Keyword: STEM

ABSTRACT: This study examined the relationship between AI-powered learning tools, student engagement, and academic performance in higher education, with a focus on differences across academic disciplines, age groups, and gender. The study employed a quantitative, correlational, and causal-comparative research design, involving undergraduate students from both STEM and non-STEM disciplines through a multi-stage sampling approach. Data were obtained from AI-generated learning metrics, specifically Time-on-Task, Interaction Frequency, and Knowledge Mastery, alongside a structured questionnaire measuring behavioral, cognitive, and emotional aspects of student engagement, as well as students’ self-reported academic performance. The findings revealed that student engagement varied according to the type of AI learning tool utilized. Tools designed to support knowledge mastery were associated with higher levels of engagement compared to those focused primarily on interaction frequency or time spent on tasks. Students in STEM-related disciplines generally demonstrated stronger engagement than those in non-STEM fields, although the pattern of association between AI tool use and engagement was consistent across disciplines. Knowledge Mastery also emerged as the most influential factor in predicting academic performance across different age groups, with older students tending to achieve better academic outcomes. Additionally, gender differences were observed in how students benefited from specific AI tools, suggesting varying learning preferences and responses to AI-supported instruction. Overall, the study highlights the significant role of AI-powered learning tools in shaping student engagement and academic performance. It emphasizes the need for mastery-oriented, learner-sensitive, and discipline-responsive AI interventions to optimize learning outcomes in higher education.

ABSTRACT: A consensus exists in transnational educational policy regarding the relevance of accountability and the contribution of school evaluation to education quality. This paper scrutinises the evaluation results of Portuguese schools provided by the Inspectorate services using a pairwise comparison between 194 schools evaluated in 2018-2020 and 2021-2023. Regarding the literature gap on the behaviour of accountability systems over time, this study can contribute to a reflection on justice and transparency in high-stakes systems. The findings suggest that (i) the external evaluation results drift following a directional evolutionary model, indicating progression concerning the self-evaluation, educational services, and results domains; (ii) the occurrence of standardisation and leadership legitimisation phenomenon; (iii) possible side effects in the schools' evaluation process, namely evasive behaviour, apparent and constructed realities, and evaluation distortion; (iv) the external evaluation framework flexibility in accommodating territorial differences between schools without producing system disadvantage. Departing from insights into how a high-stakes external evaluation system operates over time, the study offers an empirically grounded assumption that reveals dynamics not unique to Portugal, but characteristic of accountability regimes adopted across many educational systems. In conclusion, to improve the quality of education, low-stakes accountability systems should be implemented to strengthen transparent schools' autonomy.

ABSTRACT: This systematic literature review synthesizes existing research to explore the use of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) as an instructional pedagogy and its impacts on achieving the goals of Environmental Education (EE). A search across Google Scholar, ERIC, and EBSCO Host databases using the Boolean search term (“Problem-Based Learning” AND “Environmental Education”) yielded 12,986 results. After applying rigorous inclusion and exclusion criteria, 52 peer-reviewed, empirical studies published between 2005 and March 2025 were selected for analysis. Findings reveal a steady increase in PBL in EE research over the past two decades, with most studies conducted in Indonesia and Turkey. PBL was found to promote the goals of EE by enhancing students’ environmental literacy, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. Dominant research methodologies were experimental and quasi-experimental and research lines were predominantly intervention- outcome based (46%). While session durations varied, most studies used short- to medium-term interventions with nearly half of the studies neither specifying the duration nor describing their PBL process. Few studies tracked long-term behavioral impacts of PBL on EE goals on participants. Study participants were mostly middle school and college learners. Studies reported the integration of EE in a variety of subject areas, mostly environmental and general science content areas. Notable gaps include a lack of standardized reporting guidelines which limit reproducibility. To address this gap, a framework: PBL Implementation Reporting Protocol for Environmental Education Research is proposed. This review contributes to the discourse on active learning pedagogies in EE towards the achievement of EE goals and offers insights, research and practice recommendations for advancing equitable, context-sensitive PBL integration in EE practice across educational levels.

ABSTRACT: Teachers are ubiquitously theorized as agents of change capable of both facilitating learning and serving as educational teacher-researchers. The negotiation of teacher-researcher identity has garnered substantial scholarly attention in international discourse. In Vietnam, the majority of existing inquiries have primarily concentrated on tertiary-level English as a Foreign Language (EFL) lecturers, leaving an empirical gap concerning how contextual variables affect this identity reconstruction among other teacher populations. This retrospective narrative inquiry, endeavoring to bridge this gap, explored contextual influences on a Vietnamese high school EFL female teacher’s identity negotiation through her Master’s thesis-conducting experiences. The study adapted Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory of Human Development as its theoretical framework. Data source included a two-round semi-structured narrative-framed interview with the primary participant, triangulated by an outsider-nominated interview. The data analysis followed Clandinin and Connelly’s (1990, 2022) three-phase narrative analysis of broadening, burrowing, and storying/restorying. Findings unveiled how a four-layered ecological system, including individual, academic, institutional, and socio-cultural factors, aligning with micro-, meso-, exo-, and marco-sytem, respectively, affected such negotiation. The findings further showcased how thesis conducting acted as a catalyst for nurturing epistemological belief transformation, occupational enhancements, and multifaceted identity development as a language teacher. Implications and methodological recommendations were proposed to advise stakeholders to pedagogize their practices and inform future inquiries to expand this study’s findings.

ABSTRACT: The paper explores the factors, observable and non-observable, influential in implementation of continuous assessment learning activities strategy in Zimbabwean education system 5.0. This is an activity-based assessment of learners and was reviewed since its inception. Most qualitative researched found the barriers to implementation of continuous assessment learning activities like resources, preparedness of schools and skill but not the relationship and intensity of the influence. A stratified random sampling method was applied in Zimbabwean education institutions that involved educators, parents and learners from primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. Structural equation modelling was conducted to assess the relationship between continuous assessment learning activities implementation and other latent variables. Prior to structural equation modelling, exploratory factor analysis was done. The results obtained from this statistical evaluation indicated that teacher motivation, parental support and child performance were positively related to continuous assessment learning activities implementation. Child performance had a mediation effect in that the relationship of teacher motivation and parental support increased when child performance was included. Respective influence of teacher motivation and parental support were 0.152 and 0.220. Inclusion of child performance increase influence to 0.493, a more than 100% increase in each case. The study therefore recommends a holistic approach to continuous assessment learning activities implementation but with more emphasis on improving child performance.