Teachers are constantly looking for new ways to make mathematical procedures such as radical simplification meaningful for students. In classes, teachers discovered what researchers have long known, that students who only memorize a set of steps get confused when their steps do not match a new problem or scenario perfectly. The area and side…

Motivation cannot be measured directly but has to be evaluated through other indirect measurements, of which questionnaires are the most common. This chapter presents the results from the development and use of a model to approach motivation in the science classroom from multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives. The model emerged from…

Rendering learners future-ready has always been one of the primary purposes of education. It makes a critical appreciation of the emerging societal scenarios a necessary prerequisite for defining essential features of the conduct of education at any age. VUCA is an acronym that describes some salient features of modern day, characterized by…

Education ecology is a new crossover research field in network age. Its research content can be either microscopic classroom teaching or macro educational ecology research on teaching and culture. The university music classroom is a special kind of ecology. The reason why this is special is that compared to natural ecology, the classroom ecology…

Research into the role of individual difference (ID) factors in the process of second and foreign language (L2) learning and teaching has been one of the most robust lines of inquiry in the field of second language acquisition (SLA; Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015; Griffiths & Soruç, 2020; Pawlak & Kruk, 2022). Most of these empirical…

We present an instructional approach to teaching causal inference using Bayesian networks and "do"-Calculus, which requires less prerequisite knowledge of statistics than existing approaches and can be consistently implemented in beginner to advanced levels courses. Moreover, this approach aims to address the central question in causal…

Directed motivational currents (DMCs) encapsulate a unique motivational phenomenon. DMCs are highly positive, potent motivational experiences which can carry individuals or groups forwards to achieving valued goals at both a remarkable rate, and with a perceived feeling of seemingly 'effortless effort'. Although research into DMCs began under a…

Mobile technology melds the mobile learner's authentic real and virtual worlds, enabling increasingly untethered personalized, learner-determined language learning opportunities. This article introduces an evidence-based framework founded upon cumulative findings from a number of the authors' recent and ongoing research projects. This framework…

This paper discusses the stage of second language acquisition known as attrition and what learners and teachers can do to prevent attrition and promote retention. Attrition is the stage at which a learner's attained proficiency declines due to a reduction of contact with the second language, whether from lack of contact with other speakers of the…

Self-Directed Learning (SDL) has been the focus of attention on the part of scholars for at least four decades. However, it is with the advent of technology and the possibilities offered by the Internet that researchers and practitioners have begun to look more closely at what students do autonomously to support their own learning outside of the…

A great deal of research has focused on tasks, particularly for adult second language learners. In this paper we provide an account of studies that have investigated children and tasks -- an age group that have received far less attention. We consider, in particular, the impact of tasks on children's language learning, how their design features…

The purpose of this article is to explore the concept of student agency when applied to learning across "The New Zealand Curriculum" (Ministry of Education, 2007). To explore agency the author presents and describes a range of teaching pedagogies that are based on principles of intrinsic motivation. The author describes, with examples,…

Mathematics-related affect comprises an individual's attitudes, beliefs, emotions and motivations towards mathematics. These affective constructs have been widely studied in mathematics education and cognitive psychology and have been shown to be related to cognitive outcomes such as performance on a range of mathematical tasks. However, it is not…

Agency has attracted considerable attention, especially of late. Nevertheless, perceptions of language learners as nonagentive persist. In this article the Douglas Fir Group's call for a transdisciplinary perspective is heeded in a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory's (CDST) conceptualization of agency. It is suggested that CDST maintains the…

Central to self-determination theory (SDT) is the notion that autonomously motivated learning relates to greater learning benefits. While learners' intrinsic motivation has received substantial attention, learners also display volitional learning when they come to endorse the personal meaning or self-relevance of the learning task. In Part I of…