skills training and its potential to integrate and activate theoretical knowledge in their training. The students’ evaluations provide a starting point for discussing the importance of their attitudes toward the place of theoretical knowledge in skills training, as well as their own contribution to the integration of theory work. In addition, the teacher’s tasks as a mediator of knowledge about the relationship between theory and practice and how theoretical knowledge can be transferred to, integrated and activated in skills training activities are explored, focusing on dialogue and reflection in the group. Such knowledge might inspire further research on the importance of skills training as a learning arena.

Towards Independence: The Development of Children’s Capability to Have a Voice in Their Healthcare

ABSTRACT Despite international healthcare charters supporting the principle that children should be listened to during healthcare encounters, children still struggle to have their views heard in healthcare. The aim of this study was to understand children’s and young people’s views of expressing their views and having those views heard in Australian healthcare. Child-centred qualitative research was the methodology employed and “Draw, write and tell” methods [Angell et al. (2015). “‘Draw, Write and Tell’: A Literature Review and Methodological Development on the ‘Draw and Write’ Research Method.” Journal of Early Childhood Research 13 (1): 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X14538592] were used to collect data from twenty children and young people between the ages of 7 and 18 years. An inductive qualitative content analysis identified a process whereby children move from a place of dependence towards independence and developing capability in having a voice in their own healthcare. Drawing on work from Brando, Nico [(2020). “Children's Abilities, Freedom, and the Process of Capability-Formation.” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 21 (3): 249–262. https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2020.1767547], it was identified that this process relied on the existence of development opportunities (zones of proximal development) and the conversion factors of time, health professional relationships, communication, teamwork and family support. Identifying this process is an important step in understanding how health professionals can support children to develop capability to have a voice in their healthcare. This is the first known study to use a capability approach to examine how children develop their voices and move from dependence towards independence in healthcare.

Intuitive to Strategic Translanguaging: Insights From Vietnamese EFL Classrooms

This article reports a qualitative case study on the translanguaging practices of Vietnamese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) educators and explores the mechanisms behind individual differences in their practices through an integrative cultural-historical activity theory perspective. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and post-observation interviews with three educators at a public university in Vietnam. The findings highlight diverse functions of translanguaging, including checking comprehension, emphasizing content, and reducing English-speaking anxiety. Rooted in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), this research introduces Proximal Language Scaffolding to highlight a strategic approach to using L1 and L2 for language learning within students’ ZPD. This research provides new insights into the nuanced implementation of translanguaging in EFL contexts and offers significant implications for teacher development and educational practices.

Teachers’ Perception and Experiences on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Integration in English Language Teaching and Learning

This study reports English language teachers’ perceptions and experiences of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and the professional development needs for its effective integration subscribing to Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as a theoretical lens. We employed narrative inquiry research method and semi-structured interviews to elicit the experiences of three secondary level English teachers in Butwal Sub-metropolitan City of the Rupandehi district. The research questions focused on teachers' perceptions and experiences of AI integration and their professional development needs. The findings revealed that teachers recognized the potential of AI to enhance personalized learning and instructional efficiency but face significant challenges, including technological proficiency, training, and ethical considerations. The implications of this research extended to educators and policymakers to address the digital divide and ensure equitable access to AI technologies in education to create more effective and personalized learning environments.

The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Flipped Interactive Learning: Building a Generation of Critical Thinkers, Skilled Communicators, Effective Collaborators, and Creative Innovators

This study examines the impact of targeted interventions on the development of 4C skills—critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity—among students in control and experimental groups. Using pre-test and post-test designs, the results revealed significant improvements in the experimental group compared to the control group. The experimental group showed a mean increase of 9.3 points in post-test scores, while the control group exhibited a smaller increase of 3.4 points. Statistical analyses confirmed the homogeneity and normality of the data, with significant differences observed between pre-test and post-test scores in the experimental group (p < 0.05). These findings align with constructivist theories, including Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development and Bloom's Taxonomy, emphasizing the role of active, student-centered learning in fostering higher-order thinking skills. The results also, highlighting the importance of integrating 21st-century skills into educational practices. The intervention’s success may be attributed to its ability to balance the cognitive load and foster intrinsic motivation through engaging in relevant tasks. This study supports innovative teaching strategies and underscores their transformative potential in modern education

Using L1 to Learn L2 Enhances Language Acquisition at University

This paper investigates how strategically learners' first language [L1] should be used in higher education to improve second language [L2] learning. The paper emphasizes the need of the first language in improving comprehension, retention, and cultural awareness using concepts including Cummings' Common Underlying Proficiency and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development. It also takes counterarguments into account, including too reliance on L1, thereby supporting a mixed approach. The paper shows how, when correctly incorporated, L1 can improve language and conceptual development in L2 acquisition by use of research and personal pedagogical experience.

Mediation Through Dynamic Assessment: Facilitating EFL Learners’ Self-efficacy in Speaking Skills

Though we cannot deny the importance of testing learners’ proficiency to determine their successful intake, the traditional forms of assessment often hinder their linguistic and cognitive development. In the context of Bangladesh, where English is considered a foreign language, it can be noticed that it is their inability to speak in English that the tertiary-level students experience the most difficulties with at universities following English medium instructions. Their situation worsens when they are evaluated traditionally for their spoken performances in their university language courses. That is why dynamic assessment can be an alternative to traditional assessment for evaluating learners’ speaking skills. It is closely associated with Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory. It believes that the proximity to written or spoken competence cannot be achieved by learners on their own. Therefore, mediation and zone of proximal development play crucial roles in establishing and extending the scope for learners to communicate with others. The interactionist approach of dynamic assessment benefits students in improving their speaking skills in many contexts because of its dialogic and mediated process. Thus, with the help of qualitative data analysis, this paper examines how consequential dynamic assessment will be in evaluating speaking skills at the tertiary level.

Supporting Human and Machine Co-Learning in Citizen Science: Lessons From Gravity Spy

We explore the bi-directional relationship between human and machine learning in citizen science. Theoretically, the study draws on the zone of proximal development (ZPD) concept, which allows us to describe AI augmentation of human learning, human augmentation of machine learning, and how tasks can be designed to facilitate co-learning. The study takes a design-science approach to explore the design, deployment, and evaluations of the Gravity Spy citizen science project. The findings highlight the challenges and opportunities of co-learning, where both humans and machines contribute to each other’s learning and capabilities. The study takes its point of departure in the literature on co-learning and develops a framework for designing projects where humans and machines mutually enhance each other’s learning. The research contributes to the existing literature by developing a dynamic approach to human-AI augmentation, by emphasizing that the ZPD supports ongoing learning for volunteers and keeps machine learning aligned with evolving data. The approach offers potential benefits for project scalability, participant engagement, and automation considerations while acknowledging the importance of tutorials, community access, and expert involvement in supporting learning.

Remedial Teaching to Improve Performance Among Hearing-Impaired Pupils: Insights from Selected Public Primary Schools in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

This study examines the impact of remedial teaching strategies on the academic performance of hearing-impaired pupils in four public primary schools in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The research focuses on three key strategies: sign language demonstration, teaching media applications, and exploration-based learning methods. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, data were collected from 124 participants, including pupils, teachers, school heads, and parents. The findings reveal that while remedial teaching significantly improves engagement, retention, and academic performance, systemic challenges such as resource shortages, insufficient teacher training, and low parental involvement hinder its full potential. Drawing on Cognitive Development Theory, Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, and Human Capital Theory, this study offers theoretical insights and practical recommendations. Key interventions include enhanced teacher training, resource investment, and greater parental engagement to ensure inclusive and equitable education for hearing-impaired pupils.

Teaching strategies used by English First Additional Language teachers in teaching reading for comprehension

Reading is a fundamental skill essential for deep understanding and engagement across all subjects. This study explores Grade 6 teachers’ perspectives on strategies for teaching reading comprehension in the Intermediate Phase of English First Additional Language (EFAL). Using a multiple-case study design, it provides an in-depth exploration from various participants’ perspectives. The target population comprised Grade 6 EFAL teachers, with a purposeful sample of ten teachers from ten primary schools in the Nquthu circuit, uMzinyathi district, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Data collection methods included individual face-to-face semi-structured in-depth interviews and classroom observations, offering a comprehensive understanding of teachers’ classroom practices and strategies. The study reveals a significant gap between teachers’ reported strategies and their actual classroom practices. While teachers are aware of effective strategies such as guided reading, skimming and scanning, and the top-down approach, their implementation often reverts to traditional methods, highlighting the need for professional development. The findings emphasize the importance of aligning teaching practices with theoretical frameworks like Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development to support learners effectively. Integrating assessments into the reading process is crucial for activating prior knowledge and confirming comprehension. Additionally, the study identifies a gap between teachers’ theoretical understanding and practical application of the Directed Reading Thinking Activity strategy. The study recommends bridging the gap between theory and practice through continuous professional development, practical training, and the availability of relevant resources to strengthen practices. Addressing these gaps can better foster reading comprehension skills, ultimately enhancing learners’ academic performance.

An Exploration of the Use of Educational Robotics in Preschool Education

Digital technologies are increasingly present in the daily lives of adults and children, which increases the need to better understand this digital world. Given today's society, the premises of the key competencies that early childhood education must provide future students based on the Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and supported by constructivist theory (of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development), this study aims to investigate the development of computational thinking for the child in preschool education. Using as a method for the case study, the observation of children's behavior during nine weeks in which we carried out specific activities, we tested three hypotheses regarding the development of computational thinking, using both connected and non-connected tools, the levels of communication and collaboration between the participating children. The results show that the use of educational robots in different stages of teaching, learning and evaluation helps in the development process of children by understanding the cause-effect relationship, acquiring spatial and temporal orientation skills, developing communication skills and supporting socio-emotional interactions with children of the same age. Decomposition, abstraction, pattern recognition and algorithms were the four components of computational thinking analyzed and all obtained a score above the mean of the Likert scale used. Future research is needed to study the more in-depth effects of STEAM activities on children's cognitive acquisitions and social-emotional skills.

Exploring the ‘Invisible’ in GTAs: Reflections on Intuition and Post-Graduate Mentoring

Postgraduate researchers who teach (Graduate Teaching Assistants) always navigate their academic spaces among several psychological factors in their routines from both inside and outside. They can often be observed attending to students, advising them on their problems and sometimes even relying on their seniors for various topics. In such situations, practitioner intuition remains a well-known and relied-upon source of GTA's decision-making skills but also an underexplored area of investigation, especially in mentoring and language teaching literature (Ushioda, 2023; Burns & Williams, 2023 & Kumar, 2024). Based on this premise, this reflective paper aims to simplify and understand the GTA's pedagogic intuition towards success and failures in PG thesis writing contexts from peer-mentoring perspectives. The initial sections of the paper, imagining GTA's as mentors and their learners as mentees, establish what GTA intuition can be thought of, how it is related to Vygotsky's ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) and the potential operations based on an intuitive decision-making model. The latter part of the paper offers detailed practical insights about these theoretical connections through my own workings of intuition while scaffolding the PG mentees to plan, execute and write their theses. Detailed reflections of both the GTA/mentor and the mentees elicited through think-aloud and discursive puzzling measures are reported extensively. Lastly, the paper advocates for more work towards exploring GTA's intuition in mentoring scenarios (and otherwise), getting more awareness from their cognitions and becoming more intuitive practitioners.

INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF WEB-BASED LANGUAGE LEARNING (WBLL) THROUGH WRITE & IMPROVE ON WRITING SKILLS IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

This study examines the impact of Web-Based Language Learning (WBLL) using the program Write & Improve on secondary school students' writing skills at SM St. Michael, Penampang, using the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). The study sought to investigate students' perspectives and impact in writing through guided practice and feedback. The technique used a two-cycle action research design that included both writing activities and open-ended surveys to collect information about students' writing performance and perceptions. Initial studies revealed that students struggled with the tool's UI and feedback mechanisms, restricting their development throughout the first cycle. However, significant increases were seen in the second cycle, with students obtaining higher CEFR bands and showing a greater grasp of feedback. Surveys revealed high satisfaction and perceived effectiveness of Write & Improve, despite some technical issues and occasional inaccuracies in feedback. The study emphasizes the significance of teacher participation, as SCT and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) indicate that directed learning and feedback can improve student outcomes. Researchers should conduct longitudinal investigations and perform different demographic testing. For educators, the findings emphasize optimal practices for incorporating WBLL technologies into instruction. This study adds to the growing body of knowledge about digital learning aids as well as providing ideas for better writing teaching through technology.

Conferencing: A Catalyst for Developing Children’s Writing

AbstractThe writing process approach is recognized as an effective instructional practice for engaging children in the writing process and developing emerging writing skills. The writing conference is an integral component of the writing process. One-on-one conferencing sessions create differentiated instructional spaces for teachers to respond to the individual needs of learners. Understanding how teachers leverage conferencing sessions to effectively engage and support young learners’ writing remains a limited area of research. This case study documents one experienced teacher’s conferencing practices with 19 first-grade writers. Findings show conferencing conversations worked in an integrated, multidimensional way to support young writers. Conferencing dimensions leveraged children’s funds of knowledge, questioning and affirming statements, and writers’ craft components to nurture relationships and offer feedback aligned with children’s zone of proximal development.

The Zone of Proximal Flow in K-12 Creative Collaborative eLearning: A synthesis of the zone of proximal development and creative flow

Student groups coexist on individual and team levels toward learning symmetry within two zones: the zone of proximal development (ZPD) for new knowledge co-construction and the zone of proximal flow (ZPF), which occurs once a balance between the learner's skill and challenge of the task emerges. Thus, each group functions within the ZPF, especially for K-12 students engaging in social behavior and collaborative learning activities. eLearning must support the dual persona of learners as users engage and remain within the ZPF via diverse pedagogical methodologies and tools, such as multimodal learning analytics, to support and enrich students' learning curves in self-organized as well as collaborative eLearning.

MyFeedback: an online writing feedback service with students as partners

MyFeedback is an online feedback service run by the academic tutoring team at the University of East London (UEL). The service provides a formative type of feedback on the academic writing of students based on drafts they upload to a digital inbox. The service is a differentiating support mechanism that complements the one-to-one guidance provided by the academic writing tutors. This is possible by training and supervising students (online feedback initiators) to provide reviews of assignment drafts. In this ALDCon24 workshop, we discussed how the development and operation of the service has thrived through a partnership between learning developers and students, and thus establishing a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) of shared learning and vision. We provided insights into the working model and the ways in which students become partners and occasionally co-creators. We highlighted the opportunities and benefits that are shared among all those involved and the roles they assume. Student users of the service engage in a self-regulated learning experience (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006) enacted by their repeated exposure to peer feedback interactions that is underpinned by pedagogical principles, such as the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) and differentiation, for example in Tomlinson (2001). Tutors and student partners collaborate to consolidate their feedback mechanisms by bringing together teaching expertise, fresh enthusiasm, first-hand student experiences, and a sense of belonging, inclusivity and collaboration. At the same time, tutors direct their capacity efficiently to students who can benefit more from a live dialogue based on their assessment at hand.

New Perspectives on Collective Collaboration Within and Between Change Laboratory Sessions

This article contributes new knowledge on collaboration within and between Change Laboratory sessions and how it offers the potential to support the zone of proximal development and the expansive learning of participants. The Change Laboratory is a formative intervention method that helps participants transform their practices. This qualitative study examines how six educators participating in a Change Laboratory intervention dealt with problems that arise when implementing digital artifacts in teaching mathematics. We collected data through participant observation between sessions and video recordings during sessions. We conducted the data analysis abductively, using the seven expansive learning actions as an analytical framework. The findings highlight how collaboration between the researcher and the participants, both during and between Change Laboratory sessions, helped support the participants’ zone of proximal development and expansive learning. This close collaboration enabled the educators to collectively reflect on and transform their teaching practices, specifically by incorporating digital artifacts into their educational routines. The study provides important insights into how digital artifacts can be successfully implemented in practice using Change Laboratories, emphasizing the importance of supporting educators in their zone of proximal development. Using a theoretical perspective grounded in cultural-historical activity theory, the study contributes to understanding how change occurs in the educational field.

Physician development through interprofessional workplace interactions: A critical review.

Increasingly, medical training aims to develop physicians who are competent collaborators. Although interprofessional interactions are inevitable elements of medical trainees' workplace learning experiences, the existing literature lacks a cohesive model to conceptualise the learning potential residing in these interactions. We conducted a critical review of the health professions and related educational literatures to generate an empirically and theoretically informed description of medical trainees' workplace interactions with other health professionals, including learning mechanisms and outcomes. Informed by Teunissen's conceptualisation of workplace learning, we highlight the individual, social and situated dimensions of learning from interprofessional workplace interactions. Workplace interactions between medical trainees and other health professionals tend to be brief, spontaneous, informal and often implicit without the predefined educational goals and roles that structure trainees' relationships with physician supervisors. Yet they hold potential for developing trainees' knowledge and skills germane to the work of a physician as well as building their capacity for collaboration. Our review identified a spectrum of learning theories helpful for examining what and how trainees learn from these interactions. Self-regulated learning theories focus attention on how learning depends on trainees interpreting and judging the cues offered by other health professionals. Sociocultural frameworks including the zone of proximal development and legitimate peripheral participation emphasise the ways other health professionals support trainees in performing tasks at the border of their abilities and facilitate trainees' participation in clinical work. Both the landscapes of practice theory and cultural historical activity theory highlight the influence of surrounding social, cultural and material environments. These theories are unified into cohesive model and demonstrated through an illustrative example. Interprofessional workplace interactions harbour a range of learning opportunities for medical trainees. Capitalising on their potential can contribute to training collaborative practice-ready physicians alongside traditional intra-professional interactions between physicians and merits future research.