Chye Yen Leng Stefanie

The prevalence rate of Problematic Internet Use (PIU) has increased globally over the years and is estimated at 7%. Studies report a significant association between PIU and Social and Emotional Learning skills, as well as negative effects such as loneliness. Taken together, the current study proposes a model of loneliness mediating SEL and PIU. The data used in this study was earlier collected from another study involving 1623 youths from 5 different schools that aims to study the trends and factors of PIU among Singapore adolescents. Secondary analysis of the data revealed that SEL, Loneliness and PIU are significantly correlated with each other. In addition, according to Baron and Kenny’s (1981) mediation model, loneliness was also found to be a full mediator of SEL and PIU, although the Sobel Test (1982) showed the indirect effect of SEL on PIU through loneliness is insignificant. The implications on policy and practice, as well as the directions for future research in view of the limitations of the study, are also discussed.

Digital portfolios have gained an increasing prominence in teacher education programmes around the world as a consequence of research which purports their multiple benefits to users and of their potential to represent beginning teachers’ practices. Despite the current popularity of digital portfolios, the nature of their use is still not well understood. This article explores how student teachers use digital portfolios in a teacher education programme in Singapore from an economics perspective. It posits that the adoption of an economic lens would shed new light on existing understandings and raise awareness of how and why student teachers use digital portfolios the ways they do. Reference to a range of economic concepts would will help to better understand educational outcomes. The article considers the implications of the findings for informing how digital portfolios are implemented and raises issues for consideration in further implementation efforts and in future research.

In this study, we shared findings from selected student teachers in National Institute of Education (a teacher education institution in Singapore) who have created eportfolios that presented their learning and teaching practicum experiences. The eportfolios were constructed with the aim to document their learning journey and teaching practices, and to reflect and showcase what they have achieved. Data were extracted from their eportfolio artifacts in order to seek evidence of their teacher identity formed during this process. The main research questions addressed in this paper were: ―What type of teacher identity was reflected through pre-service teachers’ use of eportfolios?‖; and ―How their teacher identity developed in different contexts over time?‖ The paper concluded that student teachers‘ identities evolved as they went through the teacher education program. Such identity constructions are never fixed, and develop under the influence of student teachers‘ surrounding contexts and experiences.

There has been increasing use of interactive technologies in the classroom today and a rising popularity of employing virtual environments as a means to engage students in sensorially rich contexts for more embodied forms of experiential learning. In particular, virtual reality (VR) or immersive virtual environments (IVEs) facilitated by head-mounted displays (HMDs) have been used in the teaching of subject content such as history, geography and science. This article presents the findings of an exploratory study of immersive technology, specifically immersive virtual environments (IVES), for the purpose of social and emotional learning (SEL), in the context of Character and Citizenship lessons in the Singapore classroom. The social and emotional competencies (SECs) examined in this project were specifically empathy and perspective-taking, and responsible decision-making. The study involved a sample of n = 75 students from a cohort of students in a Singapore school, averaged at 15 years of age. Students were randomly divided into three treatment conditions: IVEs, pen-and-paper mental simulation and video-viewing. Each treatment contained a problem scenario, told from a first-person perspective, involving a social and ethical dilemma young people today face. A quasi-experimental, pre-test post-test, non-equivalent group design was employed, and the study adopted a mixed-method approach to data collection. The findings reveal that IVEs are not necessarily more effective than the “pen-and-paper” and video viewing approaches to teaching SECs but they can better facilitate perspective-taking and empathy for a higher percentage of students.

The educational scene is evolving rapidly in response to societal developments over the last decade. Attempts to confront challenges of the 21st century have meant that ambitious goals are being set forth in current educational reform efforts. Singapore’s Prime Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong, summed up the nation’s vision for educational reform in these words – "Thinking Schools and Learning Nation". This vision of schooling however, poses great challenges for teachers and the schools in which they work. In order to meet these challenges, renewed forms of teacher preparation are an imperative. The purpose of the present paper is thus to discuss future directions for teacher education programs in light of current societal demands. A conceptual framework for developing teachers who are equipped to teach in the schools of tomorrow will be suggested. Particular emphasis is placed on ways to train pre-service teachers to teach thinking effectively. It is suggested that self-regulation be employed as a vehicle to support student teacher learning in this area.

Eportfolios were introduced into teacher education in the 1980s. Since then, educational researchers and practitioners have increasingly cited the use of portfolios as an important assessment and learning tool in teacher education programs. In the domain of teacher education, the need to improve quality, attain established standards and to resolve accreditation issues have led to the increased use of ePortfolios in many European states and others around the world (Granberg, 2010). An electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) is often defined as “a digitized collection of artifacts, including demonstrations, resources and accomplishments that represent an individual, group, community, organization, or institution. This collection can comprise of text-based, graphic or multimedia elements archived on a Web site or on other electronic media (Lorenzo & Ittelson, 2005, p. 3).” In pre-service teachers’ ePortfolios, artifacts can be samples of work that include lesson plans, stimulus materials, videos, pictures and picture files, classroom assignments, classroom tests, newsletters, and inservice materials produced by the pre-service teacher (Bruneau & Bie, 2010). With the creation of ePortfolios, student teachers can document their journey in becoming a teacher by selecting, sharing, and reflecting on artifacts such as educational philosophies, classroom management plans, unit and lesson plans, plans to meet the needs of diverse and special needs pupils, and video clips of practice teaching (e.g., Strudler & Wetzel, 2005). They can not only showcase their best work as a professional, but also exhibit the knowledge and skills in using technology.

Reading is a key ingredient in a student’s education and their success as life-long learners. It is important in any subject taught in school, as textbooks and other written media are used to convey information being taught. Reading comprehension is an important component for student success both in and out of school. Reading is a key ingredient in a student’s education and their success as life-long learners. Students who self-regulate and take charge of their own reading will have a higher opportunity of achieving success. This study examines the self-regulated reading of Primary 6 students. This study investigated, through the transcendental phenomenological method, the self-regulated reading of the students with a focus on reading comprehension. Participants were asked to verbalize their experiences and provide descriptions of how they approached reading comprehension tasks. In so doing, they provide an understanding of the decisions, thought processes and experiences involved, as they engaged in the metacognitive, motivational and behavioral components of self-regulated reading.

This study examined the motivation of young people in internet gaming using the dualistic model of passion. Path analysis was used to examine the relationships between the two types of passion: obsessive and harmonious passion, behavioral regulations, and flow. One thousand and seventy-four male secondary school students from six schools in Singapore took part in the study. The participants completed a questionnaire designed to measure harmonious passion, obsessive passion, behavioral regulations, and disposition flow. The results of the path analysis showed that external, introjected, and identified regulations positively predicted obsessive passion, while harmonious passion was predicted by identified and intrinsic regulations. Flow in digital gaming was predicted directly by harmonious passion, as well as indirectly through intrinsic regulation. This study supports the proposed dualistic model of passion in explaining young people’s motivation in internet gaming.