Positive mental health literacy for teachers: adaptation and construct validation.

Mental health promotion has been gaining recognition as an important teacher competency. Hence, it is imperative that teachers have adequate mental health literacy (MHL). However, most studies and programs on teacher MHL focus on teachers' knowledge of mental disorders, whereas very few have explored their knowledge of positive mental health, perhaps due to the lack of measures for this construct. In this study, we adapted and validated the Mental Health-Promoting Knowledge Scale (MHPKS), a measure of positive MHL, for teachers. We looked into its factor structure and examined its relationships with knowledge of mental disorders, and mental health and teaching-related outcomes. The sample included 470 Filipino preservice teachers. Results of the confirmatory factor analysis provided support for the single-factor model of the MHPKS. Positive MHL was found to be positively associated with knowledge of mental disorders, well-being, teaching engagement, and teaching satisfaction. It predicted well-being, teaching engagement, and teaching satisfaction above and beyond the variance accounted for by knowledge of mental disorders, indicating construct validity. MHPKS is a valid tool that can be used to complement measures of knowledge of mental disorders for a more holistic assessment of teacher mental health knowledge.

Why do I teach? Teachers' instrumental and prosocial motivation predict teaching quality across East and West.

BACKGROUND: Individuals pursue teaching careers for numerous reasons, such as for instrumental or prosocial purposes. AIMS: This study examined the personal (instrumental motivation) and social (prosocial motivation) utility of teaching as predictors of teaching quality in terms of clarity of instruction, classroom management, and cognitive activation. SAMPLE: We used data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018, which included 50,595 teachers from 1252 schools in 10 countries and regions. METHODS: We performed a series of regression analyses to test a model of instrumental and prosocial motivation to predict three indicators of teaching quality (clarity of instruction, classroom management, and cognitive activation) while controlling for demographic characteristics (age, sex, educational level, and teaching experience). We examined this model in countries and regions from Eastern (Japan, Korea, Singapore, Shanghai and Taipei) and Western (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States of America) cultures. RESULTS: Results demonstrated that instrumental motivation predicted clarity of instruction in the East and classroom management in both the East and West; prosocial motivation, however, was a more consistent predictor of all indicators of teaching quality, except classroom management in the West, across cultures. CONCLUSION: Teachers' prosocial motivation to benefit others and contribute to society must be considered to understand teaching quality across various cultural contexts. Implications for theory, practice and policy are discussed.

A mediation model of the relationship between university students' news media literacy and xenophobia: The role of intellectual humility, perceived threat, and blind patriotism.

The dissemination of misinformation and disinformation has increased the need for news media literacy. This study administered a self-developed questionnaire to measure the relationship between news media literacy and xenophobia among college students in China (N = 430). The questionnaire measured five variables: news media literacy, xenophobia, blind patriotism, perceived threat, and intellectual humility. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to validate this five-variable survey, and the analyses indicated satisfactory construct validity. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that intellectual humility was a significant predictor of news media literacy, and blind patriotism and perceived threat mediated the relationship between news media literacy and xenophobia. This study provides insights for researchers and instructors who are promoting news media literacy education in schools.

Surveying and Modelling 21st Century Online Learning Patterns of Medical Students.

Medical education in the 21st century is shifting more toward online learning because of extensive application of information and communication technology (ICT). We surveyed medical students' 21st century online learning experiences and modeled the interrelations among relevant dimensions of 21st century online learning. Based on the general themes proposed by multiple 21st century learning frameworks and current medical education emphases, a seven-factor instrument was developed for surveying 364 medical students' learning process, thinking process, and basic science-related clinical ability. The associations among the seven factors and the structural relationships of how online learning practices and thinking processes affected basic science-related clinical ability were explored. The developed instrument was validated and possessed good reliability. The seven dimensions were interrelated. Specifically, meaningful learning with ICT was positively associated with other learning practices. The learning practices were positively associated with the thinking processes and the thinking processes were positively associated with students' basic science-related clinical ability. Our findings suggested that students engaged in active and collaborative learning with technology would employ higher-order thinking and perceived better basic science-related clinical ability. The findings support engaging medical students with 21st century learning practices to strengthen students' self-perception of clinical ability.

Integrating Automatic Speech Recognition Technology Into Vocabulary Learning in a Flipped English Class for Chinese College Students.

Although the automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology is increasingly used for commercial purposes, its impact on language learning has not been extensively studied. Underpinned by the sociocultural theory, the present work examined the effects of leveraging ASR technology to support English vocabulary learning in a tertiary flipped setting. A control group and an experimental group of college students participated in a 14-week study. Both groups had their English classes in a flipped fashion, but the experimental group was assigned with ASR-assisted oral tasks for pre-class self-learning. The pre- and post-intervention in-class task performance of both groups was audio-recorded and transcribed for data analysis. The triadic complexity-accuracy-fluency (CAF) framework was adopted to evaluate the participants' vocabulary learning. The between- and within-subjects effects were examined mainly through procedures of MANCOVA and mixed-design repeated measures ANCOVA. Results showed that on all the metrics of lexical complexity and speed fluency, the experimental group outperformed the control group, and had significant growth over time. On the other hand, the control group only improved significantly overtime on the G-index. On lexical accuracy, there was no significant difference between the two groups, and the within-subjects effect was not significant for either group. The findings lent some support to Skehan's Trade-off Hypothesis and discussions were conducted regarding the triarchic CAF framework.

Understanding Medical Students' Perceptions of and Behavioral Intentions toward Learning Artificial Intelligence: A Survey Study.

Medical students learning to use artificial intelligence for medical practices is likely to enhance medical services. However, studies in this area have been lacking. The present study investigated medical students' perceptions of and behavioral intentions toward learning artificial intelligence (AI) in clinical practice based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB). A sum of 274 Year-5 undergraduates and master's and doctoral postgraduates participated in the online survey. Six constructs were measured, including (1) personal relevance (PR) of medical AI, (2) subjective norm (SN) related to learning medical AI, (3) perceived self-efficacy (PSE) of learning medical AI, (4) basic knowledge (BKn) of medical AI, (5) behavioral intention (BI) toward learning medical AI and (6) actual learning (AL) of medical AI. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were employed to analyze the data. The results showed that the proposed model had a good model fit and the theoretical hypotheses in relation to the TPB were mostly confirmed. Specifically, (a) BI had a significantly strong and positive impact on AL; (b) BI was significantly predicted by PR, SN and PSE, whilst BKn did not have a direct effect on BI; (c) PR was significantly and positively predicted by SN and PSE, but BKn failed to predict PR; (d) both SN and BKn had significant and positive impact on PSE, and BKn had a significantly positive effect on SN. Discussion was conducted regarding the proposed model, and new insights were provided for researchers and practitioners in medical education.

Promoting Secondary Students' Twenty-First Century Skills and STEM Career Interests Through a Crossover Program of STEM and Community Service Education.

STEM education has been regarded as an important educational initiative for cultivating students' twenty-first century skills. The present work aimed to explore ways to promote students' twenty-first century skills through an integrated STEM-based curriculum. Specifically, we designed and implemented an 8-week crossover program of STEM and community service education. In this program, students learned about STEM domain knowledge and community service issues. They then applied the knowledge to solve authentic problems faced by Hong Kong community-housing residents from disadvantaged groups. A mixed-method approach was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in enhancing students' twenty-first century skills and attitudes, including (i) creative thinking, (ii) collaboration, (iii) perseverance, as well as their (iv) STEM career interests. The research participants were 121 secondary students from a government-subsidized school. The quantitative results showed that the participants' creative thinking, collaboration, and perseverance improved alongside their STEM career interests. These findings were further supported by the data gathered through focus-group interviews. This study provides theoretical and practical insights into the integration of STEM education with community service learning.

Modeling Chinese Teachers' Efficacies for the Teaching of Integrated STEM With Interdisciplinary Communication and Epistemic Fluency.

Engineering design is a core activity in integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. During the design process, teachers should possess interdisciplinary communication capacities to collaborate with their peers who are teaching different subjects and have epistemic fluency to comprehend multiple ways of subject matter knowing for the collective design of high-quality integrated STEM (iSTEM) lessons. This is especially so for the online mode of instruction during and after the pandemic. Teachers' efficacies for interdisciplinary communication and epistemic fluency have rarely been explored. In this study, we aimed to examine primary school, junior high school, and high school STEM teachers' (N = 483) efficacies for daily instruction, student engagement, interdisciplinary communication, epistemic fluency, and technological pedagogical engineering knowledge (TPEK) and designing integrated STEM instruction. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (n = 155) and a subsequent confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (n = 328) were used to validate the measurement and structural model. Next, a structural equation model (SEM) was employed to examine whether these variables were reliable predictors of teachers' integrated STEM instruction. The survey was validated with good reliabilities and the structural equation modeling supported most of the hypotheses. Statistically, the results also showed that teachers' general efficacies for daily teaching and students' engagement predicted their interdisciplinary communication, epistemic fluency, and TPEK. Teachers' interdisciplinary communication predicted their epistemic fluency, TPEK, and iSTEM. Teachers' epistemic fluency also predicted their TPEK and iSTEM. In addition, multi-group analyses were used to test the measurement invariance of the scale and to compare the latent means between the genders and subject matters. The results of the various analyses confirmed that the measurement model appeared to be equivalent across the genders and subject matters examined. Genders and subject matters did not significantly differ in any of the measured variables. The results from this study indicate that teachers' epistemic fluency and interdisciplinary communication play essential roles in advancing their TPEK and iSTEM. Hence, this study suggests that teacher professional development should focus on enhancing teacher epistemic fluency through interdisciplinary collaboration to support the development of TPEK and iSTEM instruction.

Exploring secondary school teachers' TPACK for video-based flipped learning: the role of pedagogical beliefs.

Video-based flipped learning (VFL) has become a popular form of flipped learning. However, teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) for video-based flipped learning is still under-explored. A TPACK-VFL questionnaire for assessing teachers' TPACK for VFL was developed and validated with both EFA and CFA in this study to fill the research gap. After instrument development and validation, a total of 211 secondary school teachers' TPACK for VFL, their pedagogical beliefs, and the role of teacher pedagogical beliefs on their TPACK for VFL were explored in this study. The results showed that the secondary school teachers in this study generally expressed sufficient confidence in their TPACK for VFL. They tended to have strong learner-centered pedagogical beliefs and moderate teacher-centered pedagogical beliefs. Besides, compared with the senior high school teachers, the junior high school teachers showed significantly higher confidence in their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) for VFL (p < 0.05). This study also found that the teachers' learner-centered pedagogical belief was significantly correlated with their content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), technological content knowledge (TCK), and technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) (p < 0.05). In contrast, their teacher-centered pedagogical belief was significantly correlated with their TCK, TPK, and TPACK (p < 0.05). Cluster analysis was conducted based on the teachers' pedagogical beliefs, which yielded three groups: the Learner-centered Group, the Double-emphasis Group, and the Neutral Group. A series of ANOVA confirmed that the three groups of teachers significantly differed in their CK, PK, PCK, and TPACK (p < 0.05), indicating that teachers' pedagogical beliefs played a role in their TPACK for VFL. A series of post hoc analyses further revealed that, in general, the teachers in the Double-emphasis Group (i.e., those teachers who held both strong learner-centered and teacher-centered pedagogical beliefs) showed better TPACK for VFL.

Validating the General Extended Technology Acceptance Model for E-Learning: Evidence From an Online English as a Foreign Language Course Amid COVID-19.

The present study validated the general extended technology acceptance model for e-learning (GETAMEL) with the survey data from the English as a foreign language (EFL) online class during the novel coronavirus lockdown period. A total of 678 undergraduates participated in the survey. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data. The results showed that the influence of perceived usefulness of students on their intentional behavior to use the online learning system was not mediated by their attitude, indicating a very limited role of attitude toward technology in the model. Enjoyment and self-efficacy had no significant effects on the internal constructs, raising theoretical concerns on the applicability of this general model into specific contexts. In addition, we found that experience might be a moderator rather than an antecedent of the internal constructs in the model.

A Study of Disposition, Engagement, Efficacy, and Vitality of Teachers in Designing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education.

This study proposes and tests a theoretical model of how perceptions of disposition, engagement, and efficacy of teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) e-learning can predict their sense of vitality when they designed STEM education. Upon the proposition, we developed and validated an instrument for examining the relationships between these variables. The participants were 122 secondary teachers of STEM education from Hong Kong. The instrument included four design aspects as follows: (i) disposition, (ii) lesson design engagement, (iii) efficacy for designing STEM e-learning, and (iv) vitality of teachers after attending a series of STEM professional development activities. To analyze the relationships among the variables, partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed. The disposition of teachers predicted lesson design engagement and both of these factors, in turn, predicted efficacy for designing STEM e-learning. In other words, if teachers have a high proposition toward designing learning activities, their engagement in the lesson design process may enhance their capacities in designing and implementing such activities. Also, the disposition of teachers and lesson design engagement predicted their vitality, revealing that well-suited STEM teachers should not only be able to design a STEM curriculum but also have a positive perception of STEM education.

Intrinsic Motivation and Sophisticated Epistemic Beliefs Are Promising Pathways to Science Achievement: Evidence From High Achieving Regions in the East and the West.

Research on self-determination theory emphasizes the importance of the internalization of motivation as a crucial factor for determining the quality of motivation. Hence, intrinsic motivation is deemed as an important predictor of learning. Research on epistemic beliefs, on the other hand, focuses on the nature of knowledge, and learning with more sophisticated epistemic beliefs associated with more adaptive outcomes. While learning and achievement are multiply determined, a more comprehensive theoretical model that takes into account both motivational quality and epistemic beliefs is needed. Hence, this study aims to examine the role of intrinsic and instrumental motivation alongside epistemic beliefs in predicting students' achievement in science. Data were drawn from the PISA 2015 survey. We focused on four of the top-performing societies. Two were Eastern societies - Singapore and Hong Kong, and the other two were Western societies: Canada and Finland. We found both common and specific patterns among the four societies. Regarding the common patterns, we found that intrinsic motivation and epistemic beliefs had direct positive effects on science achievement. As for the regionally-specific findings, instrumental motivation positively predicted achievement only in Western societies (i.e., Finland and Canada), but not in Eastern societies (i.e., Singapore and Hong Kong). The interaction effect between motivation and epistemic beliefs also demonstrated different patterns across the four societies. Implications for the role of motivation and epistemic beliefs in optimizing student learning and achievement are discussed.

Teachers' Conceptions of Teaching Chinese Descriptive Composition With Interactive Spherical Video-Based Virtual Reality.

Phenomenographic research about teachers' conception of teaching has consistently revealed that teachers' conception of teaching influence their classroom practices, which in turn shape students' learning experiences. This paper reports teachers' conceptions of teaching with regards to the use of interactive spherical video-based virtual reality (ISV-VR) in Chinese descriptive composition writing. Twenty-one secondary teachers in Hong Kong involved in an ISV-VR-supported Chinese descriptive writing program participated in this phenomenographic study. Analyses of the semi-structured interviews establish seven conception categories that are specifically related to the use of ISV-VR for descriptive Chinese composition writing: (1) offering students more observational opportunities; (2) improving students' writing skills; (3) promoting students' learning participation and motivation; (4) shifting learning from teacher-centric to student-centric, (5) enhancing collaborative learning among students; (6) cultivating students' positive values and moral character, and (7) shaping students' self-identity as "writers." The concurrent and convenient access to the ISV-VR resources was for the teachers an enriched and supportive environment for them to cultivate students' writer identity. In addition, it was discovered that the structural relationships of the conceptions may be better organized along three axes of continuum: conception's orientation, teaching attention locus, and understanding of writing. These categories form a hierarchy from skill-oriented to community-oriented, and finally to identity-oriented conception. The findings may provide researchers and practitioners with novel insight into the teaching of composition writing in the contexts of L1 acquisition supported by virtual reality technology.

Examining the Effect of Semantic Relatedness on the Acquisition of English Collocations.

This study examines whether semantic relatedness facilitates or impedes the acquisition of English collocations by conducting two experiments respectively on Chinese undergraduates. Each experiment was composed of a reading session, a productive test, and a receptive test. Experiment 1 began with the reading session of 28 paired-up words and their collocations (in sentence context). Those words were counterbalanced between two randomly selected groups by cross-matching on semantic relatedness. Results of the productive test revealed that the participants scored significantly higher on test items that were semantically related than the randomly cross-paired counterparts. However, for the receptive test, the participants performed significantly better on semantically unrelated items. Experiment 2 was similar to Experiment 1 except that the word pairs selected were only semantically related and did not have any shared morphemes. Experiment 2 also revealed consistent results. The results of the two experiments consistently illustrate that semantic relatedness may exert a facilitatory effect on language output but an inhibitory effect on the process of language input.

A PISA-2015 Comparative Meta-Analysis between Singapore and Finland: Relations of Students' Interest in Science, Perceived ICT Competence, and Environmental Awareness and Optimism.

The aim of the present study is twofold: (1) to identify a factor structure between variables-interest in broad science topics, perceived information and communications technology (ICT) competence, environmental awareness and optimism; and (2) to explore the relations between these variables at the country level. The first part of the aim is addressed using exploratory factor analysis with data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 15-year-old students from Singapore and Finland. The results show that a comparable structure with four factors was verified in both countries. Correlation analyses and linear regression were used to address the second part of the aim. The results show that adolescents' interest in broad science topics can predict perceived ICT competence. Their interest in broad science topics and perceived ICT competence can predict environmental awareness in both countries. However, there is difference in predicting environmental optimism. Singaporean students' interest in broad science topics and their perceived ICT competences are positive predictors, whereas environmental awareness is a negative predictor. Finnish students' environmental awareness negatively predicted environmental optimism.