Rethinking Education Research Methodologies-Dominance of Western Perspectives?

This paper examines the different approaches and methods in comparative education research. It begins with a broad overview of the influences of Western philosophies and how Western education researchers approach social situations. Its differences with Chinese philosophies were highlighted with the concept of dao and Confucianism. More than just an epistemological discussion, this paper argues that Western researchers' biasness towards Asian researchers may be due to their failure or lack of experience in making the connections with Asian social systems. It attempts to provide some plausible explanations of the prevalence of biasness by peer reviewers of Western journals

Sport Education in a Higher Education physical activity course

The present research had the purpose to analyze how students perceived a physical activity (PA) course in higher education that used the Sport Education (SE) model. The study addressed: i) Students overall enjoyment; ii) Students’ skill acquisition self-perception; iii) Students’ game rules knowledge self-perception; iv) Students’ instructional preference. Twenty-six students from an American university located in the Southern region attended this course. The Futsal (indoor-soccer) course offered two 75 minutes class per week. Two forms of data collection were used: a five-point Likert-type scale survey and a post-course interview. Students reported to have a very high enjoyment in all six major features of the SE model. In addition, statistical significance was reached when students reported their perceived skill acquisition and game rules knowledge acquisition. Students also reported to prefer SE when comparing to other physical activity courses that used a traditional pedagogy

EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA: A CRISIS POINT

In the traditional (pre-colonial) African society, education was regarded as a means to a end and not as an end in itself. That is, education was not an end in itself. That is, education was mainly functional in objective and achieved through the apprenticeship or on-the –job training system. Both the young and the old were practically trained for specific occupation and professions. That type of education, that emphasized social responsibility, relevance to the needs of society and moral values. The ultimate good of traditional African education was to “produce a man or woman of character, with the useful skill appropriate to his or her status in life” Fafunwa (1982). As a result, there was no question of unemployment then, and where it existed at all, it was very minimal. The major aim of education in all societies should be a preparation of Youths for a productive working life. In line with these, the paper looks into government policies and the way it affects education and world of works. The paper also discussed the ravaging unemployment in the society, and the causes. And it came to a conclusion that unless the new 9-3-4 system of education is faithfully implemented, Nigeria might be faced with a very explosive school leaver problem.  Article visualizations

AN EXPLORATION OF THE UNDERLYING REASONS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S BIOPHILIC TENDENCIES

This current study explores 48-60-month-old preschool children’s biophilic tendencies by explaining their reasons. The sample of the study consisted of 116 preschool children selected from four public preschools located in Mersin, Turkey. Children’s Biophilia Measure exploring young children’s levels of affinity toward nature was used as a data collecting material. The findings revealed that the frequencies of young children’s biophilic tendencies were much more than their non-biophilic tendencies. The effect of culture, including parental allowance and restriction, was the most striking factor influencing children’s biophilic or non-biophilic tendencies. The other factors affecting children’s tendencies were affordances of the natural outdoor settings for children’s play, safety hazards outdoors, having fun/feeling enjoyment during nature play, attractiveness/unattractiveness of a natural stimuli, curiosity, and previous experiences in natural environment. The finding of this research suggested that there is a need for accessible natural settings to ensure young children’s regular and direct interactions with nature; which in turn, strengthen their affinity toward nature.  Article visualizations

THE GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT TO QUALITY EDUCATION - AN OVERVIEW OF FREE QUALITY SCHOOL EDUCATION IN SIERRA LEONE

The Free Quality School Education (FQSE) is a critical priority policy of the Government of Sierra Leone for national transformation through education. The Government of Sierra Leone is aware of the influence and power of education in national development and, therefore, has prioritized education as its flagship program. This paper is to establish a positive effort made by the Government of Sierra Leone in its commitment to implement and bring to reality the Free Quality School Education countrywide. The paper introduced in brief the historical flashback of education in Sierra Leone, followed by the changes in the education system. The researcher viewed some problems of education in Sierra Leone over the years. In an overview, the paper went on to demonstrate the Government's effort in promoting education since independence in 1961. As a point of clarification, the paper reviewed the knowledge of Quality Education. In a clearer picture, the paper views the result and analysis of Government commitment in the Free Quality School Education. The methods used for the research were interviews, observation, discussion, and information from the internet and books (secondary data). The paper highlighted the conclusion with recommendations.  Article visualizations

SELF COMPASSION LEVELS OF ERASMUS AND NON-ERASMUS STUDENTS

Erasmus is a program actively applied in many universities in many focus areas since 1987 (Erasmus Program, 2017) It has been defined as ‘the opportunity of students to study or gain work experience in a different European country.’ It has thirty years of background in Turkey and one of the main purposes of the program is to help participants to develop their personal, educational, and cultural conceptions. It is a varied exchange process that takes place both in educational and cultural levels. In this varied exchange environment process, participants experience many problematic or tough situations such as being away from home and familiar environment, not knowing the target language, etc. The study aims to compare the self-compassion levels of the Erasmus participants and Non-Erasmus ones. It is because self-compassion is considered as an emotional balancing strategy that transforms the negative emotions and ideas into self-acceptation and life satisfaction (Neff, 2003). Having a life-changing experience Erasmus can be said a key element in developing self-compassion levels and defining the participants `levels, Self-Compassion Scale (Deniz, Kesici & Sumer, 2008) was applied. Non-Erasmus ones, meaning the same level students but not the part of any Erasmus project, were also applied the same questionnaire to make comparisons. It seems both of the participant groups have similar problems and the difference in self-compassion levels of the participants is tried to be defined. The gathered data is analyzed in the SPSS program.  Article visualizations

CAN CONFERENCES AND MODELLING STRATEGIES IMPROVE STUDENTS’ INTEREST AND ACHIEVEMENT IN ESSAY WRITING?

The study reported here was on the effects of writing conference and teacher modelling strategies on Senior School Two (SS2) students' interest and achievement in essay writing. The study used quasi experimental design of the non equivalent pre-test/post-test experimental-control group subtype. From a population of 9,244 senior secondary students in 5 Local Government (LGAs) of Central Education Zone of Plateau State, a sample of 95 students was selected from two intact classes using a multi-stage sampling technique. One of the sampled classes formed Experimental Group One while the other formed Experimental Group Two for an experiment that lasted for a duration of six weeks. The study was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses. Two instruments namely Writing Achievement Test (WAT) and Questionnaire on Students’ Interest in Essay writing (QSIEW) were used for data collection.. Data collected were analysed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) to test the hypotheses. Findings revealed that both strategies enhanced students’ achievement in essay writing. However, students taught essay writing using writing conference strategy outperformed their counterparts taught using teachers’ modelling in assigned writing tasks and tested in the writing achievement test. The finding further indicated that students taught via conference strategy gained significantly higher mean interest rating than those taught using teacher modelling strategy. Based on the findings, the study recommended that combining writing conferencing and modelling strategies in the teaching of essay writing could bring about increased interest in writing and better writing outcomes among secondary school students. Article visualizations

EXPLORING LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES DURING MIXED-AGE PEER INTERACTIONS IN MIXED-AGE SECONDARY SCHOOL EFL CLASSROOMS IN GERMANY

Research in mainstream mixed-age (M-A) classrooms suggests benefits for both younger and older learners. Although M-A is increasing in L2 classrooms, research is lacking. Moreover, studies on peer-interactions within M-A groups/pairs in L2 contexts are scarce. The current study investigated M-A pair work of twenty young adolescent English L2 learners of three M-A secondary school classrooms in Germany. Learners were organized into ten M-A pairs and worked together on 10 regular classroom tasks. After the unit of work, individual interviews were conducted in order to elicit learners’ perceptions of their interactions. Audio-recordings of their interactions were analyzed for Language Related Episodes (LREs) in order to explore opportunities for learning created during these interactions and the roles played by individual learners within these pairs during these episodes. The findings have shown that regardless of the age difference, the majority of pairs frequently engaged in LREs. However, while the majority of LREs were correctly resolved, a relatively high proportion of them remained either unresolved or resolved incorrectly. While younger learners tended to initiate and respond to LREs, the role of the LRE resolver was typically taken by the older learner. Implications for foreign language pedagogy in M-A classrooms are discussed.  Article visualizations

A DEVELOPMENT OF THE HABITS OF MIND INVENTORY

The aim of this study is to develop an inventory of individuals' habits of mind. A 256-item was generated and presented to the expert opinion during the development of the inventory. After the validity of the Lawshe analysis, 144 items were excluded from the inventory. There are 16 scales in the inventory. The draft inventory of 112 items was applied to 707 students studying in science and art centers during 2017-2018 academic year. In order to determine the suitability of the data for factor analysis, Kaiser-Meyer Olkin (KMO) coefficient and Barlett's Sphericity test, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) for providing proof of construct validity, Cronbach's Alpha for the purpose of determining reliability , item total correlation for providing proof of internal validity of the items, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) calculations were made for the suitability of sub-dimensions. As a result of the transactions, the inventory has been proven to be a useful tool in determining the habits of minds of individuals.  Article visualizations

LESSON PLANNING COMPETENCY OF ENGLISH MAJOR UNIVERSITY SOPHOMORE STUDENTS

This study examined the lesson planning competency of English major sophomore university students enrolled in a government higher education institution in Cebu City, Philippines. We employed a descriptive survey research design utilizing primary and secondary data gathered from the study respondents and from online peer reviewed research journals. Data analysis included assessing the strength, weakness and extent of lesson planning competencies as well as lesson planning outcomes. The study is anchored on the experiential learning theory (ELT) which contends that experience plays a central role during the holistic adaptive process of learning. ELT merges experience, perception, cognition and behaviour. As a process, ELT considers learning as knowledge creation through the transformation of experience. Findings revealed that common lesson planning pitfalls include limited teacher experience and access to instructional materials, poor students’ interests; less spontaneity in the classroom, limited freedom, teacher’s struggle upon starting a lesson, and assessment not matching the learning objectives which often confuses the pre-service teachers. University sophomore students manifested strength towards lesson planning competency with very high capability to construct an effective lesson plan. The study also found out that lesson planning competencies are highly useful for pre-service teachers in developing their potentials. In conclusion, exposure towards improving instructional planning helps sophomore students recognise opportunities towards developing strategies which enable to overcome challenging situations in the teaching practice. Moreover, becoming aware of the challenges toward lesson planning allows sophomore students to be prepared of their tasks in the actual setting. Well-executed lesson plan brings about competent teachers who become effective and efficient educators. We recommend that lesson planning activity should partake through a series of analysis commencing from instructional planning.  Article visualizations