Articles

This study explored the experiences of 13 core teachers of Enhancing Teacher Education Program when supporting their peers to fulfill online learning courses via the learning management system. It used a qualitative and interpretive methodological approach through semi-structured interviews to investigate the forms and factors affecting peer support in online learning. Research findings showed two forms of peer support via online and offline modalities. Exploring enabling factors for peer support in online learning is a great support of local administrative agencies and school leaders, core teachers’ personal experiences and reputations. However, core teachers identified a number of challenges including the limited digital skills and low learning motivation of recipients, core teachers’ heavy workload, and unreasonable compensation. These research findings contribute to the knowledge of teacher professional development and put forward recommendations to improve the online training courses and the work of core teachers in Vietnam.

Research on English writing skills has been a significant focus in the field of English language teaching and learning. Previous studies have emphasized the importance of writing skills in language acquisition, while also highlighting the challenges students face in developing these skills. This study takes a fresh perspective by investigating the level of apprehension in essay writing and identifying factors that negatively impact the English writing abilities of English-major students at a university in Ho Chi Minh City. A total of 135 third-year English-major students completed a questionnaire, and 10 students participated in semi-structured interviews. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the questionnaire data using SPSS. The findings revealed a relatively high level of essay writing apprehension among third-year English-major students. The study further identified various factors, including teachers, students, and the course itself, that contribute to this apprehension. The data from the semi-structured interviews provided additional insights to support these findings. Based on the study's outcomes, recommendations are offered to enhance the teaching and learning of writing skills.

The Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) is an important instrument to measure students’ approaches to learning. However, the construct validity of the measurement used is not always sufficiently evaluated. The aim of this study was to examine the construct validity of ASSIST with 1155 Senior One students studying in 17 Malaysian Independent Chinese Secondary Schools (MICSS). The Rasch model was employed, focusing on local independence, dimensionality and measurement invariance analyses. The results confirmed the three-factor structure of ASSIST and supported the unidimensionality of the three scales. There was also no evidence of a violation of the principle of local independence for all pairs of item residuals and negligible evidence of differential item functioning (DIF) on gender and course. These results indicate that ASSIST has good construct validity and can be used as a tool for measuring students’ approaches to learning. Using the Rasch model, measures are of an interval scale, and empirical evidence about the item clusters, dimensionality and measurement invariance can be determined. Additionally, issues pertaining to dimensionality, item dependency and non-equivalency across subgroups can be detected at an early stage of the instrument development to be addressed properly in the subsequent instrument administration.

Objective measurement of students’ reasoning competencies in science contexts is relevant in promoting educational reforms in science education. Over the years, progression-based assessments have been prompted by applying Rasch analysis in developing research instruments. Towards contributing to this reform, this study describes the development and validation of the Chemical Identity Thinking Instrument, which is anchored on a hypothesized progression of chemical identity thinking among premedical students. Item content validity indices were determined to inform item restructuring and revision. The research instrument was administered to 362 first-year to third-year pre-medical students from five higher education institutions in the Philippines. A scoring rubric was utilized to evaluate the accuracy of answers, the accuracy of explanations, and the type of explanations of students. Based on these parameters, the level of chemical identity thinking of the students was determined. By applying the Rasch rating scale model, evidence of reliability and construct validity was obtained. The applications of the instrument and the scoring rubric were discussed in the context of assessment and evaluation in pre-medical programs. The interpretation of changes in student abilities along the hypothesized levels of chemical identity thinking in all items was also described.