Effects of Generic and Subject-Didactic Teaching Characteristics on Student Performance in Mathematics in Secondary School: A Scoping Review

<p style="text-align: justify;">Research on instructional quality has been of great interest for several decades, leading to an immense and diverse body of literature. However, due to different definitions and operationalisations, the picture of what characteristics are important for instructional quality is not entirely clear. Therefore, in this paper, a scoping review was performed to provide an overview of existing evidence of both generic and subject-didactic characteristics with regard to student performance. More precisely, this paper aims to (a) identify both generic and subject-didactic characteristics affecting student performance in mathematics in secondary school, (b) cluster these characteristics into categories to show areas for quality teaching, and (c) analyse and assess the effects of these characteristics on student performance to rate the scientific evidence in the context of the articles considered. The results reveal that teaching characteristics, and not just the instruments for recording the quality of teaching as described in previous research, can be placed on a continuum ranging from generic to subject-didactic. Moreover, on account of the inconsistent definition of subject-didactic characteristics, the category of ‘subject-didactic specifics’ needs further development to establish it as a separate category in empirical research. Finally, this study represents a further step toward understanding the effects of teaching characteristics on student performance by providing an overview of teaching characteristics and their effects and evidence.</p>

The Classroom Demands and Teacher Self-Efficacy in On-Site and Online Teaching

We investigate in this work the relationship between the perceived demands of the teaching profession and the general sense of teachers’ self-efficacy in on-site and online teaching contexts. We present the results of a study with N= 127 Romanian teachers, with ages ranged from 19 to 55, with a mean age of 39,26 years, SD = 9,20 (123 females, 4 males; 73 from urban area, 54 from rural area). Our results show that the self-efficacy of teachers is lower in online professional activities, compared to the self-efficacy of teachers perceived in the on-site professional activities. In the case of the online teaching environment the teachers with high scores on teachers’ self-efficacy tends to consider as being more challenging when dealing with different levels of children's development, working with children with learning disabilities, who have a small number of attendances, who do not follow the received instructions and with children who need more time and energy compared to other children. We discuss implications of our results for policies and strategies to enhance the quality of teaching practices.

IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF TEACHING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT THE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

The article discusses the issue of improving the quality of teaching a foreign language in technical universities. The author examines the main methods of teaching a foreign language in a technical university

Leveraging AI and Machine Learning for National Student Survey: Actionable Insights from Textual Feedback to Enhance Quality of Teaching and Learning in UK’s Higher Education

Students’ evaluation of teaching, for instance, through feedback surveys, constitutes an integral mechanism for quality assurance and enhancement of teaching and learning in higher education. These surveys usually comprise both the Likert scale and free-text responses. Since the discrete Likert scale responses are easy to analyze, they feature more prominently in survey analyses. However, the free-text responses often contain richer, detailed, and nuanced information with actionable insights. Mining these insights is more challenging, as it requires a higher degree of processing by human experts, making the process time-consuming and resource intensive. Consequently, the free-text analyses are often restricted in scale, scope, and impact. To address these issues, we propose a novel automated analysis framework for extracting actionable information from free-text responses to open-ended questions in student feedback questionnaires. By leveraging state-of-the-art supervised machine learning techniques and unsupervised clustering methods, we implemented our framework as a case study to analyze a large-scale dataset of 4400 open-ended responses to the National Student Survey (NSS) at a UK university. These analyses then led to the identification, design, implementation, and evaluation of a series of teaching and learning interventions over a two-year period. The highly encouraging results demonstrate our approach’s validity and broad (national and international) application potential—covering tertiary education, commercial training, and apprenticeship programs, etc., where textual feedback is collected to enhance the quality of teaching and learning.

Implications of Modern Germany’s Educational Streaming for China’s General-vocational Streaming in an Ageing Society

China, which is at an important stage of economic transformation, is facing the double pressure of an aging population and a shortage of skilled workers. The vocational education system in China today cannot meet the development needs of the national economy. Germany’s successful experience of general-vocational streaming has some significance for the current unbalanced talent structure in China. At the same time, in the process of implementing education streaming, we should also pay attention to the generation of students’ self-identity and help them complete their career planning; vocational schools themselves should promote the quality of teaching, improve the vocational education system and school-enterprise cooperation system to fill the talent needs of China’s economic development in the new era. The vocational schools themselves need to improve the quality of teaching and consummate the vocational education system and school-enterprise cooperation system, so as to fill the talent needs of China’s economic development in the new era.

Some Methodological Principles in Specialized FLT for the Professional Sphere

The article discusses the necessity to apply specific methodological principles in FLT for professional purposes due to the increasing interest of learners towards such training. The focus is on the essence of the concept of specialized economic language and on the method of Task-Based Approach. The necessary strategies for its application are also mentioned. The development of the skill for active linguistic performance is promoted mainly by the implementation of minimally structured training situations (authenticity). The constructivist principle of creating polymodular conditions, including the personal experience of the learner so as to stimulate the solution of the given problem are mentioned. For this purpose the specialized content and its peculiarities together with its exact location in the vertical stratification of specialized language are emphasized. The process of working with specialized text and one of the descriptors of CEFR are discussed. When working, the principles of subject-specific aspects are taken into consideration, placing the importance on the quality of teaching materials instead of their quantity, and prioritizing the sistematicity and the orientation of the content over the form.

Master Students’ Perceptions of Blended Learning in the Process of Studying English during COVID 19 Pandemic in Ukraine

The academic year 2020/2021 in higher education institutions in Ukraine began under the conditions of deteriorating epidemiological situation caused by the spread of Covid-19 pandemic. Students’ training was recommended to be carried out in the form of distance learning or blended learning. This research aims to analyse Master students’ perceptions of blended learning in the process of studying English in higher education institutions. The study presents the integrated course “Foreign Language for Specific Purposes (English)” developed for Master students of Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University. The experiment involves 84 respondents. The empirical basis of the study is the results obtained during three-months’ work with master students. Theoretical, empirical and statistical methods are used to conduct the study. The study investigates benefits and challenges of blended learning in studying English by Master students. The results of the questionnaire indicate the quality of teaching the course “Foreign Language for Specific Purposes (English)” as moderately positive and point out blended learning as an essential streamlined approach for creating effective learning experiences. The obtained results confirm the favourable Master students’ perceptions of blended learning in studying English during Covid-19 pandemic. Based on the findings of the study, which indicate benefits and challenges of blended learning in studying English, the authors give recommendations to improve the course “Foreign Language for Specific Purposes (English)”.

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES FACED BY CHINESE TEACHERS IN TEACHING THE MALAY LANGUAGE AT SEKOLAH JENIS KEBANGSAAN CINA

This concept paper discusses the issues and challenges faced by Chinese teachers in teaching the Malay language at Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC). In accordance with the functionality of the Malay language as the national language, the Malay language should not only be mastered by the Malays but for all races in Malaysia. Good command of the Malay language can foster the self-esteem of every citizen in this country. The Malay language is also a compulsory subject that should be studied by every student, including students at SJKC. Teaching the Malay Language by Chinese teachers in SJKC is not an easy job because Chinese students are not native speakers of the Malay language. It is much different from their native language, the Malay language is only used by Chinese students during lessons and they seldom use it in their daily life. Chinese students are lack interest in learning the Malay language because it seems that learning the Malay language is very difficult for them. Therefore, the Chinese students’ achievement in the Malay language is still not satisfactory. Thus, the main focus of this concept paper is to analyse the issues and challenges faced by Chinese teachers in teaching the Malay language. These challenges make it difficult for teachers in ensuring satisfactory achievement among pupils. Various methods should be taken to improve the quality of teaching the Malays language in SJKC and thus to produce Chinese students who are fluent in speaking the Malay language. Therefore, the Chinese teachers who teach the Malay language in SJKC have to bear this responsibility by taking various initiatives to enhance the achievement of Chinese students in Malay language learning. Through this concept paper, it is hoped to reveal the issue of teaching the Malay language by Chinese teachers in SJKC to various parties.