This brief analyzes changes the House Committee on Education and the Workforce proposed to the income-driven repayment (IDR) plans for federal student loans under the fiscal year 2025 budget reconciliation process. The bill was approved in committee in April 2025. If enacted, it would replace existing IDR plans with a new plan (the Repayment…

Thru-hiking, when an individual hikes the entire distance of an extended trail, is a growing pastime for adventure enthusiasts. Resilience, mental toughness, and motivation are facilitators for completion of ultra-endurance activities; however, there is little research on these constructs in thru-hikers. The current study examined experiences of…

The rapid growth in online education has amplified significant challenges in providing equivalent peer connection experiences across study modes. This article examines which educator practices, as identified by students, support equivalent peer connections in online and face-to-face study modes. Using constructivist grounded theory methodology, we…

Although some studies have examined the effects of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies on learning effectiveness, inconsistent results have been reported. Additionally, studies that adopt the perspective of SRL to evaluate the effect of metacognitive skills on students' actual learning effectiveness in digital game-based learning (DGBL)…

This study investigates and contrasts the final year (capstone) engineering projects at three public universities in Southern Africa: Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST), and Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). The research examines their practices, structures,…

The rapid evolution of scientific research has created a pressing need for efficient and versatile tools to aid researchers. While using artificial intelligence (AI) to write scientific articles is unethical and unreliable due to the potential for inaccuracy, AI can be a valuable tool for assisting with other aspects of research, such as language…

This study comparatively examines state policies of university autonomy in the Eastern Neighborhood countries of the European Union, with a particular focus on Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova. Guided by the principles outlined in the 2007 Lisbon Declaration, the research investigates how university autonomy is shaped by state policies in these three…

This comparative study explores the professional development (PD) landscapes of educators in Ireland and Turkey, exploring their respective needs, expectations, challenges and levels of satisfaction with the PD that is available. Employing a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a diverse cohort of teachers in both…

Expertise plays a significant role in shaping self-regulated learning (SRL) by influencing how individuals set goals, monitor progress, employ strategies, and reflect on their learning process. However, comprehensive data on this link is sparse in medical contexts. This paper investigates the transitions of SRL phases during clinical-reasoning…

A free speech recession has taken hold in American higher education, with students and faculty self-censoring at historic rates and professors facing sanctions for controversial views more often than during the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s. Using 2025 free speech rankings of 251 campuses from the Foundation for Individual Rights and…

Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is said to be a method that can be used to uncover social complexity. However, this complexity is often 'missing in action' in actual empirical applications of the method. We aim to rearticulate the properties of social and causal complexity in their relationship to QCA. We first discuss the reasons why this…

To tackle the growing challenges facing our societies, such as climate change, we need to understand scientific knowledge and methods. Developing scientific literacy in schools is therefore necessary. To do so, we need to be able to assess competencies associated with scientific literacy. Secondly, educators need meaningful tools which can be…

Specific aesthetic features of the object and observer's expertise seem to be related to the perception of motion aesthetics. How differing kinematic motion characteristics and their manifestation are related to the perception of motion aesthetics and how this relates to the observer's expertise is still investigated. It is hypothesized that…

The current study investigated whether the difficulty in finding group differences in prosody between speakers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and neurotypical (NT) speakers might be explained by identifying different acoustic profiles of speakers which, while still perceived as atypical, might be characterized by different acoustic qualities.…

Accounting for model misspecification in Bayesian structural equation models is an active area of research. We present a uniquely Bayesian approach to misspecification that models the degree of misspecification as a parameter--a parameter akin to the correlation root mean squared residual. The misspecification parameter can be interpreted on its…