Contributions of Organizational Culture to University Internationalization

Responding to an increasingly globalized world, universities are training students to function in a multicultural environment through internationalization. Institutional culture can influence policies and practices for internationalization. Research in internationalization indicate that majority of the studies on the contributions of organizational cultures to internationalization across universities focused on the perspectives of faculty and university senior level administrative personnel and neglected the views of students. This qualitative case study explored students’ understanding of how organizational culture contributes to promote internationalization using international events that occur at two U.S universities. Semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. Purposeful and snowball sampling were employed to select domestic and international undergraduate and graduate students for the study. Findings indicate that integration into university family, community relationship, buffering, communication, symbols, and shared values and beliefs cultures are critical to promote higher education internationalization.

Comparative Study on Results of Euler, Improved Euler and Runge-Kutta Methods for Solving the Engineering Unknown Problems

The paper presents the comparative study on numerical methods of Euler method, Improved Euler method and fourth-order Runge-Kutta method for solving the engineering problems and applications. The three proposed methods are quite efficient and practically well suited for solving the unknown engineering problems. This paper aims to enhance the teaching and learning quality of teachers and students for various levels. At each point of the interval, the value of y is calculated and compared with its exact value at that point. The next interesting point is the observation of error from those methods. Error in the value of y is the difference between calculated and exact value. A mathematical equation which relates various functions with its derivatives is known as a differential equation. It is a popular field of mathematics because of its application to real-world problems. To calculate the exact values, the approximate values and the errors, the numerical tool such as MATLAB is appropriate for observing the results. This paper mainly concentrates on identifying the method which provides more accurate results. Then the analytical results and calculates their corresponding error were compared in details. The minimum error directly reflected to realize the best method from different numerical methods. According to the analyses from those three approaches, we observed that only the error is nominal for the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method.

Keeping in School Shape (KiSS): A Program for Rehearsing Math Skills Over Breaks from School

If you don’t use it, you lose it. School breaks, during which students do not regularly participate in instruction, can therefore have negative consequences on learning. This is especially true for mathematics learning since skills build progressively on earlier materials. How can we bridge these gaps in formal instruction? The Keeping in School Shape (KiSS) program is a mobile, engaging, innovative, and cost-effective way of using technology to help students who have time off between related math courses stay fresh on prerequisite knowledge and skills. Founded on learning theory and designed on a model of behavioral change, the KiSS program embodies retrieval practice and nudges by sending students a daily multiple-choice review problem via text messaging over school break. After rating their confidence in solving the daily problem students receive feedback and a solution. This study explores measures of participation, accuracy, and confidence in an implementation of the KiSS program over winter break between two sequential introductory engineering courses at a large state university in the Southwest United States. Results indicate that careful attention should be paid to the construction of the first few days of the program, and that encouragement, additional resources for review and practice, and an increased breadth of problem difficulty may improve participation.

Fantastic Educational Gaps and Where to Find Them: A Review of Research in Educational Equity and Equality

In today’s world, education is not being considered as an outcome anymore but a journey. However, as the adventurers, our students are facing more and more complex challenges. Previously, the socio-economic status of a student's family seemed to be one of the biggest factors among inequality causes. However, the chaotic situation of today's VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) world is generating more and more types of inequity and inequality. Thus, the purpose of the study is to develop LERB - a simple model to classify inequity and inequality, as a stepping-stone to build a gap detection framework in the future. Through a structured literature review, the study found the interconnection between equity and equality, as well as their transition toward student as an individual or as a group(s) and subgroup(s). The study can also be adapted to examine the correlation between different categories of equity, as well as to brainstorm and propose remedies to tackle those gaps.

Motivation to Study a Second Foreign Language: A Case of Chinese University Learners of German

Not much research has been done on motivation to study a second, third or even fourth foreign language though learners of such languages have been increasing. To contribute to this, the present study examined German learning motivation of Chinese university students at different proficiency levels. A total of 297 German learners at three different proficiency levels at a university in Beijing filled in the questionnaires, of whom 191 answered the open-ended question and 50 were informally interviewed. Analyses of the data revealed the following major findings: (1) most respondents at each proficiency level had limited access to and little chance to use German, liked the language, studied it (very) hard and did not think the language was difficult, (2) students at different proficiency levels studied German for similar reasons such as major study/research, further education, future career, interest in foreign language learning and German, and (3)students at higher proficiency levels perceived German to be more difficult and worked harder on it. Students at higher proficiency levels were both integratively and instrumentally more motivated to study German and had greater motivation intensity as well. It is clear that students at different proficiency levels were motivated to study German and that students at the advanced level tended to be more integratively motivated than those at the beginning level. Based on these findings, some suggestions are discussed.

Eye Tracking and Learning Predictability

Eye-tracking is a unique research method in education to help understand learners’ attention, reading struggles, learning strategies, and learning behaviors within the context of multimedia. This study overviews the empirical studies in this field, examines the role of eye-tracking in learning predictability, and discusses the ways that eye-tracking can be used for early intervention.

Investigating the Psychometric Impact of Negative Worded Items in Reading Comprehension Passages with a 3PL Cross-Classified Testlet Model

Negative worded (NW) items used in psychological instruments have been studied with the bifactor model to investigate whether the NW items form a secondary factor due to negative wording orthogonal to the measured latent construct, a validation procedure which checks whether NW items form a source of construct irrelevant variance (CIV) and hence constitute a validity threat. In the context of educational testing, however, no such validation attempts have been made. In this study, we studied the psychometric impact of NW items in an English proficiency reading comprehension test using a modeling approach similar to the bifactor model, namely the three-parameter logistic cross-classified testlet response theory (3PL CCTRT) model, to account for both guessing and possible local item dependence due to passage effect in the data set. The findings indicate that modeling the NW items with a separate factor leads to noticeable improvement in model fit, and the factor variance is marginal but nonzero. However, item and ability parameter estimates are highly similar between the 3PL CCTRT model and other models that do not model the NW items. It is concluded that the NW items introduce CIV into the data, but its magnitude is too small to change item and person ability parameter estimates to an extent of practical significance.

Challenging Excessive Fashion Consumption by Fostering Skill-Based Fashion Education

The ambition of this work is to explore a participatory design dress making methodology and the potential to positively impact on more sustainable fashion consumption habits amongst young women. The argument that our apparel buying habits need to change is well-establish; what is becoming more apparent is that the efforts to recondition current consumers and their affaire with fast fashion are making little headway. This work centres the education environment and how the fostering of new skill sets, or arguably traditional making skills, can offer a pathway for change. Work towards altering a younger generations consumer habits that otherwise will likely develop inline with the expected fast fashion cycles of purchase and waste, shopping for homogenised and expendable clothing. A key outcome of the work is that engagement in garment designed and construction invoked an apparent positive emotional attachment not evident in typical fashion purchases. Interesting it is not lost that the there was evidence of contradictions towards fashion consumption. On the one hand participants demonstrated a positive attitude towards sustainability and an awareness of the broader negatives impacts of waste. Yet already at a relatively young age their evolving consumer habits show them to be drawn into the social values that are enmeshed in the perception of fashion. The value of the work is the willingness of the participants to be involved, the pride they felt in their achievements and most significant for a core element, enthusiasm to continue with making. If this same enthusiasm could be captured in a new imagining of fashion and retailing the values of quality, longevity, and individuality can remerge as anticipated standards for clothing.

The Comparative Effects of Cyclic Inquiry Model, Conceptual Change Text, and Traditional Instructions on Student Understanding of Photosynthesis and Respiration in Plant

The aim of this study was to explore the effects of the cyclic inquiry model, conceptual change texts, and traditional instructions on promoting understanding of photosynthesis and respiration in plants. The data were obtained from 33 students in the first experimental group taught with cyclic inquiry model (CIM), 34 students in the second experimental group taught with conceptual change texts (CCT), and 34 students in the control group taught with traditional instruction (TI). After instruction, data were analyzed with analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) using Pre-test scores and Logical thinking scores as covariates. The results indicated the cyclic inquiry model (CIM) and conceptual change texts (CCT) treatment groups significantly outperformed the traditional instruction (TI) group in understanding of photosynthesis and respiration in plants. A statistically significant difference between two experimental groups was found in favor of the of cyclic inquiry model CIM.

Integral Thinking and its Application to Integral Education

After the exploration of different kind of thinking skills oriented to discerning complex issues and phenomena, this article argues about the need to use a new modality of thinking, defined as integral thinking. Based on the holonic theory and on the proprieties of the holons and their part-whole relationships, the paper proposes and characterizes integral thinking, a kind of thinking that is holistic but also has span and profundity, going beyond conventional Aristotelian epistemic-inspired ways. Integral thinking joins in a single model the assets of premodern, modern and postmodern thinking systems; and helps in going beyond the nowadays syncretism of many perspectives. Integral thinking is the kind of thinking appropriated to the contemporary need to think integrally in science, culture, professions, and arts or about the evolution of personal consciousness. It’s useful also to be applied in the diverse professional fields, especially when comprehensive approaches are needed. Integral thinking can be used in holistic education and pedagogies. The use of integral thinking in the educational actuality can help to characterize the integral education practice and agenda.