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The Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) plays a crucial role in the socioeconomic development of a country. Still, it is often stigmatized as a secondary choice in the Global South. This study explored the interrelationships and impacts of factors such as family, school, and society on the perception and reputation of TEVTA.

By employing quantitative methods, the analysis focused on how family, society, and school support influence these perceptions and reputations within TEVTA programs. Social Cognitive Theory is the theoretical underpinning of this study, in which 350 students from 13 TEVTA institutes participated by filling out questionnaires. The data was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and IBM SPSS 28.

This study indicates that family and societal influences significantly shape students' perceptions, confirming their pivotal role in enhancing the reputation of these programs. School support also emerged as a critical factor, significantly impacting students' perceptions but not directly influencing the programs' reputation. The analysis underscores the importance of understanding the sociocultural context to develop effective strategies for the TEVTA sector in Pakistan. This clear understanding is essential for developing effective strategies to improve the reputation of TEVTA programs in this setting. Moreover, this research offers policy suggestions to make vocational education more attractive and accessible to diverse students, ultimately contributing to the country's socioeconomic development.

This study applied Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) to explore how individual thoughts, environmental influences (such as family, school, and society), and behaviors interact within the context of TEVTA programs. This approach fills gaps in current research and offers a clearer understanding of what affects TEVTA's perception and reputation.

This study explores how authentic assessment has helped improve self-perception of leadership skills among business students in a developing society where authentic assessment is not popular.

Data on self-perception of leadership was collected using the Leadership Skills Inventory. Collected data was analyzed using Principal Component Analysis, two-way ANOVA, and Multiple Regressions.

Authentic assessment designed toward enriching teamwork positively affects leadership development. Students' involvement in extra-curricular activities fosters the impact of authentic assessment on self-perception of leadership. Female students demonstrate higher self-confidence in leadership, which is surprising to the conventional view of cultural expectations. Work-integrated learning assessment or cross-country real-trade data assessment projects do not trigger gender biases in self-perception of leadership.

Our study emphasizes the importance of group work authentic assessments and a work-integrated approach to authentic assessment design in business education.

The results provide meaningful implications regarding authentic assessment development in business education in a developing country where authentic assessment is not common at high school and university levels.

This article endeavors to detail the outcomes of an exploratory investigation into the perceived attainment levels of complex thinking competencies among business students at a technological university in western Mexico. It seeks to examine and contrast the students' self-assessed development of this critical competency, along with its associated sub-competencies, throughout their academic tenure.

Our analysis focused on two distinct groups of students, one at the beginning of their academic journey and the other nearing its completion, to explore whether perceptions of competency development were equitable across genders. Utilizing multivariate descriptive statistical analysis, we were able to substantiate the existence of a gender gap in the perceived development of competencies.

While both male and female students showed improvement in their self-perceived competencies, the results indicate that women outperformed their male counterparts in the area of complex thinking and its associated sub-competencies by the conclusion of their degree programs.

The evidence suggests that there is a gender gap in the educational process for this group of students, highlighting the urgent need to minimise disparities in the perception between male and female business students about their competencies.

This article presents findings that pave the way for future research aimed at exploring strategies to narrow the gap in perceived competency achievement throughout the educational journey in business studies, considering how the environment and cultural elements can be determining factors in how students perceive their abilities and skills.

This study aims to identify students’ perceptions of the importance and objectives of sustainability and business ethics education, considering contextual factors (ethics-friendly environments) and including the social desirability (SD) bias to strengthen data robustness and assess response truthfulness.

A survey was administered to 170 business students at an Icelandic university to measure their attitudes and perceptions toward sustainability and business ethics courses. Descriptive statistics, Mann–Whitney tests, χ² tests and multivariate regression were used for the analysis.

The results show no significant differences among participants, depending on individual and organizational factors. The authors did not find significant differences in gender, age or exposure to sustainability and business ethics courses concerning social desirability bias. Contextual solid factors can explain these results.

This study expands on previous research by examining students’ perceptions of sustainability and business ethics education in an “ethics-friendly environment” like Iceland, a new and fertile territory for business ethics education research. These elements are crucial for further research on students’ attitudes toward sustainability and business ethics and the role of this subject in university curricula.

Creating active learning opportunities requires building a learning culture in which the instructor plays the role of a facilitator, leaving the ultimate responsibility of learning to the student. The question, however, is whether this is happening in practice. This study aims to answer this question through instructors' perceptions of active learning in a higher education institution in Oman.

The study participants were 85 instructors working for a private university in Oman. Data were collected by surveying these instructors' perceptions of active learning practice indicators, such as active teaching strategies and student educational practices. This was followed by interviewing a random sample of the same instructors (N = 10) to obtain a deeper understanding of their implementation of the active learning approach.

Data collected through the survey revealed that the shift from passive to active learning in higher education in Oman created a discrepancy between instructors' willingness to practice active learning and learners' unpreparedness to become autonomous learners. The follow-up interview findings confirmed this point, revealing instructors' negative perceptions of student participation and engagement in out-of-class activities.

This study is among the first to investigate the application of active learning in a higher education institution in Oman from the perspective of instructors.

This study aims to explore students’ perceptions of the use of an artificial intelligence-generated content avatar (AIGC avatar) within a learning management system (LMS).

This qualitative research involved seven postgraduate students. Data were collected through individual, in-depth interviews. The videos of the AIGC avatar, created using Leonardo, ChatGPT and Heygen, were uploaded to the LMS to communicate with students for the purposes of a welcome note, assignment guide, assignment feedback, tutorial reminders and preparation as well as to provide encouragement and study tips. Students were interviewed at the end of the semester.

The findings of this study indicated that the majority of participating students held positive perceptions regarding the use of the AIGC avatar in the LMS. They reported that it enhanced their perceived instructor’s social presence and motivation to learn. The assignment guide and feedback were particularly valued by the participants. While some students noted the AIGC avatar’s lack of naturalness, others appreciated the clear and professional speech it delivered.

The study was confined to seven students from a single course at one institution, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. Future research could involve a larger and more diverse group of participants.

The findings may offer education providers an alternative solution for engaging students in an LMS.

This study highlights the potential of AIGC avatars to replace text-based communication in LMS and enhance students’ perceived instructor social presence.

This study aims to examine how entrepreneurial climate, gender inequality perception and self-efficacy affect female students’ entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions, with the moderating role of perceived family support.

This study collected data from 466 female students studying at universities in an emerging economy, i.e. Vietnam. This study assessed the proposed relationships between the examined variables using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results reveal that entrepreneurial climate, as a stimulus factor, significantly influences organism factors, including gender inequality perception, self-efficacy and attitude toward entrepreneurship. Furthermore, gender inequality perception is identified as a barrier to self-efficacy, attitude toward entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intention. Also, self-efficacy positively influences attitudes toward entrepreneurship and both factors jointly predict entrepreneurial intention. Lastly, perceived family support moderates the relationships between entrepreneurial intention and its antecedents.

This study extends the extant knowledge about the factors affecting women’s entrepreneurial attitudes and behavior, especially in emerging economies. This study’s findings assist university managers, policymakers and researchers in developing effective strategies to reduce the adverse effects of gender inequality perception and promote women's entrepreneurial behavior.

Prior research reveals that teachers have lower job satisfaction when they have more Black students, but this work does not consider how different aspects of work conditions – and the increasing diversity of students beyond a Black/White binary – may matter. This study aims to examine the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of work conditions and the racial/ethnic compositions of the classes they teach.

This study leverages data from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study. Analyses consist of both descriptive statistics and multilevel regression modeling.

Findings show that teachers’ satisfaction with working conditions varies in relation to the racial/ethnic composition of their students. Increase in the percent of Black, Latinx and Asian American students in a teacher’s classroom, was associated with a decrease in satisfaction with community involvement and student behavior. For increase in Latinx and Asian American students, this study finds significant decrease in satisfaction with measures of pedagogical and job support. For measures of school leadership and responsiveness to professional development needs, this study sees no significant relationship, which suggests that perceptions of some working conditions are more strongly tied to classroom demographics than others.

This work adds nuance to previous research on teacher job satisfaction by exploring satisfaction with various working conditions and how it varies in relation to classroom racial composition. This study concludes with a discussion of potential explanations for observed differences in teacher satisfaction, as well as potential ways to address these differences.

This study aims to examine the relationship between teacher ideals and attitudes toward peers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among teacher college students, and the effect of knowledge of ASD identification on this relationship.

This study used a quantitative approach and included 341 teacher college students. A vignette was used to assess social and professional attitudes toward peers with ASD. The participants were divided into identification and nonidentification groups based on how accurately they identified the peer depicted in the vignette as having ASD. A teacher ideals questionnaire consisting of two subscales indicating different ideal teachers − a dedicated/engaging teacher (e.g. a teacher who can work with enthusiasm) and a skillful teacher (e.g. a teacher who is knowledgeable) − was developed and administered to evaluate the participants’ teacher ideals and self-perceptions of a teacher.

In the nonidentification group, ideals of a skillful teacher were significantly correlated with social attitudes toward peers with ASD. The identification group exhibited no significant correlations between ideals and social attitudes. Furthermore, the self-perceptions of being a dedicated/engaging teacher was significantly correlated with professional attitudes toward peers with ASD in the identification group.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the relationship between teacher ideals and attitudes toward peers with ASD. Teacher ideals were related to negative social attitudes toward peers with ASD. While knowledge of ASD identification weakens this relationship, it may drive the relationship between self-perceptions of a teacher and professional attitudes toward peers with ASD. Therefore, ASD education is important for reducing the stigma toward ASD in teacher education.

This paper aims to investigate the extent of personal privacy concerns expressed by university students in Vietnam while using TikTok, the influence of peer interactions and social norms on privacy attitudes and behaviors and the strategies used by university students in Vietnam to mitigate privacy risks on TikTok.

A qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews was used to gather data on the following: the degree to which Vietnamese university students express concerns about their personal privacy while using TikTok; how peer interactions and social norms influence privacy attitudes and behaviors; and the strategies these students use to mitigate privacy risks on the platform.

Findings indicate that although university students exhibit a relatively low level of concern regarding their personal privacy on TikTok, peer influences and societal norms significantly shape their attitudes and behaviors on the platform. Moreover, students use several strategies to mitigate privacy risks, such as selective content sharing and refraining from engaging with unknown links.

These insights provide valuable implications for the development of targeted interventions and educational initiatives aimed at fostering a more privacy-conscious TikTok user community among university students in Vietnam.

This research fills a critical gap in the existing literature by focusing on the influence of social norms and peer influences on privacy attitudes and behaviors on social media platforms. While prior studies have explored various factors impacting privacy concerns on social media, the role of social dynamics has been understudied. Moreover, the research specifically addresses the lack of investigation into privacy concerns on TikTok, a platform rapidly gaining popularity among younger demographics.