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This study probed the impact of using learning technologies (LT) on developing Yemeni English as a foreign language (EFL) students' autonomy and creativity toward English language learning. Also, the research gauged if LT impacts learners' autonomy and creativity across gender and university-type variables.

The study utilized a valid and reliable questionnaire, comprising 20 close-ended items, which was administered to 109 Yemeni EFL undergraduate students.

The researchers found that LT positively impacts learners' creativity and autonomy, with mean scores of 4.09 and 3.86, respectively. Furthermore, the results showed a medium correlation between creativity and autonomy with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.63 at a probability of Sig = 0.00. Likewise, the results revealed that LT impacted female learners' creativity more significantly than their male counterparts (Sig = 0.047). Nevertheless, no significant differences were found pertaining to the impact of LT on students' autonomy across public and private universities (Sig = 0.213).

EFL teachers are advised to encourage their students' autonomy and creativity throughout their lifelong learning journey in order to adapt to the ever-changing demands of the world.

This study investigates the impact of learning technology on Yemeni EFL students' autonomy and creativity.

This study aims to explore motives behind teachers' and students' use of translanguaging and how they use it in Tanzanian public secondary school classrooms.

Data were collected using interviews and non-participant observations.

The findings indicate that translanguaging was used to facilitate content comprehension, promote classroom interaction and increase students' motivation to learn. Translanguaging was implemented using three strategies: paraphrasing an English text into Kiswahili, translating an English text into its Kiswahili equivalent and word-level translanguaging.

By highlighting the motivations for translanguaging and corresponding strategies associated with translanguaging pedagogy in the Tanzanian context, this study has significant practical implications for teachers and students to showcase their linguistic and multimodal knowledge, while fostering a safe learning space that relates to students' daily experiences.

The study offers new insights into previous research on the role of language-supportive pedagogy appropriate for teachers and students working within bi-/multilingual education settings.

This study attempts to evaluate the effect of the corpus-based inductive teaching approach with multiple academic corpora (PICA, CAEC and Oxford Corpus of Academic English) and conventional deductive teaching approach (i.e., multiple-choice items, filling the gap, matching and underlining) on learning academic collocations by Iranian advanced EFL learners (students learning English as a foreign language).

This is a quasi-experimental, quantitative and qualitative study.

The result showed the experimental group outperformed significantly compared with the control group. The experimental group also shared their perception of the advantages and disadvantages of the corpus-assisted language teaching approach.

Despite growing progress in language pedagogy, methodologies and language curriculum design, there are still many teachers who experience poor performance in their students' vocabulary, whether in comprehension or production. In Iran, for example, even though mandatory English education begins at the age of 13, which is junior and senior high school, students still have serious problems in language production and comprehension when they reach university levels.

The search for new techniques to teach English nowadays has been more than ever. These techniques have to be interesting and enjoyable in order to lower the anxiety levels of students when learning English (Bakhsh, 2016). That is why many scholars and teachers look forward to integrating technology into language teaching. Social media platforms (SMPs) are among these techniques since millions of people around the world utilize them for daily interaction. Yet, teaching English for specific purposes (ESPs) relies on learners’ needs and employs an eclectic approach in delivering its course content. For this reason, the current study reviewed articles that tackled the topic of teaching or learning ESP from SMPs so as to uncover their effect and the attitude or motivation of learners.

The researchers used the PRISMA flowchart model in order to identify, screen and include articles in the study.

The results revealed that SMPs are effective in teaching and learning ESP writing, speaking and vocabulary. Yet, the included studies showed that learners’ attitude toward SMPs is positive as they believe that they are motivating and interesting.

Some aspects of social media have turned out to be beneficial in the learning process and they need further investigation from ESP practitioners and scholars.

According to the study, it is crystal clear that the various social networks and platforms are beneficial and helpful for improving ESP productive skills.

Culture is considered a critical aspect of social media usage. The purpose of this paper is to explore how cultures and languages influence multilingual users' cross-cultural information sharing patterns.

This study used a crowdsourcing survey with Amazon Mechanical Turk to collect qualitative and quantitative data from 355 multilingual users who utilize two or more languages daily. A mixed-method approach combined statistical, and cluster analysis with thematic analysis was employed to analyze information sharing patterns among multilingual users in the Chinese cultural context.

It was found that most multilingual users surveyed preferred to share in their first and second language mainly because that is what others around them speak or use. Multilingual users have more diverse sharing characteristics and are more actively engaged in social media. The results also provide insights into what incentives make multilingual users engage in social media to share information related to Chinese culture with the MOA model. Finally, the ten motivation factors include learning, entertainment, empathy, personal gain, social engagement, altruism, self-expression, information, trust and sharing culture. One opportunity factor is identified, which is convenience. Three ability factors are recognized consist of self-efficacy, habit and personality.

The findings are conducive to promoting the active participation of multilingual users in online communities, increasing global resource sharing and information flow and promoting the consumption of digital cultural content.

The aim of this article is to address some aspects of a cross-cultural interview study conducted in a PhD research project. This is done by reflecting on and discussing the influence of language and culture on the research process, as experienced by the researcher.

The experiences have been taken from an interview study with fifteen American participants in which the researchers were Norwegian. The interviews were conducted in English.

By offering insights into experiences of the research process in a cross-cultural interview study, the article connects the discussion to the concepts of positionality and reflexivity. These concepts are found to be especially relevant when managing differences between the researcher and participants in cross-cultural studies, and for improving the trustworthiness of the research.

The experiences and reflections discussed in the article may be useful to other researchers in similar (cross-cultural) research contexts and situations.

This article has been inspired by the experience of conducting research in a second language and in a different country. By drawing on a researcher’s point of view, this article reflects on these aspects when working as a visiting researcher doing international research.

The current synthesis study was conducted to locate comprehensive perspectives about the transformation of higher education institutions from being the only places where formal education programs are offered into settings where lifelong learning can be integrated. This demands an inquiry through not only instance investigation but also a more comprehensive evidence upsurge which has great importance in obtaining lessons and drawing conclusions from existing facts to show how higher education institutions can be places where lifelong learning is promoted for the good of both individuals and societal advancement.

Using a meta-synthesis methodology, a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge in the area of higher education institutions' role in promoting lifelong learning was synthesized.

The study identified wide-ranging lifelong learning conceptualizations, potential beneficiaries, learning contents and ways of delivery that can be applied in higher education institutions. Furthermore, the practical challenges, partnership and coordination concerns and policy and reform issues towards promoting lifelong learning were addressed.

This meta-synthesis provides crucial evidence for higher education policymakers and practitioners seeking to guide the transformation of their institutions into settings where lifelong learning is integrated with other forms of educational programs, thereby optimizing individual's professional development and societal progress.

This article provides an overview of the literature characteristics of empirical research on topics related to police careers from 2000 to 2021. Methodology, distribution in time and space and types of publication are presented. Recommendations for new research avenues are given.

Eight scoping reviews on specific topics were carried out by criminology students under the close guidance and supervision of the first author, an academic researcher. The reviews followed the same procedure, enabling an overarching reflection.

The scoping reviews resulted in 179 unique publications for analysis. It appears that the topic of police professional competencies is studied more often in the field of police careers (n = 55), in contrast to informal learning in police training (n = 4) which was studied the least frequently. Since 2012, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of publications. Publications in scientific journals are by far the most common (n = 153), as is a quantitative research design (n = 123). All topics have been studied in Europe and North America.

More qualitative research and international dissemination of empirical results are recommended to gain a deeper understanding of police careers. As for the limitations, specific topics were selected, which limits the scope of the findings. Working with students for data collection has its benefits in terms of workload, but comes with potential limitations in terms of quality. It is recommended to conduct a screening using the four-eyed principle, as was done here by the first and second authors. Additionally, the review protocol (e.g. keywords and databases) has an influence on the outcome. Different choices may lead to different results.

A comprehensive analysis of police career literature is made based on eight scoping reviews that followed the same procedure. It allows to study the literature in a broad sense rather than studying one topic in depth.

In 2022, the Baltimore professional development school (PDS) partner schools, John Ruhruh Elementary/Middle School (JREMS) and Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU) received funds through a Maryland Educational Emergency Revitalization (MEER) grant to determine (a) to what extent additional resources and professional development would increase JREMS teachers’ efficacy in technology integration and (b) to what extent NDMU professional development in the form of workshops and self-paced computer science modules would result in greater use of technology in the JREMS K-8 classrooms. Results indicated a statistically significant improvement in both teacher comfort with technology and integrated use of technology in instruction.

Survey data were collected on teacher-stated comfort with technology before and after grant implementation. Teachers’ use of technology was also measured by unannounced classroom visits by administration before and after the grant implementation and through artifacts teachers submitted during NDMU professional development modules.

Results showing significant increases in self-efficacy with technology along with teacher integration of technology exemplify the benefits of a PDS partnership.

This initiative was original in its approach to teacher development by replacing required teacher professional development with an invitation to participate and an incentive for participation (a personal MacBook) that met the stated needs of teachers. Teacher motivation was strong because teammates in a strong PDS partnership provided the necessary supports to induce changes in teacher self-efficacy.

This case study examines the experiences of 20 student teachers at an Indonesian private university in enhancing their self-efficacy in utilizing instructional technology.

The participants of this study had different cultural backgrounds and spoke different indigenous languages. Situated in diverse classroom settings, the participants were interviewed using online platforms to examine their learning experience when learning to integrate technology into teaching. Furthermore, observational data were collected through photographs taken during the learning process to triangulate the findings.

Grounded in case study analysis, the study reveals three emerging themes indicating the development of the preservice teachers' confidence in multilingual classrooms: (1) designing technology-mediated learning activities, (2) using learning technology to foster students' autonomy in learning and (3) promoting peer engagement in diverse classrooms through technology-based learning. Furthermore, the participants demonstrated their ability to develop self-efficacy in overcoming the challenges associated with technology use in education by adapting, innovating, and collaborating.

The study has three limitations. First, the limited number of participants involved in the study restricts the generalizability of the findings and does not allow for testing the potential influence of variables such as age, gender or experience on preservice teachers' beliefs. Second, limitation pertains to the reliability of self-report data provided by the preservice teachers. Given that self-efficacy can fluctuate over time, a longitudinal study is needed to investigate whether preservice teachers' self-efficacy in utilizing technology for learning evolves over time. Third, while the study was conducted in diverse classroom settings, it lacks an in-depth exploration of how cultural diversity impacts the learning outcomes of these preservice teachers.

The findings suggest that nurturing the technological self-efficacy of preservice teachers enhances their competence in technology-mediated pedagogy, both during the pandemic of COVID-19 and in the future.