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How to guarantee the quality of college physical education (PE) teaching and reverse the declining trend of college students' physique year by year has become a hot topic for the research of higher education and school PE workers. The quality assurance of higher education in China should give full play to the role of colleges in teaching quality assurance activities, constantly improve the level of school running and improve the efficiency of school running. Because colleges themselves are the main body of higher education and teaching activities, they have the most power, qualification and responsibility to explain the quality of higher education. The classroom teaching quality (CTQ) evaluation of college badminton training is regarded as multi-attribute decision-making (MADM). The 2-tuple linguistic neutrosophic sets (2TLNSs) which the truth-membership, indeterminacy-membership and the falsity-membership are assessed by using the 2-tuple linguistic term sets is an appropriate form to express the indeterminate decision-making information in the classroom teaching quality (CTQ) evaluation of college badminton training. In this paper, the Hamy mean (HM) and the power average (PA) are connected with 2-tuple linguistic neutrosophic sets (2TLNSs) to propose the 2-tuple linguistic neutrosophic numbers weighted power HM (2TLNWPHM) operator. Then, use the 2TLNWPHM operator to handle MADM with 2TLNS. Finally, taking the CTQ evaluation of college badminton training as an example, the proposed method is explained. The main contributions of this study are summarized: the establishment of the 2TLNWPHM operator; (2) The 2TLNWPHM operator was developed to handle MADM with 2TLNS; (3) Through the empirical application of the CTQ evaluation of badminton training in universities, the proposed method is validated; (4) Some comparative studies have shown the rationality of the 2TLNWPHM operator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the relationship between cultural distance, classroom silence, and the performance of culturally responsive and inclusive education (CRIE) using a survey of 1051 college students in Shanghai in 2022. We found a significantly positive association between migrant students' cultural distance and their perceived learning gains in class. Students' cultural distance increased their classroom silence as a form of protection but had no significant effect on their classroom silence as a sign of power. The classroom silence as protection decreased students' perceived learning gains. However, classroom silence as power could be used by both local and migrant students as a hold-up strategy to strengthen their influence in class discussions, which could improve their perceived learning gains. Teachers' CRIE played the most important role in migrant students' perceived learning gains, while the effectiveness of CRIE was also actually dependent on the different channels and mechanisms of cultural distance and classroom silence. A cautious identification of classroom silence will improve the effectiveness of CRIE. Suggestions are offered to lighten the practice of educators, administrators, and instructors who face classroom silence from subnational migrant students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the beliefs and practices of 22 teachers identified as highly effective in Yunnan Province, China, who work with students facing significant academic and social challenges. In many cases, the selected teachers work with students at the extreme end of the at-risk continuum, including students having multiple disadvantaged characteristics such as ethnic minority status and poverty. Specifically, this paper shares findings about how these teachers address their students' needs in three domains—academic, affective, and technical needs. Descriptive data from classroom observations are presented. From the themes regarding teachers' beliefs and practices that emerged from the qualitative data, the findings reveal that these teachers address students' affective, academic and technical needs concurrently through their thoughtful instructional delivery and interactions with students. The teachers not only provide academic support (e.g., using a variety of instructional strategies communicating high expectations) to their students, but also offer socio-emotional support by being caring yet firm toward students and by soliciting technical support to create a safety net for the students' well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, training schools are ubiquitous, where heterogeneous pedestrian flow (which consists of adults and children) widely occurs during the after-class period. In this paper, we develop a fine grid cellular CA model to describe the pedestrian behaviors (e.g., pick-up behavior, searching behavior, matching behavior, waiting behavior, leading behavior, and following behavior) at a training school during the after-class period and explore the effects of the special behaviors on each pedestrian's movement in and around a classroom. To describe the heterogeneous pedestrian flow accurately, (i) some questionnaire surveys are designed to extract some features of adult's and child's movement, and (ii) some video experiments are conducted to estimate/calibrate some parameters of interest in the proposed model. Finally, some strategies are designed to enhance the evacuation efficiency and the operational efficiency of training school. The numerical results indicate that the proposed model can reasonably match with reality, and the proposed strategies can enhance the evacuation efficiency and the operational efficiency of training school. The results can help the administrators to effectively manage the pedestrian evacuation at training school during the after-class period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the reality and complexity of emergent translanguaging in foreign language classrooms. The influx of international learners of Chinese has resulted in linguistically diverse classrooms, posing huge challenges to the monolingual teaching approach that prevails in most Chinese language classrooms. This paper explores what students and teachers think and do about translanguaging practices in beginners' classes in China's universities. A questionnaire survey of 201 students showed that over half of the sample population was inclined to a multilingual form of instruction, where they could draw on their linguistic resources for meaning negotiation. Results from semi-structured interviews with teachers revealed ambivalent attitudes towards classroom language choice. While some teachers found it difficult to accommodate multilingualism, others embraced this idea and have developed a translanguaging pedagogy. Lastly, classroom observation demonstrated translanguaging as a co-constructed dialogic approach, initiated by both teachers and students to keep the class communicative within the Confucius learning culture. This paper ends by offering suggestions for foreign language teachers to renew their knowledge on language learning as well as develop transformative student-teacher relationships in order to facilitate more creative pedagogy in foreign language education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a classroom-based investigation into a tertiary English-medium instruction (EMI) programme in China, with a focus on subject teachers' perceptions and practices in EMI and students' motivation and needs in English learning. Given a lacuna in existing EMI research, it examined how EMI instruction was delivered by subject teachers and how English learning should be facilitated through adjunct ESP courses when participants' English proficiency was inadequate. Data were obtained from nine classroom observations, three post-observation interviews and a questionnaire survey. Findings show that effective instruction was maintained via deploying pragmatic strategies, yet the goal of promoting English attainment was underachieved, as language teaching was not overtly heeded. Subject teachers' perceptions of EMI undermined prospective students' linguistic gains. The immediate educational context also contributed to students' English learning motivation and needs. Our findings suggest increasing access to ESP provision that is fine-tuned to the language issues in genuine EMI classrooms is crucial. Collaboration between subject and language specialists is beneficial to students' learning of both the subject knowledge and the language skills. ESP practitioners thus need to consider students' communicative needs in their disciplines and address the limitations of the current EMI practices in tertiary education in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to understand the Learning in Regular Classrooms (LRC) initiative for inclusive education in China. First, the paper reviews the policy, legislation, and practice in relation to the LRC. It then goes on to explore the specific social–political context of the LRC, and compares the Chinese LRC with the Western approaches to inclusion and integration. The authors then discuss the challenges posed by the attempt to further promote the LRC or inclusive education in the collectivist culture and socialist political context of modern China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues against the description of the common approach to English language teaching in the People's Republic of China (PRC) as mimetic and epistemic by exploring the pedagogical practices that primary English language teachers in the PRC adopt for implementing the affective dimension advocated in the new (2001) English language curriculum. The paper starts by presenting how affect is construed in the English language curriculum. It then examines how, guided by their beliefs, eight primary English language teachers from the less socioeconomically developed regions of Guangdong - a province in the South-eastern part of the PRC - address the affective dimension promoted in the curriculum through the employment of entertaining tasks and activities as effective learning tools in a context constrained by limited resources, late start of English instruction and little exposure to the target language outside the classroom. Interviews, documentary analysis and lesson observations are used to examine the teachers' pedagogical practices. The paper concludes by challenging the depiction of teachers in English foreign language classrooms in the PRC as taking a textbook-dependent, teacher-centred, and transmission-oriented approach in their classroom instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to understand changes in PM 2.5 concentrations to evaluate and control air pollution in the classroom. In this paper, the PM 2.5 concentrations in classrooms of a primary school in North China were studied, where the particulate matter, temperature and humidity were monitored continuously from February 2018 to February 2019. Student behavior has been recognized as an important influential factor of indoor air quality; however, modeling the relationship between student behavior and PM 2.5 concentrations in classrooms remains an unsolved problem. In this paper, a novel intelligent data-driven symbolic regression method is applied to model the relationships between various factors and PM 2.5 concentrations. The advantage of this method is that it can automatically distill knowledge from data and discover the structures and parameters of relationship models simultaneously. By considering the annual schedules and daily behavior, a symbolic regression model is incorporated with mass conservation to describe the change in PM 2.5 concentrations caused by student behaviors. The experimental results show that outdoor PM 2.5 concentrations can influence the concentrations of indoor PM 2.5 through meteorological variations. Moreover, student behaviors play an important role and can lead to rapid changes in indoor PM 2.5 over a short timeframe. This paper provides a solid theoretical analysis of the relationship between indoor PM 2.5 concentrations and student behaviors in classrooms. The numerical models proposed by this research can assist in the analysis of PM 2.5 concentrations and the improvement of air quality in the classroom. • A student source strength model in the classroom is proposed by combining symbolic regression and conservation of mass. • PM2.5 concentrations in the classroom are affected by outdoor PM2.5, meteorological variations, and student behaviors. • A new method is proposed to calculate the changes of PM2.5 concentrations in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated causal effects of homeroom teachers' (HTs') administrative duties on students' achievements in Chinese secondary schools. Using data from China Education Panel Survey, we employed random student-classroom assignment as a quasi-natural experiment, finding that HTs' administrative duties curbed students' achievements, which is supported by some robustness checks like instrumental variable methods. Mechanism analysis indicated that this adverse impact can be explained by less teaching time, reduction of communication with students, and negative peer effects. Furthermore, negative effects of administrative duties were more pronounced among grade team leaders and school leaders, HTs with higher titles, male, and middle-aged HTs. • Using a quasi-natural experiment for random student-classroom assignment. • HTs' administrative duties are detrimental to students' academic achievements. • Mechanisms include less teaching time and communication with students and class peer effects. • This negative effect is more effective in the higher title, male, and middle-aged HTs. • Reducing HTs' workload and stress from administrative duties helps improve student performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speech intelligibility in classrooms affects the learning efficiency of students directly, especially for the students who are using a second language. The speech intelligibility value is determined by many factors such as speech level, signal to noise ratio, and reverberation time in the rooms. This paper investigates the contributions of these factors with subjective tests, especially speech level, which is required for designing the optimal gain for sound amplification systems in classrooms. The test material was generated by mixing the convolution output of the English Coordinate Response Measure corpus and the room impulse responses with the background noise. The subjects are all Chinese students who use English as a second language. It is found that the speech intelligibility increases first and then decreases with the increase of speech level, and the optimal English speech level is about 71 dBA in classrooms for Chinese listeners when the signal to noise ratio and the reverberation time keep constant. Finally, a regression equation is proposed to predict the speech intelligibility based on speech level, signal to noise ratio, and reverberation time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A year-long field study of the thermal environment in university classrooms was conducted from March 2005 to May 2006 in Chongqing, China. This paper presents the occupants’ thermal sensation votes and discusses the occupants’ adaptive response and perception of the thermal environment in a naturally conditioned space. Comparisons between the Actual Mean Vote (AMV) and Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) have been made as well as between the Actual Percentage of Dissatisfied (APD) and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD). The adaptive thermal comfort zone for the naturally conditioned space for Chongqing, which has hot summer and cold winter climatic characteristics, has been proposed based on the field study results. The Chongqing adaptive comfort range is broader than that of the ASHRAE Standard 55-2004 in general, but in the extreme cold and hot months, it is narrower. The thermal conditions in classrooms in Chongqing in summer and winter are severe. Behavioural adaptation such as changing clothing, adjusting indoor air velocity, taking hot/cold drinks, etc., as well as psychological adaptation, has played a role in adapting to the thermal environment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

International comparisons in educational achievement and economic performance have spurred studies on the East Asian learner. In this context the cultural perspective on the Chinese learner has gained currency. This paper examines how the interaction of cultural, social and structural forces shape the changing patterns of diversity among Chinese learners. I will argue that the cultural explanation is powerful as an inter-cultural typology, where the salient features of a culture are highlighted for comparison at the system level. However, it becomes limited as one's attention shifts to daily practice, where sharp individual differences present a major challenge to teachers. It is necessary to study the Chinese learner also as an intracultural typology. A probe into possible causes of individual differences in the changing social reality supports a social explanation to complement the cultural one. Educational policy initiatives, notably mass education, reduction of streaming and additional support for students from deprived backgrounds, attempt to narrow the gap through more equitable structures. The tension between cultural and planned structural factors on one hand and social factors on the other thus exerts competing influence on Chinese learners, resulting in increasing diversity in the new social reality in the Chinese classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classrooms of higher education are growing more internationalized in terms of both students and professors. With increasingly cross-cultural contact in the classroom, how individuals react based on their national culture becomes increasing important for educators. This paper investigates student/professor interactions and corresponding improvement strategies across four culturally distinct samples: China, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States. Differences are identified with respect to the types of critical incidents reported and desired responses to those encounters. The potential role that differences in the cultural dimensions of individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and time orientation may have in these findings are investigated. Suggestions are provided for specifically applying the research results in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• PMV overestimated the thermal sensation of students. • Students preferred cooler thermal environment. • A higher percentage of students felt local thermal discomfort. • The lower limit for 80% acceptability determined by TAV could be 19 ℃. • If indoor design temperature is 19 ℃, 3.46% of annual heating load can be saved. A classroom thermal environment directly not only influences students' thermal comfort but also energy-saving. Numerous studies indicate that students' actual thermal comfort is different from the PMV and adaptive model predictions, and the current thermal comfort standards could not be applicable for the classroom thermal environment design and evaluation. This paper aims to study the university students' general and local thermal comfort by a field survey conducted in a classroom during the heating season in Taiyuan, China. The results indicated that PMV overestimated the thermal sensation of students. Thermal acceptance vote (TAV) defined the widest acceptable temperature range, and the lower limit for 80% acceptability could be 19 ℃ in Taiyuan. Students preferred a cooler than a neutral environment. The indoor design temperature determined by the heating load duration curve (LDC) was about 21.85 ℃. If the indoor design temperature could decrease from 21.85 ℃ to 19 ℃, 3.46% of the annual heating load could be saved. Moreover, although a majority of students found the environment general thermal acceptable, a higher percentage of students felt local thermal discomfort. Local thermal comfort should be a critical issue for the classrooms' thermal environment improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents measurement results of the acoustical environments of local schools in Hong Kong. In the measurements, several acoustical aspects that affect verbal communication in classrooms have been studied. These conditions include outdoor and indoor ambient noise levels, signal-to-noise ratios, reverberation time and the speech transmission index. Typical classrooms in many different schools and other higher-education institutions have been selected in the present study. Experimental results are compared with such national standards as USA (ANSI S 12.60 V 2002), Australian/New Zealand (AS/NZS 2107:2000), China (GB/T 15508 V 1995) and other national and industrial standards. This study will form the basis of devising acceptable standards for use in Hong Kong. [Work supported by the Research Grants Council of the SAR Government, the Research Committee of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Architectural Services Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]