Assessing university students' perceptions of their Physics instructors' TPACK development in two contexts

Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) has been gaining traction among educational researchers; however, studies documenting university students' perceptions of their teachers' TPACK remain limited. This study intends to investigate the professional development of two physics instructors through the lens of the TPACK framework. Moreover, this study spans an 18‐week semester within both the contexts of Taiwan and China. Multiple data were collected and analyzed, including the pretest and posttest TPACK surveys, instructor interviews, in‐class observations and students' feedback and opinions. The results revealed that John's instructional representations and strategies and technology integration and application scores increased significantly, as well as Mike's knowledge of students' understanding score showing a significant increase from the middle to the end of semester. John (Taiwan) emphasized life examples and the use of multimedia while Mike (China) chose to emphasize students' knowledge and evaluation. Such results showed different teaching characteristics in the two contexts. Implications and suggestions are put forward based on the results of this study.     

Creation of reusable open textbooks: Insights from the Connexions repository

Open textbook initiatives have appeared as an alternative to traditional publishing. These initiatives for the production of alternatively copyrighted educational resources provide a way of sharing materials through the Web. While the open model of peer‐produced materials enables the global reuse of textbooks, the combination of fragments to produce new textbooks tailored to particular needs is not easy. The heterogeneity of topics and target audiences, as well as the cultural and institutional differences of educational systems across the globe, raises the need for new compositional features, fostering—at the same time—the reuse of the newly produced combinations. This paper reviews the current models of reuse and sharing, and presents a quantitative analysis of the Connexions repository which provides evidence about the culture of reuse in open textbook initiatives.     

Variable‐Length Computerized Adaptive Testing Using the Higher Order DINA Model

Cognitive diagnosis models provide profile information about a set of latent binary attributes, whereas item response models yield a summary report on a latent continuous trait. To utilize the advantages of both models, higher order cognitive diagnosis models were developed in which information about both latent binary attributes and latent continuous traits is available. To facilitate the utility of cognitive diagnosis models, corresponding computerized adaptive testing (CAT) algorithms were developed. Most of them adopt the fixed‐length rule to terminate CAT and are limited to ordinary cognitive diagnosis models. In this study, the higher order deterministic‐input, noisy‐and‐gate (DINA) model was used as an example, and three criteria based on the minimum‐precision termination rule were implemented: one for the latent class, one for the latent trait, and the other for both. The simulation results demonstrated that all of the termination criteria were successful when items were selected according to the Kullback‐Leibler information and the posterior‐weighted Kullback‐Leibler information, and the minimum‐precision rule outperformed the fixed‐length rule with a similar test length in recovering the latent attributes and the latent trait.     

The mediating role of social relationships in the association of adolescents’ individual school self-concept and their school engagement,belonging and helplessness in school

It is well known that teachers frequently observe a decline in the scholastic motivation of many adolescent students, which in turn is often associated with a decline in students’ individual school self-concept. In contrast, less is known about the association between students’ individual school self-concept and school engagement, or the related concepts of school belonging and helplessness in school. The current study explored social relationships as mediators in the association between individual school self-concept and adolescents’ school engagement, belonging to school and helplessness in school in a large sample of 7th and 8th grade students (N?=?1088; M_Age?=?13.7) in secondary schools in Brandenburg, Germany. The results of two structural equation models showed that the teacher–student relationship mediated the association between individual school self-concept and school engagement, belonging to school and helplessness in school, respectively. In contrast, the student–student relationship did not mediate any of these associations.     

THE POWER OF SOCIAL AND MOTIVATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS FOR TEST‐ANXIOUS ADOLESCENTS’ ACADEMIC SELF‐REGULATION

Based on cognitive evaluation theory (CET) and organismic integration theory (OIT) – both sub‐theories of self‐determination theory (SDT) – the present study examined whether the academic self‐regulation of youth with test anxiety can be strengthened through social and motivational relationships with peers and teachers. This study employed a large sample (N = 1088; MAge = 13.7) of early adolescents from secondary schools in Brandenburg, Germany. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed associations. The results revealed a negative association between test anxiety and intrinsic motivation as well as test anxiety and identified regulation, which was fully mediated by teachers as positive motivators. Furthermore, both teachers as positive motivators as well as the teacher‐student relationship were found to be strong predictors of the self‐determined aspects of academic self‐regulation. Additionally, both peers as positive motivators and the student‐student relationship are essential for external self‐regulation.