Search Results for
"education"

In many developing countries, including Pakistan, the integration of STEM education in high school curricula remains in the early stages despite its global recognition as crucial for preparing students for future technological societies. This study investigates the development of 21st-century skills and STEM career interests through STEM education among high school students in Pakistan, where STEM integration is still in its early stages. A purposive sampling technique was used to gather data from 156 teachers engaged in STEM practices. A literature-based questionnaire was developed to ensure reliability and validity before data collection. SmartPLS was employed for data analysis, utilizing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to validate the measurement model. Path analysis further examined the relationships between independent and dependent variables. The findings indicate that STEM education significantly enhances 21st-century skills, including critical thinking, collaboration, technical, and problem-solving skills. The SmartPLS analysis revealed strong internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.888–0.951) and convergent validity (AVE = 0.590–0.641) across all constructs. Path coefficients demonstrated significant relationships, with the most substantial effect between STEM education and critical thinking (β = 0.602). Additionally, STEM education positively influenced students' interest in pursuing STEM careers (β = 0.273). These findings suggest that teachers should update their pedagogical practices and promote STEM education to better prepare students for the demands of the 21st-century workforce. © 2025 School Science and Mathematics Association.

This longitudinal study explores the efficacy of an internship program designed for English majors, with the goal of enhancing students’ professional competencies through a seamless integration of academic learning and practical experience. The study aims to strengthen the connections between academia and the business community, thereby improving students’ readiness for the competitive job market. By employing a triangulated mixed-methods approach, we collected both quantitative and qualitative data to capture the multifaceted impact of the internship experience from various stakeholder perspectives. The findings indicate that host supervisors expressed overall satisfaction with interns’ performance, while qualitative data revealed that interns demonstrated readiness for employment, showcasing strong potential in career-related contexts, especially within Asian markets. However, the feedback also highlighted areas for improvement, such as the need for interns to refine their decision-making skills and adopt a more professional demeanor. The study concludes that the internship program has a profound and transformative impact on students’ learning experiences, facilitating the practical application of communication theories and enhancing business efficiencies. These insights provide critical frameworks for future curriculum development, highlighting the transformative potential of experiential learning in bridging the gap between education and professional practice. © 2025, International Tesol Union Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

This article extends social realist theorising about theoretical knowledge and curriculum within the sociology of education to explore the nature of qualifications. The article draws on Bernstein’s concept of evaluative rules to do so. It evaluates human capital, institutional, and credentialist theories about the role qualifications play in society. Each offers important insights, yet each is unsatisfactory. Each fails to recognise education as a relatively autonomous field distinct from other social fields. We theorise qualifications to explore, on the one hand, the role they play in transforming society, and on the other, the role they play in reproducing social inequalities. We argue that qualifications matter, even if they are imperfect, contribute to the reproduction of social inequalities, and should be tied less, and not more, tightly to the labour market. A socially just model of qualifications would include four key purposes: individual, educational, occupational, and social. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Purpose – This study intends to promote social sustainability by addressing the shifting skill expectations for recent graduates in response to changing employer demands within the industry 5.0 framework. It tries to identify the best combination of socially sustainable skills that will improve graduates' employability and align them with industry expectations. Design/methodology/approach – This study analyses data obtained from 187 industry experts using an exploratory method and Structural Equation Modelling with AMOS software. Confirmatory Factor Analysis is used to validate seven unique socially sustainable components, which are then examined using a route model to determine their relationship to overall graduate employability (OGE). Findings – The study highlights the skills and competences that have a major impact on graduate success in a labour market that is changing quickly by identifying seven important socially sustainable characteristics that influence OGE within Industry 5.0. The results show that employability is positively impacted by analytical, cognitive, leadership, self-efficacy and technology abilities (with an emphasis on social sustainability). Emotional intelligence and decision-making abilities, with a focus on social sustainability, have little influence, nevertheless. Research limitations/implications – By highlighting the complex role of emotional intelligence and decision-making abilities in employability from a social sustainability perspective, this study challenges conventional viewpoints and advances the theoretical understanding of socially sustainable employability within Industry 5.0. Practical implications – The results offer businesses and higher education institutions (HEIs) with practical advice on how to improve social sustainability in the workforce. Employers can modify hiring and personnel management practices to match the competences most valued in Industry 5.0, while HEIs can modify their curricula to concentrate on the most significant employable skills. A workforce that is not only technically skilled but also socially conscious and flexible enough to meet new industrial problems is fostered by this alignment. Originality/value – This research will be highly valuable to the higher education institutes, universities, students, faculty members, government who is making the policies. © 2025 Emerald Publishing Limited

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to education systems globally, revealing the inherent vulnerabilities and inequities of traditional learning models and compelling countries to rethink and innovate in previously unimagined ways. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2025.

The rapid advancement of ICT, robotics, data science, and cyber-physical systems (CPS) has intensified the need for agile, future-ready human resource development (HRD) strategies. This scoping review explores current HRD practices, challenges, and opportunities across these technological domains. Guided by the PRISMA-ScR framework, 791 records were initially retrieved from four databases, with 43 peer-reviewed publications ultimately included following a rigorous screening process. Thematic analysis revealed a strong emphasis on digital and AI literacy, interdisciplinary training, and the adoption of immersive technologies such as virtual reality and AI-driven competency tracking systems. Persistent gaps, including misalignment between academic training and industry needs, a lack of scalable HRD models, and underdeveloped policy frameworks. Statistical comparisons revealed no significant differences across fields, indicating the cross-cutting relevance of the identified strategies. The findings underscore the need for structured, empirically grounded, and industry-integrated HRD approaches to prepare the workforce for the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. © IEEE. 2013 IEEE.

The field of education in the digital era is undergoing tremendous changes, and computational thinking, as the basis for understanding and applying digital technologies, has become a key skill for learners in the 21st century. Challenges to the development of computational thinking in junior high school students include a single teaching method, teachers' overemphasis on programming language learning, a lack of systematic teaching content, and students' lack of problem-solving skills, which affect the development of computational thinking. Based on this, this study takes ninth-grade students as the research object, and adopts Quasi-experimental and Survey research methods under the guidance of constructivism theory, theory of mind and learning community theory to construct and validate a PBL teaching mode based on the cultivation of computational thinking in junior high school information technology curriculum. The results show that the PBL teaching mode for computational thinking cultivation is applied to the junior high school Mixly course to improve the computational thinking level of students. This study provides theoretical reference and practical significance for Mixly teaching oriented towards CT cultivation. © 2025 IEEE.

Introduction: academic performance in vocational education is influenced by multiple psychological and institutional factors. Among these, Transformational Leadership (TL) from educators and Student Self-Resilience (SSR) are recognized as critical, yet their combined influence remains insufficiently examined within China’s vocational education context. Objective: this study aims to examine the direct effect of teacher transformational leadership on students’ academic performance (SAP) and to assess whether student self-resilience mediates this relationship. Method: a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 511 students from vocational colleges in Chongqing, China. Expectancy theory served as the theoretical framework. Data were analyzed using SmartPLS 4 to implement structural equation modeling (SEM) via partial least squares (PLS), allowing for assessment of path coefficients, mediation effects, explained variance (R²), and effect sizes (f²). Results: transformational leadership had a significant positive direct effect on both student academic performance and student self-resilience. Additionally, self-resilience was found to significantly and positively influence academic performance. Mediation analysis revealed that SSR partially mediated the relationship between TL and SAP, indicating that SSR is an essential mechanism through which TL impacts academic outcomes. Conclusions: the findings support the integration of transformational leadership and student self-resilience development in vocational education. They extend expectancy theory by highlighting SSR as a key personal resource that enhances the effectiveness of leadership on academic outcomes. Practical implications suggest vocational institutions should invest in leadership development for teachers and implement resilience-building programs for students to sustain high academic performance. © 2025; Los autores.

In response to post-pandemic challenges, vocational educators are re-evaluating curricula and instructional strategies to better prepare students for the industry. This study examines the interrelationships among achievement goal orientations, mindful learning, resilience, creative problem-solving, and adaptive capability in hospitality students. It also explores how mindful learning and resilience mediate the relationships between achievement goal orientations and both creative problem-solving and adaptive capability. A quantitative analysis of 1,076 hospitality students with internship experience from 13 universities shows that mindful learning and resilience jointly mediate these relationships. Theoretical models should consider these mediators when assessing students’ creative problem-solving skills and adaptive capability. This research extends the literature on the importance roles that achievement goal orientation, mindful learning and resilience play in the education field. By fostering mindfulness and resilience, vocational educators can help students better navigate the pressures and challenges. The study also discusses practical implications, theoretical contributions, and provides suggestions for future research. © De La Salle University 2025.

This reflexive narrative study explores college students’ honor thesis projects undertaken in a top English education (EE) program at a prestigious foreign language university in Shanghai, China. The study positions a foreign teacher-researcher from an English-speaking country as the primary narrator to navigate two graduates awarded honor thesis prizes in 2022 and 2023. They have subsequently pursued advanced research training abroad in the United States and the United Kingdom. By underpinning Bourdieu’s concepts of language and symbolic power within the ideas of research literacy, this study developed scholarly conversations about the tensions between the participants’ linguistic capital and research literacy development. The study further expands scholarly discussions about the interplay of institutional habitus, linguistic capital, and cosmopolitan career-guided imagery. This study provides implications for teacher-researchers and policy decision-makers to understand college students’ broader horizons and post-graduation plans in language and international education. © 2025 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.