Adopting photovoice to explore teachers’ experiences in online teaching

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has caused a rapid and massive change in the education sector across the world and left no choice to teachers to maintain their status quo. As a country with very diverse geographical and technological conditions, Indonesia has felt the severe impact of this pandemic. This study explores how Indonesian English as foreign language (EFL) teachers struggle to adapt to the online teaching process, identifies the challenges they encountered during the online teaching and learning process, and investigates their strategies in coping with the associated challenges to ensure the learning objectives were achieved. This study employed photovoice as a visual research methodology to capture the new phenomena and answer the research objectives by inviting four English teachers from three different islands, Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi to share their experiences and strategies for survival. The results indicated that Indonesian EFL teachers suffered from challenging experiences, including the trial and error of learning management system (LMS) choice, and were confronted with unpleasant feedback from the students. This study also identified poor internet connection and low online student participation as the main issues. To deal with such problems, especially with low student participation, they viewed disadvantaged situations as a trigger to improve their creativity

Analyzing students’ statistical literacy skills based on gender, grade, and educational field

Statistical literacy is fundamental competence to think critically and to conclude information based on data. This study aims to describe students’ statistical literacy according to gender, grade, and educational field. This research was a quantitative method with a cross-sectional design by explaining and analyzing the results using Rasch modeling, and students’ statistical literacy was categorized and described according to statistical literacy topics, gender, student grade level, and educational field. The respondent of this study was 271 students obtained through the stratified random sampling in Yogyakarta’s senior high school. The result of this study confirmed that the statistical literacy skills of students are still at a low level. The lowest aspect is the scope of conclusions, while the highest aspect is data production (medium level). There are no significant differences in statistical literacy skills based on gender and class. However, there are significant differences in statistical literacy based on field education. It indicates that policymakers or teachers should improve students’ statistical literacy skills by training or applying a learning model that focuses explicitly on statistical literacy skills

Predictor of academic performance: personality traits and catechol-O-methyltransferase polymorphisms

Personality traits and genetics are important factors in determining academic performance. Although there have been studies on the association between genetics and academic performance, there is limited data on the effect of personality traits and the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) rs4680 polymorphism on academic performance, particularly among university students in Malaysia. The objective of this study was to correlate the relationship between personality traits, COMT rs4680 polymorphism, and academic performance among health sciences undergraduate students at a Malaysian university. The research design was a correlational study where 221 students were recruited based on the convenient sampling approach. The demographic and international personality item pool (IPIP) questionnaires were administered online, whereas the COMT rs4680 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) was determined using a tetra-primer allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR). From the IPIP results, the conscientiousness trait was positively and significantly correlated with academic performance (r=0.141, p=0.036). Participants with homozygous Met/Met allele of the COMT rs4680 polymorphism tended to perform better in academics (p=0.009) as compared to participants with homozygous Val/Val and heterozygous Val/Met alleles. As a conclusion, students with a higher conscientiousness score and carriers of the homozygous Met/Met allele of COMT rs4680 showed better academic performance

English for specific purposes curriculum evaluation from the social semiotic perspective

This paper presents an evaluation of an English for specific purposes (ESP) curriculum using the social semiotic perspective. This perspective highlights the importance of authenticity, multimodality, and communicative competence in ESP teaching and learning. Five main components of the ESP curriculum at the Port and Shipping Management Department of a Maritime Polytechnic in Indonesia were evaluated, including the syllabus, lesson plans, resources, teaching activities, and assessment. In conducting the evaluation, the authors developed an evaluation framework based on three existing frameworks, namely Stufflebeam’s context input process product (CIPP) model for evaluation, Kaewpet’s ESP program evaluation, and Tsou and Chen’s ESP program evaluation. Multiple data collection methods were used and multiple perspectives of research participants were invited. The findings of the study revealed that there were several problems in the ESP curriculum of the Port and Shipping Management Department. The main problem was the poorly designed syllabus that has caused drawbacks on the other components, such as irrelevant and unauthentic teaching materials and activities, low variety of teaching media, lack of multimodal resources used in the classroom, and low validity and reliability of assessments. Pedagogical implications regarding the results of the evaluation are also discussed.

The role of peace educators in building a culture of peace in the school: Comparisons between Indonesia and Malaysia

A culture of peace is a condition that school members covet. Indonesia and Malaysia are two neighboring countries that support implementing peace education. Even though the two countries are allied and neighbors, each country has uniqueness, including implementing peace education. This study aims to describe the role of peace educators in Indonesian and Malaysian schools. Systematic literature reviews identify the position of peace educators in building a culture of peace in schools. The study uses eight main articles to describe the role of peace educators in Indonesia and Malaysia. The selected articles were analyzed by data extraction. The study results show that peace educators in Indonesia and Malaysia have different characteristics. Peace educators in Indonesia focus more on efforts to suppress student violence. Meanwhile, peace educators in Malaysia focus on building a constructive mindset towards all forms of experiences experienced by students. The study recommends further research to create a unique model of peace education according to the characteristics of students in Indonesia and Malaysia

Early childhood education pre-service teachers’ perception of outdoor learning

Outdoor learning encompasses a wide range of educational activities, from local natural play areas to formal school curriculum classes. Despite growing evidence of its benefits, outdoor learning is still underutilized in Malaysia’s early childhood education system. Hence, this study aims to investigate preservice teachers’ perceptions of the impact of outdoor learning on children’s well-being since future teachers’ perception is the most important indicator in predicting their intention to use it in the future. A quantitative approach was used, and the questionnaire was distributed to 63 pre-service teachers studying at Universiti Selangor, Malaysia. Based on the findings, the majority of respondents agree that outdoor learning benefits children’s well-being, especially their social and psychosocial well-being. Thus, this study provides insight into the significance of outdoor learning on children’s learning experiences and that it should be utilized more frequently in the classroom

Scientific communication: students’ proficiency for workplace readiness

Under the theme of “scientific communication proficiency for workplace readiness,” researchers conducted this mixed-method study to specify key elements that improve student’s proficiency for scientific communication and enhance the communicative competence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for the students. Data were collected using questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussion. The respondents and informants consisted of 351 STEM students, six STEM business executives, and three communication experts. The conceptual framework was designed based on a communicative competence model to identify relationship between skills, knowledge, and training history. The science communication model of existing core elements (CE) based on sender, message, channel, and receiver (SMCR) communication model was developed. The implication of the finding significantly escalates the practice of scientific communication. The study highlights the importance of considering different elements under SMCR in enhancing communication skills among STEM students. The expectations of business executives and communication experts’ views and feedback provided empirical inferences that significantly support the outcomes in terms of the practical implication phase. Based on the findings, the science communication model with key elements for work readiness is redesigned as the final outcome. The results could imply to enhance communication skills in various industries

Development and validation of the educational psychological capital scale

Since the introduction of psychological capital to the field of education, it has drawn a lot of interest from researchers. This is due to the numerous studies that have demonstrated the positive effects of psychological capital on academic performance. Nevertheless, the psychological capital scale was initially developed to measure the psychological capital of employees, not students. There is a dearth of studies that examine the psychological capital scale’s psychometric properties in educational contexts, particularly in Southeast Asia. Therefore, the present study aims to develop and test the validity of an educational psychological capital scale. The study was carried out with the participation of a total of 2,494 undergraduates. The tests of indicator reliability, construct reliability convergent, validity, and discriminant validity were executed. The result revealed that the scale demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties. The study also found psychological capital can serve as a positive predictor of student academic performance. It signified that the scale can be used to measure student psychological capital precisely. This has resolved the flaw of the original psychological capital scale, which measured students’ psychological capital in the workplace rather than in educational settings. However, since the study was conducted in Malaysia, the psychometric properties of the scale can be further verified in other countries

Adaptation and validation the integration scale for Indonesian university students: academic and social

Student integration is a student’s ability to integrate into the social and academic systems of the university. Integration of students has been shown to affect how well they do on campus, which helps them finish higher education. The integration scale (IS) measures integration ability that meets the principle of simplicity. The integration scale is formed of 16 items divided into five aspects and two factors. This study aimed to adapt and validate IS instruments for the Indonesian university student population. The research methods complied with the six-step procedures the International Test Commission set out. A total of 309 participants were undergraduate students. They were between 17 and 23 years old (mean=19.42, SD=1.11 years), with 247 females (79.94%) and 62 males (20.06%). The results of the confirmatory factor analysis revealed that a total of 16 items were valid and reliable. Three models that have acceptable fits were confirmed. The results demonstrate that the Indonesian integration scale measures undergraduate student integration with comparable precision to the original scale. This scale can identify students who require academic and social integration assistance and evaluate the institution’s role in academic development

The total contribution of the direct and indirect influence of servant leadership on innovative work behavior

This study aimed to determine the total contribution of servant leadership variables directly or indirectly to the innovative work behavior of high school teachers. The research respondents were 158 teachers from Jakarta Capital Special Region, Bogor Regency, Bekasi City, and Bandung Regency, Indonesia. Data analysis technique using path analysis. The results showed that the total direct and indirect contribution of servant leadership variables to innovative work behavior through knowledge sharing was 97.3%. The remaining 2.7% comes from variables not examined in this study. The implications of this research can be used by school principals and education policymakers at the national and regional levels to strengthen servant leadership to create knowledge sharing in strengthening the innovative work behavior of teachers in senior high schools