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The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the inability of the Japanese higher education system to adapt to widespread unexpected disruption. The limited metrics available to assess Japanese higher education’s response in the wake of the pandemic indicate several areas where the system needs to be strengthened. This paper aims to harness the ecological perspective to explore the procedures by which higher education in Japan can mitigate extant digital shortcomings.

Leveraging Zhao and Frank’s ecological perspective as its theoretical model, this paper proposes practical solutions to remedy deficiencies highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic rooted in existing literature both within and outside of Japanese higher education research.

The paper suggests pragmatic ideas to embolden each of the three strata encompassing the educational “ecosystem”: institutions, faculty and students. The paper identifies measures for strengthening institutions to become more adaptive and improve leadership capacity. At the faculty level, meanwhile, an increase in professional development opportunities and the bolstering of support systems may function to bridge an intergenerational digital divide. Finally, for students, the authors argue for mobile-assisted language learning in an effort to cultivate stronger learner outcomes, and prescribe how to integrate this method into formal IT platforms.

The current paper is among a select few that use the ecological perspective in the field of educational research in Japan. The authors contend that the model, while effective, offers an incomplete view of education, suggesting that the ecological perspective must be expanded to include students as a distinct species.

Following education’s recent and abrupt reliance on technology-mediated pedagogies, the novel coronavirus pandemic has, in many instances, highlighted the unpreparedness of learning institutions worldwide to implement effective online instruction. While practical quality considerations include content delivery, teacher training, equipment provision, and networked infrastructure, the situated and enculturated means by which online language education occurs represents a learner-focused factor that language educators may inadvertently neglect as they struggle to accommodate an emerging digital frontier. With this issue in mind, this paper aims to contribute to quality assurance in digital foreign language instruction by providing a sociocultural interpretation of CALL as learners and instructors alike continue to struggle within the boundaries of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In focussing on learner equity, identity and interaction, the current conceptual paper draws attention to potential affective factors driving computer-assisted language learning (CALL) participation structures, providing sociological consideration of the potential impacts of digital language education and, in doing so, confront the deterministic notion that online language learning represents a general equaliser of hierarchical participation structures.

Although CALL’s dynamic nature does provide users with openings to revise linguistic, semiotic and social practices, a growing body of research contests the broad depiction of digital language learning as automatically strengthening learner equity and interaction. Euphoric visions of technology inexorably engendering positive outcomes thereby risk obscuring those sociocultural pressures that impact user identity and, thus, how diverse social actors interact within unfamiliar learning communities.

This conceptual study is among a select few that focusses on CALL quality assurance during COVID-induced online education.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the linkage between gratitude and leadership among university teachers. It also tended to examine mediating and moderating effect of social intelligence amidst the relationship between gratitude and leadership. As social intelligence is a multi-dimensional concept, this paper explored mediating and moderating effect of three dimensions of social intelligence, i.e. social awareness, social skills and social information processing.

Mediation effect was examined with help of Baron and Kenny’s (1986) technique, Sobel test and bootstrapping estimates. Significance of interaction between independent variable (gratitude) and moderator (social intelligence) was investigated for moderation analysis.

The findings reported partial mediating effect of all three dimensions of social intelligence. No significant moderation effect was observed.

This is one of the pioneer studies that explored interrelationship between gratitude, social intelligence and leadership among Indian University teachers.

Technology has become all-pervasive and one of the essential requirements of life. The blessings of science and technology are countless, and today, it is almost impossible to imagine life without applications of technology. And at the same time, positive psychologists have advocated practicing gratitude for the betterment of personal and professional growth and development. But ironically, the area of gratitude toward technology remains unexplored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the difference in gratitude for the technological and non-technological aspects of life.

The first study compared gratitude for three parameters – sense of abundance, social appreciation and appreciation for others. The second study was based on the “counting blessing” exercise, in which respondents were asked to write five things for which they feel grateful in life. The Friedman test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used to compare the ranked data. In the third study, respondents were distributed into two groups. Both groups were given a puzzle to solve; first, group members were informed that they would interact with other human beings, and the second group was informed that they would interact with bots.

All three studies concluded that respondents are relatively less grateful for the contributions of technologies.

This is probably the first study that investigated gratefulness for technology.