With the fast expansion of online learning in higher education, institutions have increasingly offered and mandated faculty professional development (PD) programs focused on online instruction. However, the extent to which these PD programs indeed lead to improved students' online course performance remains largely unknown. This paper used a rigorous quasi-experimental approach to estimate the impact of a PD program on student online course performance at a large community college using a dataset that includes more than 370,000 online course enrollments taught by close to 900 instructors. The analyses yielded robust, nonsignificant estimates for the PD program on both online course persistence and course grades. Further qualitative analysis of the courses taught by PD participants indicated that instructors' integration of elements covered by the PD training into their subsequent teaching was fairly limited, highlighting the need for ongoing support to help instructors incorporate recommended practices into instruction.

Educators and researchers have analyzed various image data acquired from teaching and learning, such as images of learning materials, classroom dynamics, students’ drawings, etc. However, this approach is labour-intensive and time-consuming, limiting its scalability and efficiency. The recent development in the Visual Question Answering (VQA) technique has streamlined this process by allowing users to posing questions about the images and receive accurate and automatic answers, both in natural language, thereby enhancing efficiency and reducing the time required for analysis. State-of-the-art Vision Language Models (VLMs) such as GPT-4V(ision) have extended the applications of VQA to a wide range of educational purposes. This report employs GPT-4V as an example to demonstrate the potential of VLM in enabling and advancing VQA for education. Specifically, we demonstrated that GPT-4V enables VQA for educational scholars without requiring technical expertise, thereby reducing accessibility barriers for general users. In addition, we contend that GPT-4V spotlights the transformative potential of VQA for educational research, representing a milestone accomplishment for visual data analysis in education.

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is a concise and efficient predictive model used to explain the acceptance of m-learning technology. However, several studies have shown that TAM cannot fully explain the acceptance of m-learning among Generation Z. This study aims to formulate TAM as a model of m-learning acceptance for Generation Z. TAM developed based on self-efficacy and enjoyment is expected to explain the behavior of Generation Z in accepting m-learning. This study uses a survey approach, utilizing PLS-SEM as an analysis tool and primary data collected through questionnaires. Participants in this study were 563 students who used m-learning (on class application) at the Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto, Indonesia. The results contribute to the formulation of a successful m-learning implementation model for Generation Z. These results provide empirical support indicating that selfefficacy and perceived enjoyment cause them to use m-learning now and in the future. Generation Z, who grew up in the digital era, has a high level of proficiency in using technology. Self-efficacy increases user optimism. They are confident in their ability to complete tasks and solve problems when using m-learning. Enjoyment can increase the belief that m-learning is user-friendly and useful. The results of this study support the theory of self-efficacy which states that user beliefs serve as the best predictors of their behavior in using technology in mobile learning.

Electromyography (EMG) is increasingly used in stroke assessment research, with studies showing that EMG co-contraction (EMG-CC) of upper limb muscles can differentiate stroke patients from healthy individuals and correlates with clinical scales assessing motor function. This suggests that EMG-CC has potential for both assessing motor impairments and monitoring recovery in stroke patients. However, systematic reviews on EMG-CC’s effectiveness in stroke assessment are lacking. To address this, the present study aims to synthesize recent evidence on EMG-CC’s use in evaluating stroke-induced muscle abnormality. Eighteen studies including a total of 308 stroke patients and 155 healthy controls were included. Fifteen out of Eighteen included studies used the EMG-CC to successfully differentiate abnormal muscle co-contraction performance of the affected upper limb, even in comparison to the unaffected side in static tasks (isometric maximal voluntary contractions) and dynamic tasks (movement-oriented or goal-oriented). The EMG-CC shows promise as a convenient and effective tool for evaluating the extent of abnormal muscle coactivation in the upper limbs of post-stroke patients with spasticity as well as assessing the effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions. Further research is needed to validate these findings and establish standardized protocols for EMG-CC’s use in stroke assessment.

Cyberbullying victimization and mental health symptoms are major concerns for children and adolescents worldwide. Despite the increasing number of longitudinal studies of cyberbullying and mental health among this demographic, the robustness of the causal associations between cyberbullying victimization and the magnitude of mental health symptoms remains unclear. This meta-analysis investigated the longitudinal impact of cyberbullying victimization on mental health symptoms among children and adolescents. A systematic search identified primary studies published in English between January 2010 and June 2021, yielding a sample of 27 studies encompassing 13,497 children and adolescents aged 8 to 19 years old. The longitudinal association between cyberbullying victimization and mental health symptoms among children and adolescents was found to be weakly positive and consistent across time and age. Three significant moderators were identified: the effect of cyberbullying victimization on mental health was larger among older children, groups with a higher proportion of males, and in more recent publications. No evidence of publication bias was detected. This study adds to the existing body of research by providing a new perspective on the long-term effects of cyberbullying victimization on the mental health of children and adolescents’ mental health. Furthermore, it underscores the necessity of developing effective cyberbullying prevention programs, interventions, and legal regulations to comprehensively address this issue.

In an era of rapid technological change, digital literacies now extend beyond basic technical skills to include the ability to combine digital tools, features, and semiotic resources to convey meaning across diverse contexts. This paper presents a framework and validated survey tool to assess the digital literacies of primary and secondary school students, broadly adapted from the Common Framework of Reference for Intercultural Digital Literacies (CFRIDiL). The survey, designed on a 5-point Likert scale, evaluates students' skills, preferences, and beliefs across four dimensions that reflect the contemporary demands of the digital landscape: multimodal orchestration, digital technologies, intercultural communication, and transversal skills. Validation through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with 838 primary and secondary students were conducted. This study's findings challenge the traditional, technically-centric view of digital literacies, advocating for a more integrated approach that also considers social dimensions. The survey instrument offers educators a valuable resource to assess and enhance students’ digital literacies, inform curriculum development, and track changes over time.

As the field of big data continues to evolve, there is an increasing necessity to evaluate the equality of multiple high-dimensional covariance matrices. Many existing methods rely on approximations to the null distribution of the test statistic or its extreme-value distributions under stringent conditions, leading to outcomes that are either overly permissive or excessively cautious. Consequently, these methods often lack robustness when applied to real-world data, as verifying the required assumptions can be arduous. In response to these challenges, we introduce a novel test statistic utilizing the normal-reference approach. We demonstrate that the null distribution of this test statistic shares the same limiting distribution as a chi-square-type mixture under certain regularity conditions, with the latter reliably estimable from data using the three-cumulant matched chi-square-approximation. Additionally, we establish the asymptotic power of our proposed test. Through comprehensive simulation studies and real data analysis, our proposed test demonstrates superior performance in terms of size control compared to several competing methods.

Heteroatom doping and vacancy introduction, typical orbital polarization strategies, play pivotal roles in enhancing electrocatalytic H2 production of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD). Plasma serves as an indispensable technique to efficiently tailor doping and vacancy. However, it is difficult to simultaneously modulate doping-defect proportion to precisely control the orbital polarization due to the ambiguous plasma-substrate interaction. Coupled with theoretical prediction, we design facile pulsed plasma processing to precisely modulate the surface proportion of N-doping and S-vacancy on layered WSSe via meticulously controlling the surface temperature. The resultant S-vacant N-doped WSSe (VNWS) exhibits enhanced electrocatalytic behavior in diversified-pH media, compared with N-doped WSSe with little defects via continuous plasma treatment. Operando plasma diagnostics further substantiates the influence of surface heating on plasma parameters and the precise surface modulation of WSSe. The work highlights the pivotal role of controlled surface temperature during plasma processing in creating high-performance VNWS electrocatalyst with optimized vacancy-dopant proportion.

From the lens of embodied cognition, hand gestures emerge as vital embodiments facilitating shared meaning-making among learners in collaborative learning. Despite this recognition, the specific role of hand employment in various consensus-building discourses remains elusive, and there is a lack of quantitative evidence of hand employment in authentic classrooms. This study delves into the nuanced application of embodied cognition through hands across distinct consensus-building scenarios—quick, integration-oriented, and conflict-oriented consensus-building discourses. Forty engineering students from a Singapore university collaborated in dyads to solve design problems in a face-to-face computer-supported collaborative learning environment. Their collaboration process was video recorded. A deep learning-based model was applied to quantify students’ hand movement. The different kinds of individual and collaborative hand gestures were analyzed. The results found a significantly larger quantity and more balanced quantity of hand gesture employment during conflict-oriented consensus-building discourse than other consensus-building discourses. Students most often applied depictive gestures and idea alternations to demonstrate their understanding and build on each other’s ideas. This study quantitatively explores how hand gestures contribute to consensus-building in collaborative learning, corroborating existing qualitative research. It suggests that incorporating hand gestures in classrooms may enhance students’ thought processes and foster shared understanding.

Recent advancements in light-driven interfacial water evaporation have underscored the potential of photothermal materials for producing clean water from various sources, including seawater, rivers, lakes, and wastewater. Despite these advancements, challenges in environmental management and energy conversion persist. The development of multifunctional photothermal materials and composites has addressed these challenges by integrating active species into water evaporation devices, thereby enhancing their performance and applicability. This review provides a thorough examination of recent progress in photothermal materials for water purification. It covers advances in material synthesis, optimization of evaporator configurations through various techniques, and their application in water treatment and clean water production. The discussion includes innovative heat management strategies designed to improve system efficiency. The review concludes by identifying current challenges and suggesting future research directions to advance the field of efficient water purification and clean water production.

Participation in co-curricular activities (CCAs) has been recognized as a vital avenue for students’ holistic developments and acquisition of twenty-first century competencies. However, there is a lack of research in Singapore and Southeast Asia region that comprehensively and systematically assessed the effect of CCA participation on students’ development. Hence, this study was conducted to examine the relationship between secondary school students’ CCA participation predictors towards developmental outcomes based on self-determination theory (SDT) perspective. This research assessed students’ development within a CCA setting in the contexts of their interaction with parents, CCA instructors, and CCA peers. Additionally, it examined the role of students’ motivational orientations in mediating the relationships between students’ CCA participation predictors and developmental outcomes. Consistent with SDT, the findings established the mediational role of students’ CCA motivational orientation. It also highlighted the key role of students’ motivation and supportive interpersonal relationships in fostering students’ academic and non-academic development. Findings of this study also proved that the quality and interpersonal context of CCA participation had a more crucial role than the quantity of CCA participation in promoting students’ academic and non-academic development. It also attested to the value of CCA participation as an intervention and a key aspect of school curriculum that could foster students’ holistic development. Collectively, this research provides valuable insight for optimizing students’ development through CCA participation. Nonetheless, the views presented in this article are those of the authors and not necessarily of the Ministry of Education.

Purpose: Singapore is a multi-religious society where the state is secular, and different religions coexist. Values are taught at home and in schools from young. The government has a set of national values that underpin the Character and Citizenship Education which begin from primary education. However, in early childhood education, the national frameworks do not explicitly articulate the values that should be cultivated in children below six years of age up till November 2022, when the revised Nurturing Early Learners Framework is launched and explicate values that should be cultivated at preschool level. Against this diverse sociocultural context, this paper seeks to unpack these values and find out current centre practices on the ground. Method: This paper uses data of a qualitative study where purposeful sampling is used to select research sites and participants according to the various types of operators in the early childhood education landscape. Semi-structured interviews are conducted for data collection and analysed using thematic analysis. The data presented in this paper offers insights to the perspectives of centre leaders who lead and manage centres run by different operator types in a diverse early childhood education landscape. Results: The findings reveal that centre leaders’ interpretations of the values are generally aligned with the framework’s descriptors and uncover the complexity of values as overlaps across values. The study provides insights to current centre practices on values education. Conclusion: The study indicates alignment between leaders’ definitions and understanding of values espoused in the NEL framework and that values education does take place across early childhood development centre types. With the four values explicated for the early childhood education landscape, there is greater clarity on the values that should be cultivated in young children from young.

Flourishing is an apt concept for a kindergarten (children’s garden) curriculum where children learn, grow and blossom. A key aspect of flourishing is values education. At pre-school level, Singapore’s Ministry of Education explicated four values (respect, responsibility, honesty and care) in the 2022 national curriculum framework for pre-school education. A qualitative study that sets out to unpack what these values mean in Singapore’s multicultural context revealed interpretations of values distilled to one commonality across religious and secular perspectives – personhood. The study involved semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with government officials, religious leaders, preschool leaders and teachers and the data were analysed thematically. The findings offered insights into the ways in which personhood can be cultivated in preschool settings.

Manganese-based Prussian Blue analogues (Mn PBAs) are emerging as highly promising cathode materials for aqueous zinc-ion storage systems due to their impressive specific capacity. However, the structural instability caused by multi-electron reactions results in a reduced lifespan of charge–discharge cycles. In this study, iron hexacyanoferrate (FeHCF) is incorporated into Mn-PBA using a simple in situ solvent method, with precise control over the FeHCF ratio. The optimized FeHCF concentration not only effectively stabilizes the Mn-PBA framework, addressing issues such as Zn2+ deintercalation stress and Mn dissolution, but also increases the operating voltage range due to the increased of Fe content. The Mn@Fe1-PBA delivers a reversible specific capacity of 119.2 mAh/g over 100 cycles at a current density of 1 A/g when used as a cathode material in aqueous zinc-ion batteries. Additionally, it maintains stable performance for over 3,000 cycles at 5 A/g within a voltage window of 0–2.25 V. The diffusion and redox storage mechanisms of Zn2+ in the Mn@Fe1-PBA cathode are explored through comprehensive kinetic analysis, extensive in situ and ex situ characterizations, and supported by theoretical calculations. These studies reveal that Mn@Fe1-PBA has a low diffusion energy barrier for Zn2+, reaching a peak of 0.58 eV, and operates through a dual redox center mechanism. When integrated with a commercial Zn metal anode, it forms a full cell with stable charge–discharge performance, offering a model for enhancing Mn-PBA in aqueous Zn-ion batteries.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), with their ultrahigh specific surface area, uniformly distributed pores, and tunable structures, are promising candidates for next-generation active electrode materials in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, their application is hindered by poor cycling stability due to structural collapse during charge-discharge cycles. To address this issue, we developed an alloy and multi-solvent thermal method strategy to synthesize Co/Zn bimetallic MOFs based on Naphthalenetetracarboxylic acid (NTCA). The resulting petal-like Co/Zn-NTCA MOF demonstrates outstanding electrochemical performance. The incorporation of zinc ions not only significantly enhances cycling stability but also markedly increases the specific capacity of the anode material. At a current density of 200 mA·g–1, the Co/Zn (2:1)-NTCA MOF demonstrated an impressive reversible capacity of 956 mA·h g–1 after 150 cycles. Even after 500 cycles, the specific capacity of the electrode remained high, with a value of 438 mA·h g–1 at a current density of 1000 A·g–1.

The 4Cs of positive youth development have been proposed as an appropriate framework for assessing athlete outcomes across various sport domains. However, the psychometric multidimensionality of the full 4C model has not been rigorously investigated. This study examined the psychometric multidimensionality of the 4C model, comprising 10 subfactors, among youth team sport athletes (N = 510). We systematically compared confirmatory factor analyses and exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM), along with their bifactor and hierarchical extensions, and discussed the empirical and practical appropriateness of these models. We further examined construct validity by testing measurement invariance over gender and sport type (contact, non-contact), and criterion-related validity on different aspects of peer motivational climate. ESEM was the optimal model, exhibiting construct and practical utility. Measurement invariance was broadly observed with four variant items; implications are discussed. Peer mastery climate was associated with positive outcome factors (e.g., competence, connection), while peer ego climate was associated with less desirable sport character (i.e., antisocial behaviours).