Search Results for
"learning"

The cultivation of entrepreneurship in students has become an increasingly pertinent goal within global educational systems. Previous research examining the impact of entrepreneurial education programs on students’ entrepreneurial intentions has yielded conflicting results. This article delves into the hypothesis that this relationship is influenced by endogenous factors, such as locus of control and self-efficacy. It posits that the role of these variables contributes to elucidating the ambiguities prevalent in the literature. Employing the Theory of Planned Behavior, as a theoretical framework, this study investigates the connection between entrepreneurial training programs, endogenous factors, and entrepreneurial intention. The analysis is based on a sample of Italian students who participated in the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS). The hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and subsequently fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). The results affirm that entrepreneurial intention is positively influenced by a combination of exogenous and endogenous factors. The study offers insights for a more profound understanding of entrepreneurial training dynamics and the development of flourishing and dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystems. Furthermore, it demonstrates that integrating the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) provides a useful framework for capturing the complex nature of the entrepreneurial intention phenomenon. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.

Despite criticism, human capital theory (HCT) has remained central for six decades to the teaching and practice of economics. This paper reformulates the critique of HCT, focusing on two aspects that are typically relegated to the margin. The first of these is the pervasive presence of the external effects of learning, which is paid lip service in formal expositions of HCT but marginalized in the bulk of empirical work and policy advice. Similarly, marginalized are the social determinants of education demand. We show that the embedding of HCT in methodological individualism makes impossible the incorporation of key, non-peripheral factors that affect the demand for, and effects of education. The resultant tensions from the use of an individualistic methodology to explain inherently social phenomena have been accommodated within HCT by ignoring them. The outcome is problematic in important fields of socioeconomic inquiry, several examples of which are noted in this paper. We conclude by advocating a new research agenda and revised program for the training of economists concerned with learning that includes behavioral economics, applications to education of the capability approach, and an expansion of empirical research on the external effects of education in historical and contemporaneous contexts. © 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Economic Surveys published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Workplace learning practice opportunities provide a learning context for career specialists that may significantly determine their competence level and rate of professional growth in their career paths. This paper aims to explore how attending different workplace learning practice choices could have advanced professional career paths of career specialists. The data of the study was collected in Estonia with the survey distributed to the career specialists (N = 173) with different professional backgrounds and career lengths. The survey estimated the professional competence levels, the career length, the relative progress in the career path, and the workplace learning practises the career specialists had taken. The relations between competency profile and attending different workplace learning practice opportunities, and between rapid development or slow development (possibly being on the professional plateau) and workplace learning practices were analysed using the latent profile analysis and Kruskall-Wallis H-tests. Latent profile analysis with competences detected four different competency profile stages: Beginner, Experienced, Expert and Developer. The findings indicated that rapid professional development to the more advanced competency profile stages was positively associated with frequent attendance of varied workplace learning practice opportunities. In contrast, in the state of relatively slow development (being on the possible career plateau), the specialists had attended significantly less workplace learning practice than expected. We address the concern that this lack of experience-based social learning in their training might seriously hinder the work of career specialists who need to provide career guidance to other people. © The Author(s) 2025.

Background: Pharmacy internships are an important part of pharmacy education in Poland; they are an integral part of professional studies. The first two internships are held after the third and fourth year of study during the summer break and last for four weeks. The study aims to analyze the didactic process of the pharmacy students taking place during the summer internship in community and hospital pharmacies in Poland. The analysis emphasizes the acquisition of skills built on the master-student contact, and the results are based on trainees’ feedback. Methods: The research tool was a questionnaire addressed to fifth-year pharmacy students who had previously completed summer internships in both community and hospital pharmacy. The survey contained 17 questions that sought to gain insight into their perceptions of the internship’s supervision and guidance of work by tutors and pharmacy staff, involvement in different workplace routines and comparison between formal education and everyday practice. The data collection was carried out in the academic year 2015–2016 among the ninth-semester pharmacy students from four Medical Universities in Poland. Information about internships performed in community and hospital pharmacies were collected separately. Results: The paper presents the results of selected questions related specifically to the legitimacy of summer internships and learning about professional responsibilities. Altogether 447 questionnaires, evaluating summer internships in both community and hospital pharmacies were collected. For the majority of students the summer internship made them aware of the profession; however, the internship in some pharmacies did not always provide them with all aspects of pharmaceutical practice. 14–40% of students admitted that their mentors did not introduce the internship program at the beginning of the internship. Only 35–46% of students performed drug formulations on a daily basis. Less than 30% of respondents indicated that drug formulary process in community pharmacies was the same as they have learned at university. Almost every day or very often students were involved in checking or spreading out the drugs delivered to the pharmacy from the wholesale institution. Only two universities conducted regular audits of the internship process by the supervisors (academic teachers). Conclusions: The summer internship of pharmacy students complements the opportunity to acquire practical skills in the training of future pharmacists. The quality of this didactic process should be subjected to constant verification. What is important is that pharmacists who are tutors of students participating in summer internships should obtain an academic support in the area of education and training, relevant to the professional preparation for the didactic process. Similar rules for summer internships should be developed, despite maintaining distinctiveness, across faculties. The students’ responses indicate varying levels of mentor involvement in the implementation of practical vocational training. What is worrying is the lack of substantive and practical supervision during the internship. © The Author(s) 2024.

Wide developments in technology provide major changes and opportunities for digital mathematics textbooks. In this context, the swift incorporation of digital textbooks into educational frameworks explores the potential and limitations of enriching mathematical understanding and instructional methodologies. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze the perspectives of secondary school teachers in China on the strengths and weaknesses of digital mathematics textbooks for learning. An exploratory analysis by semi-structured interviews was implemented with the participation of five secondary school teachers who attended training and used digital mathematics textbooks. Thematic analysis was conducted, and coding was used as the basic analytic strategy. The results showed that digital mathematics textbooks were supportive instructional media capable of supporting different teaching and learning activities as well as visualizing concepts. These media were considered simple and practical as well as valuable to strengthen teaching skills with technology. However, textbooks possessed minimum pedagogical features, practices, and interfaces. The results also reported the need to incorporate more pedagogical tools and interactive elements within textbooks to enhance educational value. Furthermore, these insights called for ongoing professional development to effectively integrate and use digital textbooks in pedagogy. © The Author(s) 2025.

Many students in vocational education and training (VET) programmes in Norway fail to see the connection with the school-based curriculum content they explore and learn and the tasks they perform during work placements. Consequently, the relevance of various vocational concepts remains invisible when conducting tasks at work, hence student motivation for learning may decrease and students’ understanding accordingly. This study examines how thematic assignments, designed by a team of experienced vocational teachers in Norway, who teach the subject vocational specialization, foster students’ boundary learning and contribute to students’ knowledge development of vocational concepts. The research focuses on the thematic assignments, the boundary objects, helping students to navigate between the school and the workplace. The thematic assignments serve as shared references that bridge these two learning contexts. Semi-structured observations were made of students, teachers, and supervisors in the workplace, and interviews were conducted with teachers and supervisors to gain insight into practices and personal perspectives. The findings indicate that the teachers’ joint design and their individual student adjusted use of the thematic assignments, helped students to ‘see’ the vocational concepts in practice and to stress their importance and necessity to learn. An additional result is that the assignments worked as an anchor for improved communication and collaboration among all parties involved. © The Author(s) 2025.

The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of using IVR to help Indonesian EFL students cope with the twenty-first century. We examined 53 Indonesian university students in this study to see how immersive virtual reality (IVR) impacts their English as a Foreign Language (EFL) proficiency and transferable skill development. The pre-experimental design used a mixed methodology approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Statistical analysis, using paired sample t-test and ANOVA, showed that post-test scores (mean = 84.72, SD = 7.83) were significantly higher than pre-test scores (mean = 58.96, SD = 8.16, p < 0.001). Using t-test and ANOVA, we compared students’ pre- and post-test EFL proficiency levels within and between the two groups. We analyzed the quantitative data with qualitative descriptions of changes in transferable skills and participants’ opinions about the impact of IVR on their English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and transferable skills. The integration analysis revealed that students felt an improvement in transferable skills, but their English skills still needed improvement in pronunciation and vocabulary. In addition, IVR helped undergraduate students overcome English learning difficulties. They reported a decrease in the anxiety they experienced when using IVR in real-life scenarios, although they saw it as a useful tool to improve transferable skills. According to the results of the study, IVR had a statistically significant effect on undergraduate students' transferability of skills. Although most users found IVR to be an engaging learning experience with realistic settings and fun activities, they recognized that the use of avatars could sometimes be a hindrance in designing stories using EFL. We offer implications for improving foreign language learning using IVR technology. By implementing the most effective teaching models in the metaverse, it is important to create, design, and manage VR platforms in a structured way that reflects modern student-oriented learning, learning satisfaction, and improve learning outcomes based on these results for future education, namely in design thinking, computational thinking, and critical thinking, as well as improving overall language competence. While research has found some difficulties in integrating IVR for language learning, it has also found substantial links between IVR use and greater engagement, critical thinking, and the development of creative skills in the twenty-first century. © The Author(s) 2025.

Purpose – The policymakers and administrators of Malaysian Independent Chinese Secondary Schools (MICSS) play a pivotal role in encouraging robust talent development strategies to empower teachers to excel in their responsibilities. It is especially crucial considering that teachers at MICSS are not included in the Ministry of Education’s Teacher Development Training programme. This paper aims to investigate the level of talent development among MICSS teachers and its influence on various aspects of content knowledge and instructional pedagogy. Furthermore, the purpose of this research is to examine the extent of content knowledge of MICSS teachers serving as mediators for talent development and enhance instructional pedagogy. Design/methodology/approach – The Malaysian Teacher Standard and the Talent Management Model are used to draft the key points of a survey. Three hundred and fifty-seven Malaysian educators from MICSS contributed to the numerical questionnaires and strata random sampling procedures. Findings – This investigation revealed that the teachers demonstrated high levels of talent development. It studies the correlation between MICSS teachers’ talent development, content knowledge and instructional pedagogy. Research limitations/implications – It emphasised the significance of content knowledge which acts as a mediator between talent development and instructional pedagogy. Social implications – Hence, talent development programmes are critical to nurture proficient educators in MICSS, ensuring quality of instruction and students’ learning outcomes. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to investigate the correlation between MICSS teachers’ talent development, content knowledge and instructional pedagogy throughout Malaysia. © 2025 Emerald Publishing Limited

The study investigated the challenges faced by teachers in virtual learning environments in a developing country from their own perspectives. To achieve its objectives, a descriptive survey method was employed. A questionnaire was developed and distributed–after checking its validity and reliability—to a sample of 452 teachers selected through stratified random sampling. The findings indicated that teachers faced a moderate level of challenges overall in virtual learning environments. The results also revealed statistically significant differences in the challenges faced by teachers across all domains based on school type, with public school teachers reporting more challenges than those in private schools. However, no significant differences were found in most challenge domains based on gender, except in two specific domains: “challenges related to learners” and “challenges related to school administration,” where female teachers reported greater challenges. Additionally, no significant differences were identified across any domains of challenges based on teaching experience. The researchers recommend that the Ministry of Education create centers to evaluate virtual learning apps, expand teacher training, and enhance parental involvement in distance learning. © 2025 by the authors of this article.

This study integrates BERT with multi-source data fusion technology to construct a chain-mediated model linking practical education base construction, teacher guidance effectiveness, collaborative education, and employability improvement. It uses a domain-adapted fine-tuned BERT for deep semantic encoding of unstructured internship texts and designs a "feature-layer attention + decision-layer GBDT"framework to integrate diverse data, building a high-precision employability prediction model. Empirical findings show: (1) Practical education base construction directly enhances employability, with its interaction with teacher guidance effectiveness indirectly influencing employability through the chain-mediation path of collaborative education (accounting for 59.15% of total mediation effect); (2) BERT-parsed textual semantic features contribute most to employability prediction (38.7%), verifying the technology's key role in evaluating implicit abilities. The study provides quantitative evidence for collaborative education mechanisms, offers scalable technical solutions for multi-source data fusion and intelligent analysis, and proposes technology-empowered optimization paths covering institutional guarantees, teacher evaluation reform, enterprise platform development, and students' reflective practice. © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).