Journal Articles

In most developed countries, children’s use of digital media has increased significantly. Concerns about how screen time (ST) affects physical activity (PA), sleep patterns (SL), and overall health habits have prompted further exploration of these associations. This study examined ST, PA, and SL patterns in children aged 3–7 years living in an urban environment. A multicenter prospective cohort study was conducted using the Surveillance of Digital Media Habits in Early Childhood Questionnaire (SMALLQ®). Parents of 243 children completed the questionnaire, providing data on their children’s ST, SL, and PA habits during weekdays and weekends. A series of ANOVA tests were performed to assess differences in weekday and weekend ST, PA, and SL across age groups and sexes, as well as to compare these results with UN recommendations. The findings revealed a non-significant trend in ST and a significant effect of age group on PA during both weekdays and weekends, as well as on weekend SL. No significant differences based on sex were observed. Additionally, the comparison indicated that 3–5-year-old preschool children exceeded the recommended ST during weekends, while 6–7-year-old first-grade elementary children failed to meet the PA recommendations. These results highlight the critical role of age-related changes in shaping PA and SL behaviors in young children, emphasizing the importance of targeted interventions to foster healthy habits in early childhood.

As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, the prevalence of multivariate functional data (MFD) has expanded across diverse disciplines, spanning biology, climatology, finance, and numerous other fields of study. Although MFD are encountered in various fields, the development of methods for hypotheses on mean functions, especially the general linear hypothesis testing (GLHT) problem for such data has been limited. In this study, we propose and study a new global test for the GLHT problem for MFD, which includes the one-way multivariate analysis of variance for functional data (FMANOVA), post hoc, and contrast analysis as special cases. The asymptotic null distribution of the test statistic is shown to be a chi-squared-type mixture dependent of eigenvalues of the heteroscedastic covariance functions. The distribution of the chi-squared-type mixture can be well approximated by a three-cumulant matched chi-squared-approximation with its approximation parameters estimated from the data. By incorporating an adjustment coefficient, the proposed test performs effectively irrespective of the correlation structure in the functional data, even when dealing with a relatively small sample size. Additionally, the asymptotic power of the proposed test under a local alternative is established. Simulation studies and a real data example demonstrate finite-sample performance and broad applicability of the proposed test.

The critical role of EFL teachers' formative assessment literacy (FAL) in face-to-face (F2F) teaching mode has been well acknowledged, and its significance has also been stressed in the blended teaching (BT) mode. However, very little is known about the comparison of FAL and developmental trajectories in the two modes. To address this gap, the current study first constructed a FAL scale and its development scale for both modes, with the latter informed by Activity Theory and the former as the ultimate outcome for the latter, linking the two scales into a unified system. A one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) of the two samples' questionnaire responses revealed that the overall FAL, especially assessment practice, student involvement, and socio-emotion exhibit significant differences across the two modes. A multi-group path analysis of their developmental trajectories demonstrated that both groups' FAL was directly influenced by motivation and was also mediated by resources and community. However, the mediation effect of community from motivation to assessment practice and socio-emotion has significant differences across the two modes. The semi-structured interview confirmed the above findings. The study provides insights into the development of EFL teachers’ FAL in the technology-enriched environment, including genearative AI era.

The sexual enslavement of ‘comfort women’ in Malaysia and Singapore during the Second World War by the Japanese military produced a transnational history, remembered through transnational memories. While there were significant numbers of Korean and Japanese women in the comfort stations, the Japanese military also enslaved local Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Eurasian women. Women from China, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Thailand were also used to provide sexual services, as were captured European women. This article explores not only the history of these diverse groups of women who served the Japanese military during the Japanese Occupation of Malaysia and Singapore, but also the contradictions produced through how they have been remembered (or not) in the nation-states of Malaysia and Singapore. Memory suppression of the comfort women in Malaysia and Singapore by the state has been a dominant pattern.

This concept paper introduces a special section on Parenting Across Cultures: Bridging Commonalities and Specificities in Parental Control and Warmth. In this article, we explore how parental control and warmth manifest and function across diverse cultural contexts, emphasizing both common patterns and culturally specific practices. We acknowledge that contemporary parenting theories and models, even when they were first conceived based on an Anglo White-centric perspective, are increasingly being re-interpreted to describe culture-specific parenting behaviors. To better examine the functions of parental control and warmth across cultures, we advocate for the use of a dimensional approach that will more adequately describe the unique and shared aspects of parenting behaviors. This special section is a collection of four empirical studies that focused on understudied cultures, including families from Indonesia, Singapore, Türkiye, and Chinese immigrants in the United States. The overarching aim is to provide a more nuanced understanding of how parental control and warmth may contribute to children’s development and adjustment. The findings underscore the importance of considering cultural norms and children’s perceptions in parenting research, with implications for theory advancement, practice, and policy design and implementation.