Learning Style Preferences in College Students with Different Majors

In this study, we investigated the learning style preferences of college students with different majors and the relationship between learning styles and the majors. In total, 120 English as a foreign language college students with different majors from Taiwan participated. Descriptive statistical analysis and the chi-square test results indicated that learners across majors generally preferred the visual learning style. However, business and information technology majors preferred the auditory learning style and design majors preferred the haptic learning style. Nevertheless, although learning background may play a vital role in the development of a student’s learning style, the differences between learning style preferences and educational background were non-significant. Learning style preferences may also relate to other variables and may change over time, across contexts, and between different tasks.

A call to World Governments; Save youth generations from obsoleted education systems

My research is a result of accumulated provocation of obsolete and paralyzing education that has been frozen since the middle ages. We have to admit that before the pandemic, education was already in crisis. Governments have been ignoring to adopt any comprehensive plan to reform the educational systems till it has been unprecedently disrupted by COVID-19. I try through this paper to make a global call for governments to immediately start cooperating together for setting international qualifications framework that best suit future competencies. This call should be prioritized on the world agenda. It would be more plausible for governments, UNESCO and other education stakeholders to seize the opportunity of the 2020 disruption of life cycle for the maximum benefit of humanity. For this to happen we need exceptional leaders with extraordinary vision to transform education instead of ensuring children can keep learning and that every single child returns to school after the pandemic. Another challenge to be expected is the reduction in education budgets being under pressure as governments shift spending towards the health and economic response to the pandemic. The impact of schools closing on a generation of children will be immense on the long term. We must act now to save the education and life chances of generations of youth. At this time of unprecedented crisis, the world must come together to protect education and put it at the very heart of the global recovery effort. Recovery, not as before but as convenient and sustainable with the perspective requirements. It is time to expose youth to real life experiences; we need our children to learn about finance from characters like Jef Bezos or Bill Gates or Mukesh Ambani; to learn about psychology from John Anderson, Eliot Aronson and Ahmed Ukasha; to know approaches of math and physics as Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak. We shouldn’t settle for less when it comes to building minds and souls of our children. With all due respect to teachers and university professors, they are not the only best option for qualifying and training our youth for tomorrow’s challenges. However, those entrepreneurs are not teachers or willing to be, education specialists and strategists are required to set the vision and the procedures required to pave the way for highly practical competencies framework. Analgesics are no longer feasible.

Child poverty in the United States from the perspective of conflict theory

This article analyzes social problems linked to child poverty in the United States from the perspective of social conflict theory. Specifically, this article depicts the poverty meas-urements used to evaluate poverty issues in the United States. It also describes the United States’ efforts to reform social welfare policies to decrease child poverty. This article aims to educate social work students about factors directly connected to child poverty, such as unemployment, low wages, family structure, education, and immigrants. In doing so, this article uses social theories such as social conflict theory to understand what aspects of American culture are linked to the persistence of child poverty. Finally, this article dis-cusses the long-term plans and massive efforts required to reduce the causes of poverty.

Exploration of explanatory factors underlying teachers’ perception of learning difficulties in mathematics in interaction with student performances

This study project contributes to documenting the subject of learning difficulties in mathematics [1-4]. In this research, we aimed to verify what are the main explanatory factors underlying teachers’ perception of learning difficulties in mathematics and in relation to student performance in a problem-solving test. To meet the objectives of the study, we implemented a correlational quantitative data analysis devise with the participation of 262 primary school students. Regression analyzes were performed. The results of the analyzes show that the performance in solving a written mathematics questionnaire is explained mainly by socio-demographic variables associated with the students and by factual variables relating to the conditions for taking the questionnaires. Moreover, the teacher’s perception of student performance in mathematics is mainly explained by variables directly related to the student or to the teacher’s vision of the student’s potential for success at school.

Use of item response theory in marketing research

There are three purposes of this paper. The first is to present a brief introduction to item response theory in conjunction with marketing research. The second is to present a review of the current uses of item response theory in representative marketing research journals. The third is to present an example that illustrate and contrasts classical test theory and item response theory approaches to item and scale analysis. Several item response theory relevant papers were recently published in various marketing research journals. Because models under item response theory, from simple to complex, were used without any systematic introduction in marketing research, this paper briefly presents the main concepts in item response theory. A content analysis was done for the second purpose with 30 item response theory relevant articles in marketing research journals. Articles were sorted based on the taxonomy of item response theory models. Many articles reviewed relied on some type of unidimensional dichotomous item response theory models. Articles published recently within the past 10 years used more complicated item response theory models, both mathematically and statistically, than other previously published articles in marketing research journals. Lastly, data from a scale with three Likert-type items of four response categories were analysed using a traditional approach based on item statistics and coefficient alpha as well as using an item response theory approach by employing the graded response model. Main concepts of item response theory were explicated with figures.

The Analysis of Frequency Terms Used in Rating Scales

The purpose of this paper is to provide a contemporary analysis of frequency terms commonly used in rating scales that are based on differing degrees of frequency with which events happen. A total of 20 frequency terms was analyzed using empirical data as well as employing a lexical database. Use of clearly separable frequency terms is imperative for the construction of a set of rating scales as an effective measuring instrument.

Impact of the edTPA on teacher candidates’ perceptions of preparedness to teach

This longitudinal case study conducted at a private University in the northeastern United States explored the impact of the edTPA assessment and preparation process as an embedded component of the University’s educator preparation program. The study tracked 59 graduate level candidates from entry into the program through candidate licensure. The researchers examined the impact of the edTPA preparation process on teacher candidates’ perceptions of their readiness to teach in comparison to their actual readiness to teach as indicated by their edTPA portfolio passing score. The University’s School of Education has an estimated 30% ethnic diversity population, thus a second research question compared perceptions of readiness to teach of candidates of color to those of Caucasian peers. Framed by Bandura’s (1977) self-efficacy theory, this study contributes to the research on the edTPA as an efficacious and inclusive evaluation tool, particularly within diverse schools of education.

Adult Learning Theory: Reflections on the role of mentoring as a key to success in advanced degree programs

Vital to completing advanced educational and training programs beyond the undergraduate degree level is realizing specific dispositions and traits. In this paper, the role of mentoring as a critical contributing factor to student success is examined through critical reflection as a form of qualitative inquiry. Traditionally utilized in professional settings to improve practice, critical reflection provided an emergent methodological approach for close examination of personal experiences with mentoring during the learning process in pursuit and subsequent completion of a professional degree (Fook, 2013). This in-depth examination of personal experience derived lessons learned from individuals that successfully navigated the rigor of advanced educational programs to expose mentoring’s role as the key to success.

Departmentalization in Elementary Schools: Contradictions Teachers Confront

This paper presents analyses of observational and interview data gathered in a study of exemplary fourth-grade teachers from five states. The central issue explored is the relative merits of self-contained and departmentalized models of instruction. We found no achievement differences in the classrooms by organizational pattern, but differences in the instruction offered in these two models were identified, and mixed views of the relative advantages of either organization plan were expressed by the participants. A key tension was whether these organizational plans are intended to primarily benefit teachers or students. However, the complexities of the cost/benefit concerns are the findings that this study highlights.