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The aim of this paper is to explore the importance of individual learner differences and the effect differentiated instruction (DI) has on learners' levels of engagement.

The author carried out this research using a small-scale action research (AR) study.

The findings suggest that in acknowledging and responding to individual learner differences, especially interests, levels of learner engagement are positively affected.

This study’s key limitations were sample size, short-term study and potential teacher as researcher bias.

Recommendations were made for a further longitudinal study into the relationship between DI and language learner levels of engagement at University. An additional study into DI that looksbeyond language learning at HE, could add value to pedagogic approaches, which could make courses of greater intrinsic value to its students.

This research study aims to help fill a gap in the literature on the application of DI, as well as a unique perspective into its effect on learner engagement within a university context.

Self-regulation is the level of learning where the learner becomes an active agent in their learning process in terms of activity and aspects of motivation and metacognition. The current paper mostly deals with the metacognitive aspect. The purpose of this study is to gain insight into self-regulation of learning in the context of modern technology in higher education. This study also aims to highlight the direction, tendencies and trends toward which self-regulation of learning is moving in relation to modern technologies.

The review study was compiled via searches in three databases: Scopus, Web of Science and ERIC. A filter was used to search for empirical studies solely in English, published over the past decade on the topics of self-regulation of learning and technology in higher education.

The findings clearly show a correlation between self-regulation of learning and modern technology, especially after a significant event such as the Covid-19 pandemic. However, in the wake of this change, the field of education has seen the emergence of methods and new platforms that can provide support for the development of self-regulated learning strategies.

The originality of the study lies in the fact that it focuses on the link between self-regulation of learning and modern technologies in higher education, including some predictions of the future direction of self-regulation of learning in this context.

This paper explores the potential that block teaching offers to enhance employability in the context of large-scale classes. It suggests that block teaching, with its condensed structure, necessitates curriculum innovation, fosters participatory learning and peer-to-peer networking, and has been shown to increase student focus and enhance engagement and attainment, especially amongst diverse learners. As these are the same challenges that large-scale teaching faces, it is proposed that intensive modes of delivery could be scaled up in a way that may help to mitigate such problems as cohorts in business schools continue to increase in size.

The paper is based on secondary research and provides an overview of literature that looks at block teaching, followed by that which explores the challenges of large-scale teaching contexts. It compares and contrasts the gaps in both to suggest a way that they could be combined.

The paper provides key insights into changes in the contemporary landscape of teaching within UK business schools, which have seen increasingly large cohorts and draws out the key strengths of intensive modes of delivery, which include helping students to time manage effectively, encouraging curriculum innovation and the creation of participatory learning opportunities as well as providing closer personal relationships between students and staff. Outlining some of the well-documented issues that can arise when teaching larger cohorts, the paper suggests that scaling up blocked delivery may offer a new way help to overcome them.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results are subject to generalisation. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions in large-scale teaching scenarios.

This paper includes implications for the development of innovative modes of teaching in the context of large cohorts, an experience that is increasingly common amongst British business schools and beyond.

This paper brings together two bodies of literature for the first time – that of intensive modes of teaching and that focuses on large-scale teaching contexts – for the first time to show how the former may help to overcome some of the key issues arising in the latter.

The research paper examines the complex relationship between gamification, student engagement and academic performance in educational environments. The study employed a structural equation model that highlights important connections among key constructs within the educational setting.

This research aims to explore the connection between gamification, student engagement and academic performance in educational settings. The study employs various statistical techniques such as factor analysis, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO), Bartlett’s test, component transformation matrix, correlation and regression analysis, descriptive statistics, ANOVA, coefficients and coefficient correlations, residual statistics and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to analyze the data.

It was found that active participation by the instructor and good time management skills have a positive impact on student engagement levels (β = 0.380, p < 0.001; β = 0.433 and p < 0.001). However, peer interaction does not significantly predict student engagement (β = −0.068 and p = 0.352). Additionally, there is a positive correlation between student engagement and performance (β = 0.280 and p < 0.001).

The study highlights the importance of innovative design to fully utilize gamification. Future research should consider design, user characteristics and educational context. The findings can guide informed decisions about gamification in education, fostering motivation and learning objectives.

The study presents a reliable tool for assessing student engagement and performance in educational settings, demonstrating high Cronbach’s alpha and robust reliability. It identifies student engagement and time management as significant predictors of Global Learning Outcome. The findings can inform decisions on implementing gamification in educational settings, promoting intrinsic motivation and aligning with learning objectives.

The research highlights the transformative impact of gamification on educational practices, highlighting its potential to enhance student experiences, motivate, promote diversity and improve long-term academic performance, highlighting the trend of integrating technology into education.

In today’s ever-changing education landscape, it is essential to incorporate innovative techniques to keep students engaged and enthusiastic about learning. Gamification is one such approach that has become increasingly popular. It is a concept that takes inspiration from the immersive world of games to enhance the overall learning experience.

This paper highlights an assignment in a combination upper-division undergraduate and graduate civic leadership class at a Midwestern state comprehensive university. The three-part assignment challenges students’ critical thinking skills and research capabilities while simultaneously necessitating the exploration of contrasting viewpoints on contentious issues.

Intentionally exposing students to diverse perspectives in a controlled environment.

We posit that the severity and frequency of these issues can be mitigated through focused efforts.

Students are better prepared to engage in civil debate on controversial topics, which continuously divide our communities, after completing a class using this pedagogical strategy.

This study aims to identify effective behaviors in labor-management negotiation (LMN) and, on that basis, derive overarching psychological principles of successful negotiation in this important context. These empirical findings are used to develop and test a comprehensive negotiation training program.

Twenty-seven practitioners from one of the world’s largest labor unions were interviewed to identify the requirements of effective LMN, resulting in 796 descriptions of single behaviors from 41 negotiation cases.

The analyses revealed 13 categories of behaviors critical to negotiation success. The findings highlight the pivotal role of the union negotiator by illustrating how they lead the negotiations with the other party while also ensuring that their own team and the workforce stand united. To provide guidance for effective LMN, six psychological principles were derived from these behavioral categories. The paper describes a six-day training program developed for LMN based on the empirical findings of this study and the related six principles.

This paper has three unique features: first, it examines the requirements for effective LMN based on a systematic needs assessment. Second, by teaching not only knowledge and skills but also general psychological principles of successful negotiation, the training intervention is aimed at promoting long-term behavioral change. Third, the research presents a comprehensive and empirically-based training program for LMN.

With the growing need for employees to be innovative, public-sector organizations are investing in employee training. This study aims to examine the effects of a combined Lean Six Sigma and innovation training, using action learning, on public-sector employees’ creative role identity and innovative work behavior.

The authors studied a public service agency in Singapore in which a five-day Lean Innovation Training was implemented, using a combination of Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools, with a simulation on day one and subsequent team-based project coaching, spread over six months. The authors administered pre- and postintervention surveys among all the employees, and initiated group interviews and observations before, during and after the intervention.

Creative role identity and innovative work behavior had significantly improved six months after the intervention, enabled through senior management’s transformational leadership. The training induced managers to role-model innovative work behaviors while cocreating, with their employees, a renewal of their agency’s core processes. The three completed improvement projects contributed to an innovative work culture and reduced service turnaround time.

Starting with a role-playing simulation on the first day, during which leaders and followers swapped roles, the action-learning type training taught all the organizational members to use various Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools. This nimble Lean Innovation Training, and subsequent team-based project coaching, exemplifies how advancing the staff’s creative role identity can have a positive impact.

This paper aims to explore virtual simulations, merging artificial intelligence with real-world simulations, supporting Canadian armed forces (CAF) junior military leaders (JMLs) leadership development. Our research questions are: (1) How do virtual simulations support CAF junior military leadership development within a globalized and complex environment in the 21st century? (2) Could virtual simulations support a leadership culture change through efficacious “soft skills” training? In this paper, we explore the efficacy of virtual simulations for enhancing or developing leadership in JMLs in the CAF through a four-day pilot project with twenty JMLs (n = 20).

To assess the efficacy of virtual simulations for leadership development, we designed and studied a four-day leadership workshop for JMLs in the CAF using several virtual artificial intelligence leadership role-play simulations developed by McGraw Hill in their smart book textbook (Manning & Curtis, 2022) and several non-virtual in-class simulations for comparison. We selected four twenty to thirty-minute virtual role-play simulations that synergized with the in-person morning leadership workshop. We facilitated the three-hour leadership workshops and virtual/in-class simulations over four consecutive days. We emulated the ELESS model (De Freitas & Routledge, 2013) to assess soft and leadership skills.

The participants (JMLs) reported beneficial learning utility associated with the virtual simulations. Participants also expressed that further utility might be leveraged through virtual simulations incorporating greater complexity with multiple potential outcomes. They also suggested that leadership simulations designed around military situations would prove highly beneficial, something that was outside of the scope of this small pilot project.

Since this phase of our research is a pilot project, we secured a small amount of funding to test our hypothesis that simulations enhance leadership development for JMLs. These funding limitations resulted in several constraints in the research, such as the availability of virtual simulations articulating leadership from a military perspective. However, we believed the assigned organizational leadership simulations in the McGraw Hill Smart Book ecosystem would approximate generic leadership situations enough to test the hypothesis with the JMLs. As a pilot project, our sample size was relatively small (n = 20 JMLs) since participation was voluntary amidst a busy spring season for the JMLs. Since this is a pilot project, we suggest that twenty JMLs are an adequate sampling to test the hypothesis that simulations enhance JML leadership development. We will expand the sample size in the next phase of our research as we work with the CAF to expand the pool of participants to at least forty JML participants (n = 40). We also plan to secure further funding to collaborate with subject matter experts to design virtual simulations based on Canadian military leadership scenarios.

The CAF host robust simulations capabilities for combat training, but have not exploited the potential training and analytical capacity of virtual leadership simulations for leadership development within the CAF. We believe that virtual simulations provide an opportunity for the CAF to effect desired culture change through leadership development that leverages the substantial pedagogical benefits of simulations.

The CAF encountered several detrimental leadership scandals that eroded the reputational capital of the CAF. In the current geo-political climate of an expanding North American Treaty Organization (NATO) and threats from several international actors, the CAF seeks to expand its capabilities by adding and enhancing its human capital. However, the CAF currently experiences a significant gap in its human capital aspirations. There is a unanimous consensus that the endemic traditional culture of the CAF, as expressed in the recent explosive leadership scandals, is a deterrent to recruitment and thus weakens the CAF’s capability. The CAF targets leadership development with new leadership paradigms as pivotal to culture change. The CAF suggests that by enhancing leadership development in the CAF the new cadre of leadership will change the culture of the CAF and thereby enhance the reputational capital of the CAF. It is believed that this rejuvenated culture will lead to greater recruitment and retention, leading to a strengthened military. A strengthened military is important to provide effective support and protection for the Canadian people in these volatile and uncertain times. This expanded capacity will enable the CAF to address external military threats more effectively and also the increasing operations other than war (OOTW), such as the military support of long-term care facilities during COVID-19 or the military’s support in fighting record wildfires and the military’s support in climate change related disasters such as flooding.

The satisfaction measures indicated by the participants are typical evaluative measures of leadership development (Noe, 2023). These satisfaction ratings do not, however, indicate whether training has produced a change in behaviour (Brown, 2022). The implications of these outcomes for leadership education are that role-player simulations are useful leadership education and development tools because they provide a theatre of practice in which mistakes are not detrimental and serve as learning moments (Moore, 2012; Piro and O’Callaghan, 2021; Riotto, 2021). Further, the importance of role-player simulations that closely approximate the sector where leadership is experienced and practiced is perceived to enhance the experience. While the CAF invest in combat related simulations, but leadership development simulations are not as evident in the training and development array. This study seeks to assess their potential value as a leadership development tool within the wider context of character development as a leadership competency.

The global prominence of languages and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which supports the necessity of German proficiency for the nation’s socioeconomic evolution, necessitate a deeper understanding of German teaching in Saudi international schools. This study delves into the influence of various teaching strategies on students' German writing skills. The research particularly focuses on traditional and innovative methods and considers the factors that drive these teaching approaches.

Data were collected from 304 students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, through a questionnaire. The relationships between teaching strategies and students' German writing abilities were analyzed using regression techniques.

The results indicate that both traditional and innovative teaching strategies positively influence students' writing skills. The regression analysis shows that the independent variables (traditional teaching strategies, innovative teaching strategies and factors influencing teaching strategies) collectively account for 68.9% of the variation in students' German writing skills. Even though a variety of techniques influence students' academic performance, the study’s findings indicate that several strategies – such as self-evaluation, pair work, oral feedback, grammar instruction and translation – have a major impact on students' German writing abilities.

This research brings unique insights into the German teaching realm of Saudi international schools, emphasizing the harmony between Vision 2030 goals and effective teaching methodologies. It elucidates the considerable influence of both traditional and innovative strategies on student writing outcomes. For educators in Saudi Arabia’s international educational environment, the study’s findings underline the importance of adopting student-centric approaches in the writing process, ensuring students evolve as proficient writers. Additionally, the research underscores the significant role of variables affecting teaching strategies, spotlighting their pivotal role in shaping student outcomes.

Creating suitable learning conditions in university classrooms continues to be a topical issue in higher education. The above means that a continued search for innovative teaching and learning strategies in universities remains a priority issue. The study therefore investigated conditions that facilitate the effective implementation of cooperative learning (CL) as well as how CL influences the academic performance of students in universities in Zimbabwe.

The research adopted a quantitative research approach located in the descriptive research design. A sample of 341 undergraduate students selected using a simple random sampling strategy from a sample frame of 701 undergraduate students participated in the study. The study first used a pre-test and later, a post-test to determine the initial and end of semester (EOS) academic performance levels of students, respectively, on a Calculus 1 course. A self-constructed structured questionnaire was also used for data collection on the views of students towards the use of CL with particular reference to the 5 dimensions of positive interdependence (PDI), promotive interaction (PI), individual and group accountability (IGA), social and interpersonal skills (SS) and group processing (GP). The questionnaire was validated using confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modelling was used to test proposed relationships. A total of 341 questionnaires were administered through an email survey. Of the total, 149 completed questionnaires were received from the students, giving a return rate of 43.7%.

The results showed that positive interdependence, promotive interaction, social and interpersonal skills, individual and group accountability as well as group processing were important antecedents to the effective implementation of CL in universities. The results further showed that CL plays a significant role in improving the academic performance of university students; hence, academic performance was viewed as a significant consequence of CL.

This is the first study on the application of CL to enhance the academic performance of university students in the context of Zimbabwe. As a result, caution should be exercised when generalising the results as more studies to either confirm or disconfirm these results in the context of Zimbabwe may still be required.

These results have implications on policy and practice with regards to active teaching strategies in universities. With regards to practice, the results demonstrated that the use of group activities that allow students to share knowledge and support each other while the teacher plays a facilitating role is important for enhancing students' academic performance. With regards to policy, the results showed that universities can enhance the academic performance of students if policies that promote student-centered teaching and learning approaches to ensure that teaching in universities is more student-led than lecturer-led are developed.

While many studies have been conducted in other contexts, to establish the influence of CL on the academic performance of university students, there is no known study on the influence of CL that has been conducted in the context of Zimbabwean universities. The results of this study therefore are an eye opener on the role of CL in enhancing the academic performance of students in Zimbabwean universities.