This study examines the relationship between Japanese children's inquiry skills and their participation in various after-school programs. Inquiry skills--encompassing the ability to explore, analyze, and synthesize information--are essential competencies in 21st-century education. However, limited research has explored how different types of…

Open educational resources (OER) reduce the textbook cost burden for students, but we must examine whether students using OER are learning the necessary skills to succeed in their academic work. This study used rubrics to examine student essays and evaluate whether students using OER and those using commercial textbooks varied in how they…

Early childhood experiences have lifelong physical, social, emotional, and cognitive impacts. High quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) can put children on the path to personal development, lifelong learning, and future employability. Among the fastest growing ECEC options are nature-based preschools, where children spend most or all…

Teacher salaries in Michigan have inched upward in recent years but have not kept pace with gains elsewhere. Pay increases for Michigan teachers have trailed those in many other states, and within Michigan have lagged those for similarly educated professionals. As a result, the state's teacher salary rankings have slipped and the gap between…

"Andragogy in Practice" is a timely book of case studies, which offers readers the opportunity to see andragogy in practice solving real-world challenges in a variety of adult learning contexts. It highlights the wonderful range of innovative practices that characterize adult learning today. Holton, Robinson, and Caraccioli, authors of…

The average professor works far less than most employed people do, especially compared to those in well-compensated professional occupations. To compound that problem, too much of what professors spend their time on is unproductive, failing to yield societal benefit or to advance the missions of their universities. Those who govern universities,…

NC Reconnect, an effort of the John M. Belk Endowment (JMBE), aims to engage or reengage adult learners over the age of 25 in North Carolina's community colleges to bridge the postsecondary education attainment gap and improve economic mobility within the state. This paper applies the Five P Framework to examine processes at 15 community colleges…

In tracing two Chinese rural middle school classes for 3 years, this study found the positive impact of adopting the algorithm-based mobile short video platform Douyin on rural adolescents' intrinsic motivation. The application's broad adoption has reshaped the social processes supporting adolescent users' intrinsic motivation and spontaneous…

This systematic review, specifically a Meta-synthesis, aimed to synthesize the challenges and implementation of Inclusive Education (IE) in selected Asian countries. Fifteen (15) out of 792 studies were selected and screened through a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Academic databases such as Google Scholar, Cross Ref, Open Alex, and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to chart the development of Makerspaces in higher education (MIHE), by building a map of existing research work in the field. Based on a corpus of 183 manuscripts, published between January 2014 and April 2021, it sets out to describe the range of topics covered under the umbrella of MIHE and provide a…

Many reasons exist for mergers in higher education. One of the most pervasive is the pursuit of resources, often expressed in terms of student numbers which give increased power within an education ecology. However, resource dependency is not the only rationale for merger; and history demonstrates that a multi-campus institution may disband as…

Traditionally, professorial recruitment has been controlled by scholars themselves selecting the best qualified candidates as a new member of the academic community according to scientific criteria. Recent studies have, however, documented that recruitment has become increasingly influenced by managers and HR personnel who approach professorial…

High structure course design involves scaffolding students' learning via pre-class content acquisition and assessment, in-class active learning exercises, after-class review and assessment, and frequent summative assessments. Research has demonstrated the efficacy of high structure courses including improved student performance, reduced…

This article proposes a duplex model for understanding giftedness. The first part of the duplex is the set of gifted skills and attitudes that one possesses as a result of heredity, the environment, and their interaction. It is the input that one has acquired from one's life experiences. The second part of the duplex is the utilization or…

This study seeks to add to our understanding of preschool students' experiences in urban spaces. Very few studies, including educational research, have directly addressed what urban nature spaces, specifically urban parks, mean to young children and even fewer have focused on children's own perception. The study presented here was conducted with…