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The state of science education is similar to that of other disciplines: research shows a clear need for new instructional strategies based on a constructivist model of learning emphasizing conceptual growth, conceptual change and the conditions that support conceptual change. Practice, however, remains anchored in behaviorist theory and rote methods of learning. “Serious constructivist approaches usually set out to reorganize traditional teaching by including changes of aims, setup of content structures, media, and teaching/learning strategies” (Treagust et al, 1996, p7). Maher and Alston (1990) discuss constructivist reform efforts and the implications for classroom teaching focusing on three issues that arise repeatedly: how to learn to listen to students’ thinking; how to organize classroom activities to support “listening and questioning”; and how to implement forms of assessment that document students’ questions.

This paper describes some constructivist teaching methodology and practices, and highlights their effectiveness as an aid to teaching and understanding in the classroom.

In the last two decades, the dependence of Taiwan’s manufacturing production on imported intermediate inputs has steadily risen. Meanwhile, the market share of imported consumable manufacture products has also increased. The steady rise of both import shares may not be explained by price fact or since the relative import prices have shown no decreasing trend. The scenario of constantly buying more imported goods when they are not cheaper can be treated as a preference change in favor of imported goods, which may be caused by the popularity of outsourcing, increasing product varieties and persistent trade barriers, as literatures indicated. Traditional macroeconomic models primarily consider the price mechanism in their import demand estimates, with no concern for changes in import preferences. Neglecting changing import preferences in a rapid globalization environment may yield biased empirical results. In this article, we incorporate the import preference factor into a single-country Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model and use it firstly to quantify the scale of preferences change and then to test how the preferences change affects the effects of trade policy. The empirical results with and without the concern of import preferences change are compared to yield the scale of bias caused by neglecting the change.

Total factor productivity (TFP) has become a prominent concept in agriculture economics and policy over the last three decades. The main aim of this paper is to obtain a detailed picture of the field via bibliometric analysis to identify research streams and future research agenda.

The data sample consists of 472 papers in several bibliometric exercises. Citation and collaboration structure analyses are employed to identify most important authors and journals and track the interconnections between main authors and institutions. Next, content analysis based on bibliographic coupling is conducted to identify main research streams in TFP.

Three research streams in agricultural TFP research were distinguished: TFP growth in developing countries in the context of policy reforms (1), TFP in the context of new challenges in agriculture (2) and finally, non-parametric TFP decomposition based on secondary data (3).

This research indicates agenda of future TFP research, in particular broadening the concept of TFP to the problems of policy, environment and technology in emerging countries. It provides description of the current state of the art in the agricultural TFP literature and can serve as a “guide” to the field.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the emotional intelligence (EI) of the person in charge of making human resource management (HRM) decisions on the adoption of high-performance human resource (HR) practices in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This study takes evidences from 157 HR decision makers in SMEs who autonomously make the decisions in the HR area and were responsible for the HR practices in their firm. The authors used multiple linear regression analysis to test the hypotheses.

Results show that both the EI and the different EI competencies of which it is comprised affect the adoption of various HR practices. Thus, the main theoretical contribution of this work stems from the incorporation of a psychological variable (EI) as an antecedent of HRM. Managers of the SME will find guidance about which emotional competencies are the most important for them to be more successful in their roles and for improving HRM.

First, the sample of firms the authors studied is limited to a specific geographic area in one country – Spain (Canary Islands) – that will necessarily limit generalisation of the results obtained to other populations of SMEs. Researchers should replicate the current model in other geographic areas. Second, and with regard the methodology, researchers could explore other tools to measure EI and emotional competencies. It would be interesting to measure this construct using qualitative analytical techniques, with 360 – or 180 – degree tools. Finally, the current study is cross-sectional in nature, which limits our ability to draw causal inferences from the data. This cross-sectional design prevents us, for example, from analysing EI’s influence on the continued development of high-performance HR practices over time. Future research using longitudinal methodologies to study these variables could provide additional advances in this area. This work makes important contributions to both the literature and the business world. With regard to the theoretical implications, results confirm that EI as a whole, as well as in terms of its specific emotional competencies, affects the decision making related to the adoption of high-performance HR practices, which is known to contribute to the organisational performance.

With regard its practical implications, SMEs’ owners-managers and HR practitioners may find our results and conclusions interesting. Indeed, recommendations in business management have often been accompanied by new approaches in HRM (Kent, 2005), as this study proposes. In particular, managers will find evidence of how a decision-maker’s higher EI propitiates the adoption of high-performance HR practices, thus being able to improve HRM in their SMEs. Moreover, managers will obtain guidance on which emotional competencies are the most important for adopting each HR practice, and so find greater success in their HRM roles. SMEs could organise programmes to develop the HR decision-maker’s emotional competencies, as large firms do for their executives.

Thus, the main theoretical contribution of this work stems from the incorporation of a psychological variable (EI) as an antecedent of HRM. Managers of the SME will find guidance about which emotional competencies are the most important for them to be more successful in their roles and for improving HRM.

In the past months, the authors have experienced an exceptional global situation that especially affects the most vulnerable population. This paper aims to analyse the needs, strengths and good practices of the organisations that have continued to study with the migrant population during the health crisis. The main objective was to determine how the health, social and communication crisis has affected the management of the organisation itself, the communications with its direct beneficiaries, the communications with the rest of society, as well as the perception that organisations specialised in migration have about how media has communicated the information of COVID-19 and migrant population.

The authors have circulated a questionnaire with open questions that covered the four dimensions previously mentioned.

The results show the analysis of the answers of 11 of the most important national and international organisations in the field of migration and refuge that operate in Spain.

Key issues have emerged related not only to the principal management concerns, internal digital communication, the adaptability of external communication and the major effort required to provide information about migration but also to innovative good practices. That other third sector organisations focussed on migration will be able to apply in the future and in other geographic areas.

The United States (US) sugar program protects domestic sugar farmers from unrestricted imports of heavily-subsidized global sugar. Sugar-using firms (SUFs) criticize that program for causing US sugar prices to be higher than world sugar prices. This study examines the financial performance of publicly traded SUFs to determine if they are performing at an economic disadvantage in terms of accounting profitability, risk and economic profitability compared to other industries.

Firm-level financial accounting and market data from 2010 to 2019 were utilized to construct financial metrics for publicly traded SUFs, agribusinesses and general US firms. These financial metrics were analyzed to determine how SUFs compare to their agribusiness peer group and general US companies. The comprehensive financial analysis in this study covers: (1) accounting profit rates, (2) drivers of profitability, (3) economic profit rates, (4) trend analysis and (5) peer comparisons. Quantile regression analysis and Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney statistics are employed for statistical comparisons.

Regarding various profitability and risk measures, SUFs outperform their agribusiness peers and the general benchmark of all US firms in terms of accounting profit rates, risk levels and economic profit rates. Furthermore, compared to other US industries using the 17 French and Fama classifications, SUFs have the highest return on investment and economic profit rate―measured by the Economic Value Added® margin―and the second-lowest opportunity cost of capital, measured by the weighted average cost of capital.

This study finds nothing to suggest that the US sugar program hinders the financial success of SUFs, contrary to recent claims by sugar-using firms. Notably in this analysis is the evaluation of economic profit rates and a series of robustness techniques.

In the UK, food poverty has increased in the last 15 years and the food aid supply chain that has emerged to tackle it is now roughly 10 years old. In this time, we have seen the food aid supply chain grow at a rate that has astounded many. Recently that growth has been aided by a grant of £20m from a large supermarket chain. It appears institutionalisation is just around the corner, if not already here. It also appears that there is far greater emphasis on dealing with the symptoms as opposed to solving the root causes of the problem. As an opinion piece, this paper reflects on some of the prevalent issues, and suggests some ways forward.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how rural entrepreneurship is discussed by analyzing articles in the leading journals of the two main research fields, entrepreneurship studies, and rural studies, through the concept of rural proofing.

The systematic literature review centers on the two main fields where rural entrepreneurship is studied and covers papers in nine leading journals in entrepreneurship studies and two leading journals in rural studies, between the years 1989 and 2020. In total, 97 papers were reviewed and we utilize and operationalize the rural proofing concept based on Fahmy et al.'s (2004) 3 characteristics of rural: remoteness, accessibility, and rural locale and sense of place. The authors take stock of the dimensions of rural proofing addressed within each of the research fields to find similarities and differences; that is, if articles are rural proofed (or not) when discussing rural entrepreneurship.

The classification of articles across the three dimensions of rural proofing shows that the field of rural entrepreneurship is being addressed mainly in the dimensions of remoteness and accessibility, while few authors in rural studies journals give priority to the rural locale and sense of place dimension. The results of the authors' review reveal that out of a total of 97 articles on rural entrepreneurship, 56 articles address at least one dimension of rural proofing and 41 articles do not address any dimension. Among the 41 articles not rural proofed, rurality is not problematized when discussing rural entrepreneurship. Instead, the authors focus on specific topics such as social capital, community entrepreneurship/networks, entrepreneurs'/farmers' identity, illegality in rural areas, and institutional framework. The number of non-rural-proofed articles in entrepreneurship journals is almost double that in rural studies journals. This means that authors in entrepreneurship journals do not problematize rurality to the same extent as authors in rural studies journals when addressing rural entrepreneurship.

The authors emphasize the need for increased cross-fertilization between the fields of entrepreneurship and rural studies as an avenue to develop the entrepreneurship field in the direction towards rural proofing. A close collaboration with academia and policymakers is essential to promote interdisciplinary research in order to make a distinctive contribution to rural development. Scholars in either of the two fields will benefit from our review and identification of similarities and differences in the research. The review is one step towards promoting a closer dialog between the two fields.

Previous reviews have focused mainly on what rural entrepreneurship entails (e.g. what topics are discussed) rather than how rural entrepreneurship is discussed. This paper centers on the differences and similarities of the two main fields and provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of how rural entrepreneurship is discussed by utilizing the rural proofing concept.

Soil nutrient management and fertilizer use by farmers are important for sustainable grain production. The authors examined the effect of an experimental agricultural extension program, the science and technology backyard, in promoting sustainable soil nutrient management in the North China Plain (NCP). The science and technology backyard integrates farmer field schools, field demonstrations, and case-to-case counselling to promote sustainable farming practices among rural smallholders.

The authors conducted a large-scale household survey of more than 2,000 rural smallholders. The authors used a multivariate regression analysis as the benchmark to assess the effect of the science-and-technology backyard on smallholder soil nutrient management. Furthermore, the authors used coarse exact matching (CEM) methods to control for potential bias due to self-selection and the (endogenous) switching regression approach as the main empirical analysis.

The results show that the science-and-technology backyard program increased smallholders' wheat yield by approximately 0.23 standard deviation; however, no significant increase in maize yield was observed. Regarding soil nutrient use efficiency, the authors found a significant improvement in smallholders' phosphorus and potassium use efficiencies for both wheat and maize production, and a significant improvement in nitrogen use efficiency for wheat production, but no significant improvement of nitrogen use efficiency for maize production.

This study evaluated a novel participatory agricultural extension model to improve soil nutrient management practices among smallholders. The integration of agronomists' scientific knowledge and smallholders' local contextual experiences could be an effective way to improve farmers' soil nutrient management. This study provides the first quantitative estimates based on rigorous impact assessment methods of this novel extension approach in rural China.

Environmental social work (ESW) is an approach and a perspective in social work focusing on ecological and environmental sustainability and justice within the context of sustainable development (SD). This study aims to analyse students’ reflective tasks on challenges for ESW education and practice from a critical theory perspective. The purpose of this study is to discuss the implications of the findings for accelerating the implementation of SD in social work curricula.

The research participants comprised 49 master level students from four different cohorts studying the course “Social Work and Sustainable Development” at the University of Gävle, Sweden. The sample comprised only those students who had completed at least one of the three non-mandatory reflective tasks that were set within the course. The reflective tasks of the research participants were gathered as data for this study. A qualitative methodological approach with the help of ATLAS-ti V8.4 was used to analyse the gathered data.

This study discusses three primary results, which are categorised as “Being Boxed”, “Safe and Saviour Sweden” and “Politics and Power”. Based on the results, this study argues for a transformative and emancipatory pedagogy (TEP) in the teaching and learning of ESW to accelerate the implementation of holistic SD within the social work curriculum.

This study is mainly based on the analysis of “problematic” discourses of some of the students. The majority of the students and their respective discourses are not considered. Moreover, it would have been interesting, and probably enlightening to explore the background of the students (such as gender, ethnicity and religion) and any concomitant beliefs or prejudices (whether consciously held or otherwise) that would need to be addressed for an effective social work outcome. For ethical reasons, the background of the students was not recorded and analysed in this study.

Based on the results, this study argues for TEP in catalysing environmentalism within the social work curricula.

Social workers have a political mandate from their professional ethics to work for the protection of the planet and for the well-being of all – including non-humans. This study therefore argues for ESW education within social work curricula in promoting SD through social work practice.

Within the context of SD, there is a global call for social work education to shift from an anthropocentric to an eco-centric paradigm. However, ESW education is still in its infancy stage and very few universities are focusing in this particular area. This study therefore brings an important and well-needed layer of empirical evidence in considering the implications for catalysing environmentalism within the social work curricula.