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Interdisciplinary research is of significance for creating breakthroughs and facilitating innovations and may achieve higher citation impact, although contrary results still exist. The current study looks into the relationship between interdisciplinarity and citation impact from a brand-new perspective—the process of citation accumulation—by exploring how interdisciplinarity, as measured by Rao-Stirling and DIV, affects the accumulating process of citations, based on scientific papers published by Chinese or US authors in 2009–2011 in Chemistry. Two metrics are used to measure how long it takes for a paper to reach its citation peak (PEAK_YEAR) and how sustainable the citation impact remains after the peak (SUS). The results show that compared with Rao-Stirling, DIV is more sensitive to the length of the citation window and more closely aligned with the nature of interdisciplinarity. In Chemistry, higher interdisciplinarity is more likely to encounter delayed recognition and greater citation sustainability, which may explain the inconsistency in the relationship between interdisciplinarity and citation impact. In conclusion, it is necessary to consider the length of the citation window when explaining the relationship between interdisciplinarity and citation impact. A longer citation window may be a better solution, as an alternative or supplement, in assessing the academic performance of interdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses hopeful futures for higher education and the use of technology in realising those futures through the lens of refugee education in Uganda. Through an analysis of qualitative research done with refugee students and teachers participating in a blended bridging programme designed to prepare students for entry and success in higher education, this paper explores the interplay between contingency and positions of hope for refugee students in relation to higher education and further assimilation into civic society. Two themes emerged from the analysis that suggested a prioritarian orientation for higher education to realise a more hopeful future. First, hope renders as an act of cultivation as refugee students become exposed to new concepts and develop confidence in relation to them. Second, digital technologies broaden the cultivation of hope towards greater civic participation, even if access to higher education is not achieved. Third, hope correlates to action not necessarily as a linear progressive trajectory but as a diligent watchfulness for positive possibility. The implications for higher education are that taking a prioritarian lens for refugees in educational design engages with the contingencies that impact all, placing the sector deliberately in search of positive possibility in its orientation and design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Conference on Theoretical and Computational Algebra 2023 (TCA 2023) took place in Pocinho, Portugal, attracting over 80 researchers from Europe, Australia, Brazil, Canada, and the USA. The conference covered various topics in algebra and automated reasoning, with a significant focus on semigroup theory. As a result, the editors of 'Semigroup Forum' decided to dedicate a special issue to selected papers from TCA 2023. This issue includes 11 papers that underwent a rigorous refereeing process, with additional papers still under review for future publication. The conference also honored Dr. Gracinda M. S. Gomes, a retired professor from the University of Lisbon, who made significant contributions to semigroup theory and fostered collaboration between Portugal and the UK. [Extracted from the article]

An emergent literature has shown that some students overcome adversities related to their low Socio-Economic Status (SES) by attaining high academic achievement. One of the aims of this literature is to identify the factors that explain the capacity of students from low SES backgrounds to attain high academic achievement. However, upon reviewing this literature, I observed that few studies have comparatively investigated the associations between the capacity of students from low SES backgrounds to attain high achievement in reading and school climate characteristics. Additionally, I found that not many studies have researched whether student SES moderates these associations. This paper contributes to fill these two gaps by estimating associations between high achievement in reading and school climate characteristics. Moreover, it examines whether student SES moderates these associations. To do this, this research estimated logit and heterogeneous choice models using representative samples of students from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay who participated in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The results show that high achievement in reading is positively correlated to certain teaching practices, such as perceived teacher enthusiasm during the instruction and adapting instruction to students' needs. Conversely, it is negatively correlated to teacher feedback and teacher-directed instruction. Furthermore, the findings indicate that high achievement in reading is negatively correlated to the scarcity and low quality of educational material. Interestingly, the results show that student SES does not moderate these associations. In conclusion, these findings indicate that interventions targeting these areas of school climate may help to increase students' probability of attaining high achievement in reading, regardless of their SES. Likewise, these results suggest that if these interventions are focused in low SES schools, they may contribute to bridge the gap in reading skills between students from low and middle or high socioeconomic backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The highest-achieving figures in politics, business, academia, and the media dominate public discourse and wield great influence in society. Education—perhaps especially at "elite" colleges and universities—may lie at the heart of the divide between the general public and these top achievers. In this paper, we build a new data set for the American "elite" and systematically examine the link between selective schools and outstanding achievements. In Study 1, across 30 different achievement groups totaling 26,198 people, we document patterns of attendance at a set of 34 "Elite" 34 schools, the 8 Ivy League schools, and Harvard University in particular. In Study 2, we surveyed 1810 laypeople to estimate how well they are aware of the key empirical facts from Study 1. We found that exceptional achievement is surprisingly strongly associated with "elite" education, especially obtaining a degree from Harvard, and the general public tends to underestimate the size of this effect. Attending one of just 34 institutions of higher education out of the roughly 4000 in the U.S. appears to be a critical and surprising factor separating extraordinary achievers from others in their fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical exploration of a reported decline in student achievement in Australia (2000–2020). Declining student achievement is framed as symptomatic of broader dysfunction within the education system. The context of declining student achievement is articulated through a Bourdieusian being critical sociology of education. This is achieved using the concepts of illusio and educationalisation as they intersect with Australian schools, in which classroom teachers are given responsibility for solving social and economic ills. As such, due consideration of the goals and commitments to action in the Melbourne Declaration (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA, 2008), and the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Education Council, 2019) is provided. Drawing from these formative documents, the 'stakes' that matter are examined highlighting the potential misalignment between equality of opportunity in ameliorating educational disadvantage and the priorities of modern educational discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-national comparisons of educational achievement rely upon each participating country collecting nationally representative data. While obtaining high response rates is a key part of reaching this goal, other potentially important factors may also be at play. This paper focuses on one such issue—exclusion rates—which has received relatively little attention in the academic literature. Using data from 20 years of international large-scale assessment data, we find there to be modest variation in exclusion rates across countries and that there has been a relatively small increase in exclusion rates in some over time. We also demonstrate how exclusion rates tend to be higher in studies of primary students than in studies of secondary students. Finally, while there seems to be little relationship between exclusion rates and response rates, there is a weak negative association between the level of exclusions and test performance. We conclude by discussing how information about exclusions—and other similar issues—might be more clearly communicated to non-specialist audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Poverty's impact on children's academic outcome is a cause for concern in most urban Asian cities as education is viewed as one of the main channels of social mobility. Few studies examined how poor children's hope could be enhanced through school social support. Objective: This paper examines how children from low-income families' perceived frequencies and importance of social support from teachers and classmates, influence their levels of hope in academic achievement. Method: Utilizing a partially-mixed sequential design—first, with survey data from a larger study on low-income children (n = 513), this paper explores if perceived frequency of social support is associated with level of hope as well as the role of perceived importance in moderating the frequencies of school social support on sense of hope; second, to enrich the child-reported results, two in-depth focus group discussions with elementary school teachers (n = 10) were conducted. Results: Statistical analysis reveals that the frequency of social support from teachers and classmates is associated with the level of hope in low-income children. Furthermore, when teacher's support was rated important by children, there was a positive association between social support and hope. Integrating statistical results and qualitative insights, this paper extends extant literature on social support typologies with a novel category; 'support in providing opportunities for success'. Conclusion: This paper underscores the important role schools play as a source of social support for children. Such social support aids higher hope levels in low-income children which could translate into better academic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enormous developments in technology have transformed the way we interact with the world around us. Among the extensive yet advanced technological interventions, one of the sophisticated expansions is the appearance of the Internet of Things, a tool for developing connections of physical objects to the virtual world using small-sized sensors and certain internet protocols to lessen human interventions. The domain of education has also adopted these technological services to move from traditional methods to sophisticated and advanced teaching and learning approaches to cope with learning needs and raise quality. This paper intends to conceptualize the impact of integrating IoT in higher education to increase students' academic performance in the engineering domain through the integration of smart laboratories. Several international studies were selected and thoroughly reviewed using the guidelines of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis to build sophisticated insights regarding the topic in terms of its conceptual as well as practical foundations. The key insights gathered through reviewed studies indicate that the Internet of things-based laboratories have significant advantages in uplifting students' academic performance through interaction, motivation, creativity, and practical learning. The integration of the Internet of things in higher educational institutes improves students' academic performance because it allows them to engage in authentic tasks and experience practical and active learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German school system employs centrally organized performance assessments (some of which are called "VERA") as a way of promoting lesson development. In recent years, several German federal states introduced a computer-based performance testing system which will replace the paper-pencil testing system in the future. Scores from computer-based testing are required to be equivalent to paper-pencil testing scores so that the new testing medium does not lead to disadvantages for students. Therefore, the current study aimed at investigating the size of the mode effect and the moderating impact of students' gender, academic achievement and mainly spoken language in everyday life. In addition, the variance of the mode effect across tasks was investigated. The study was conducted in four German federal states in 2019 using a field experimental design. The test scores of 5140 eighth-graders from 165 schools in the subject German were analysed. The results of multi-level modelling revealed that students' test scores in the computerized version of the VERA test were significantly lower than in the paper-pencil version. Students with a lower academic achievement were more disadvantaged by the VERA computerized test. The results were inconsistent regarding the interactions between testing mode and students' gender and mainly spoken language in everyday life. The variance of the mode effect across tasks was high. Research into different subjects and in other federal states and countries under different testing conditions might yield further evidence about the generalizability of these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019, many countries have taken measures such as controlling the flow of people, logistics and reducing crowds. Educational institutions have shifted from traditional face-to-face teaching to online teaching. In order to understand the fatigue caused by long-term online teaching and its influence on teaching quality, this paper puts forward the concept of "student fatigue" according to the learning characteristics of students in our education system, and applies statistical principles to compile the student Fatigue Scale-18. In the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, 1236 times of 319 college students in grade 2021 were tested for fatigue, and the average incidence of fatigue was 64.97%. The incidence of fatigue in boys is higher than that in girls. There was a slight difference in the incidence of fatigue in different seasons, but no statistical significance was there. The effect of fatigue on online teaching is empirically analyzed. The degree of fatigue is negatively correlated with test scores. Students with better learning foundations are less affected by fatigue, while girls' scores are less affected by fatigue. This paper analyzes the common causes of students' fatigue, combined with the current research status of students' fatigue at home and abroad, and puts forward that college education should pay attention to students' fatigue, regularly or irregularly monitor students' fatigue, so that the incidence of fatigue is controlled below 30%. The analysis revealed that the degree of fatigue and gender significantly influenced academic performance. A negative correlation was found between fatigue degree and academic performance, indicating that more severe fatigue led to poorer academic results. Boys were more affected by fatigue than girls. The relationship between academic performance and seasons showed no significant impact. Try to avoid severe fatigue. In order to reduce the impact of fatigue on students' study and health, preventive measures should be taken. It provides theoretical and empirical basis for preventing students' fatigue, improving teaching quality and ensuring students' health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural capital is vital for equitable educational development. This paper studies the effect of family cultural capital on the performance of middle school students with regard to gender, using a multiple linear regression model. Participants from four representative middle schools, totalling 1036 students, were selected during the online learning period. The study found that institutionalised and objectified cultural capital had a pronounced positive effect on students' school outcomes, but cultural capital that was embodied had both positive and negative effects. Significant differences in the effects of cultural capital on school success were found between male and female students. The educational level of a mother has a significant impact on the school attainment of female students in Chinese, English, math and overall achievement, whereas a father's education level has a significant effect on male students' English achievement and overall achievement. The results of the study showed that cultural capital contributed to the academic success of middle school students in different ways. The results presented above contribute to a better comprehension of the mechanisms of the influence of cultural capital on the school performance of middle school students, which has important implications for students' educational equity. This study recommends improving the mechanism of collaborative education among schools, families and society, by paying attention to vulnerable groups that lack cultural capital, improving the methods of educational evaluation and providing tailor-made education for all types of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers hold many beliefs, shaped by their educational knowledge, experiences, and cultural, social, historical, and political environments. These teacher beliefs, together with teacher characteristics and school context factors can influence cognitive processes, expectations, instructional decisions, and practices which could affect learning experiences, student engagement, and achievement. Numerous studies have explored these factors, however, often separately or with only one or two others. This paper explores primary school teachers' self-reported perceptions on the relationships between teacher beliefs (including teacher class level expectations, self-efficacy, motivation, goal orientation, work engagement, passion for teaching, relatedness to students), teacher characteristics (including gender, ethnicity, teacher experience), and school context factors (including decile and year level taught), and the impact of these on student achievement and teachers' instructional practices. Associations were found between teaching self-efficacy and all the other factors explored; work engagement and teachers' years of teaching experience, gender, and school decile; and years of teaching experience and student achievement. Further, relatedness to students, passion for teaching, and teaching self-efficacy was found to be associated with teachers' instructional practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a review of recent empirical research investigating middle leadership practices in New Zealand secondary schools. Eight academic articles and one report are included to establish an analysis of the recent evidence of practices of curriculum middle leaders. The majority of the research utilises mixed methodology and aligns middle leadership practices within a paradigm of instructional leadership practice. Researchers found that effective middle leadership practices are associated with higher academic achievement and more equitable student outcomes. Effective middle leadership includes practices such as capability in instructional leadership, the ability to undertake problem-solving conversations with teachers and goal setting skills. Research reveals middle leaders found managing problems and conflicts challenging especially when they were concerned with teacher performance. They were required to coach and mentor staff with minimal leadership preparation, despite often being leaders of large teams of people with responsibility for considerable budgets and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic performance is a crucial issue in the field of Online learning analytics. While deep learning-based models have made significant progress in the era of big data, many of these methods need help to capture the complex relationships present in online learning activities and student attributes, which are essential for improving prediction accuracy. We present a novel model for predicting academic performance in this paper. This model harnesses the power of dual graph neural networks to effectively utilize both the structural information derived from interaction activities and the attribute feature spaces of students. The proposed model uses an interaction-based graph neural network module to learn local academic performance representations from online interaction activities and an attribute-based graph neural network to learn global academic performance representations from attribute features of all students using dynamic graph convolution operations. The learned representations from local and global levels are combined in a local-to-global representation learning module to generate predicted academic performances. The empirical study results demonstrate that the proposed model significantly outperforms existing methods. Notably, the proposed model achieves an accuracy of 83.96% for predicting students who pass or fail and an accuracy of 90.18% for predicting students who pass or withdraw on a widely recognized public dataset. The ablation studies confirm the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this journal, Sciffer et al. (Large-scale Assessments in Education 10:1–22, 2022), hereafter SP&M, conclude that school socioeconomic compositional (SEC) or school socioeconomic status (school-SES) effects in Australia are substantial and substantively important for research and policy. This paper demonstrates that these claims are unwarranted. Their SEC estimates are much larger than estimates from comparable studies and a metastudy. Despite plausible theoretical reasons and empirical evidence, SP&M do not consider that school academic composition is a significant predictor of student achievement independent of SEC. SEC effects are confounded by academic composition and are typically trivial when considering academic composition. The second part of this paper compares SP&M's estimates with analysis of the same data, from the Australian National Assessments in Performance—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). In a model corresponding to SP&M analyses comprising demographics, SES, school-SES, and student-level prior achievement, the effects of school-SES are small, with standardized effects mostly less than 0.10. With the addition of academic composition measured by school-level prior achievement, school-SES effects are effectively zero. In contrast, academic composition has significant, albeit small, impacts on student achievement. Therefore, contrary to SP&M's (2022) conclusion, school-SES effects on student achievement in NAPLAN are negligible, whereas school-level prior achievement has small effects. That is not to say that school-SES is always irrelevant, but any assessment of its importance must consider both student- and school-level prior achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current educational landscape, where large amounts of data are being produced by institutions, Educational Data Mining (EDM) emerges as a critical discipline that plays a crucial role in extracting knowledge from this data to help academic policymakers make decisions. EDM has a primary focus on predicting students' academic performance. Numerous studies have been conducted for this purpose, but they are plagued by challenges including limited dataset size, disparities in grade distributions, and feature selection issues. This paper introduces a Machine Learning (ML) based method for the early prediction of bachelor students' final academic grade as well as drop-out cases. It focuses on identifying, from the first semester of study, the students requiring specific attention because of their academic weaknesses. The research employs nine classification models on students' data from a Saudi university, subsequently implementing a majority voting algorithm. The experimental outcomes are noteworthy, with the Extra Trees (ET) algorithm achieving a promising accuracy of 82.8% and the Majority Voting (MV) model outperforming all existing models by an accuracy reaching 92.7%. Moreover, the study identifies the factors exerting the greatest impact on students' academic performance, which belong to the three considered feature types: demographic, pre-admission, and academic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational robots have unrivaled advantages and value in developing students' computational thinking. Currently, there are fewer studies on the overall effects of educational robots on K12 students' computational thinking, especially at the instructional style and cross-grade level. In order to investigate the overall effect of educational robots on students' computational thinking, the study used a meta-analytic approach to analyze 27 experimental and quasi-experimental research papers from the last decade. It was found that: educational robots have a positive and significant effect on K12 students' computational thinking development (SMD = 0.558), and their application effects are influenced by moderating variables such as school level, teaching style, participation style, experimental period, and sample size. Specifically: educational robots have a positive and significant effect on K12 students, with the most significant effect at the early childhood level; there is a significant difference in the development of students' computational thinking when using educational robots in different teaching modes, with the best effect being achieved in the design-based teaching mode; (3) participating in educational robots in small groups is more likely to promote the development of computational thinking in K12 students; (4) Different experimental cycles have a positive effect on students' computational thinking, but a long experimental cycle does not mean a good effect, etc.; (5) There is a significant difference between different sample sizes of educational robots on K12 students' computational thinking, and arranging a medium-sized (50–100 students) educational robotics activity can achieve a better learning effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictive modelling in the education domain can be utilised to significantly improve teaching and learning experiences. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) generate a large volume of data that can be exploited to predict and evaluate student performance based on various factors. This paper has two broad aims. Firstly, to develop and tune several Machine Learning (ML) models to perform classification tasks on the dataset to predict student performance, including Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Random Forests, K-Nearest Neighbours, and more. Secondly, to evaluate the efficacy of these ML models and identify those which are best suited to this task. The categories of data utilised in achieving these aims include (i) demographic information, (ii) academic background, and (iii) interaction with MOOC course materials. The research procedure comprises five phases: data exploration to analyse the dataset, feature engineering which involves discerning the most important features and converting them into a format decipherable by the ML models, model building, model evaluation by measurement of accuracy, and subsequent comparative evaluation between the different models. The results achieved in this study are expected to have implications on how MOOC platforms utilise data to improve user experience. As indicated by the findings of this study, the data collected by these platforms may be used to predict performance with accuracy of over 77%; this extracted information can be exploited to enhance educational theory or practices in the context of MOOCs, for instance by implementing varying teaching methodologies or providing different types of resources based on predicted performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an approach for online course evaluation based on learners' behaviors during the learning process, where the course creator can monitor the quality status of their online courses based on learners' learning outcomes and then intervene to improve the success rate. For this purpose, a set of criteria has been developed. These criteria concern learners' cognitive, affective and academic engagement. The proposed approach was adopted by a system consisting of four parts: a learning management system, a LOG preprocessing manager, a quality assessment manager, and a visualization and intervention manager. A first test was carried out on a sample of 33 students from the Department of Economics at the University of Guelma(Algeria), where the results obtained were very encouraging and promising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participation in student peer leader roles, roles in which more senior students serve as mentors and educators to their peers, have continued to grow in their application and importance to institutions of higher education around the globe. Using a theoretical approach based in Legitimate Peripheral Participation and drawing from the International Survey of Peer Leaders, our paper explored the role of the quality and quantity of participation in important outcomes of the college experience: leadership development, skill development, and academic success. The results showed that the number of hours per week spent on peer leadership activities and the total number of peer leadership positions contributed to positive quality of engagement and enhanced students' academic outcomes, overall leadership skills, and career readiness. Moreover, findings showed that the quality of engagement moderated the influences of the quantity of participation particularly for measures of academic success. As students develop relationships with faculty, staff, and peers throughout their time in peer leader roles and feel a deepening sense of connection and belonging to the college or university, students in peer leader roles become fuller participants in the academic community and, as a result, develop the knowledge, skills, and ways of doing, thinking, knowing, and being that are critical for student success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to NSF (2017), even though the number of minority students in America's college-age population has been on the rise, those who choose Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as their majors are significantly fewer. There is an urgent need for African Americans, being the underrepresented minorities in STEM-related domains, be provided with opportunities to increase their presence and achievements (Hansen, Palakal & White, Journal for STEM Education Research, 1–26 2023). This paper was to develop an active flipped learning (AFL) model to enhance engineering students learning. Instructional video, audio, lecture notes, and reading materials are developed while initiating active learning activities in class to engage students in active flipped learning. By monitoring 103 students' engagement and identifying their motivation and learning strategies, a custom-tailored plan to fit each underrepresented student in STEM was formed, valued by two indicators: Engaged Learning Index and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire. After practicing the longitudinal research for three years from 2016 to 2018, some results were found during the procedure through ANOVA and correlation analysis on the collected data. The AFL model effectively promotes underrepresented students' performance in various science disciplines such as engineering, physics, and mathematics, such as helpful to foster underrepresented students' deep understanding of STEM disciplines and making them more engaged in STEM learning. In the future, the AFL can be potentially expanded to other institutions to help all students succeed in STEM classrooms and careers, to increase the national STEM literacy and be applied to non-STEM majors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws attention to empirical work on widening access to understand the silence on race matters in English higher education. This work repurposes a critical race theoretical framework that offers a glimpse of how the issue of unequal access to higher education has been framed in the research field. It is argued here that the framing of widening access reveals a persistent colour-evasiveness that is dominant. The findings show that widening access policy has not benefitted students of colour as they are not accessing higher education with the same kind of success as their white peers. The paper concludes for a call for race-conscious interventions to remedy the continued race inequity in accessing highly rejective institutions based on the evidence gathered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identity of an academic discipline is essentially tied to production and reproduction of its disciplinary knowledge. This, in turn, determines the criteria of academic achievement for academicians belonging to a particular discipline. The ability of an academician to contribute to the disciplinary knowledge through publication of high-impact papers is considered to be of highest value in academic disciplines. This constitutes an essentialist paradigm of understanding academic disciplines. Such a paradigm, however, undervalues other equally important forms of academic labour, like academic service, which support, develop and repair the academic world through practice of care. In his paper, the essentialist paradigm is critically appraised through Paperwinner's Model, an adaptation of Breadwinner's Model. Through the lens of ethics of care, specifically Joan Tronto's responsibility-based ethics, the paper offers an alternate paradigm, the deflationary perspective on academia, to acknowledge and evaluate the significance of caring practices. The paper concludes with a formative suggestion to institutionally recognize and reward care through service-intensive positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this concluding commentary, I embed the articles of the special issue "Transition from school into university mathematics: experiences across educational contexts" into the current landscape of research on secondary–tertiary transition, and discuss the advancement they made related to the synthesis published in 2008 by Gueudet. My aim is to elaborate a new synthesis across the topics of affect and the use of sociocultural perspectives that have framed the work of all contributions. For that, I focus on four major themes. First, I consider the complex relationship between affect and socio-cultural dimensions in the papers, which raises the need for theory networking in further research clarifying mutual roles of the two dimensions. Second, international diversity is only partially expressed in the collection of papers, thus should be a major topic of research in future that would provide a more comprehensive view on the transition from school to university mathematics. I thirdly discuss how the collection of papers deepens our understanding of the complexity and diversity related to the students' experience with the secondary–tertiary transition and its potential impact for teaching. Finally, I propose and justify the need for systematic design and evaluation of interventions targeting a change in students' affect related to the transition. In sum, the wide range of the significant findings in this special issue and their mutual relations add new perspectives to the research on secondary–tertiary transition and evidence a new spectrum of research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven by the focus on standardised assessment and performance-driven accountability, a considerable body of literature has documented differences in students' academic achievement across school sectors, both internationally and in Australia. However, few studies have to date explored the potential mechanisms underlying such differences, particularly through the lens of school climate and student engagement. And despite extensive literature on school climate and student engagement, including their relationships with achievement, the differences in these patterns across school sectors remain under-studied. In this paper, we leverage nationally representative data from a large-scale longitudinal survey in Australia with linked administrative data on student achievement to reveal different patterns of school climate and student engagement across government, Catholic and independent sectors. Employing multivariable regression analyses, we identify unique school climate and student engagement facets that are associated with improved achievement in each of these sectors, offering important pointers for educational policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-regulated learning is an essential skill that can help students plan, monitor, and reflect on their learning in order to achieve their learning goals. However, in situations where there is a lack of effective feedback and recommendations, it becomes challenging for students to self-regulate their learning. In this paper, we propose an explainable AI-based approach to provide automatic and intelligent feedback and recommendations that can support the self-regulation of students' learning in a data-driven manner, with the aim of improving their performance on their courses. Prior studies have predicted students' performance and have used these predicted outcomes as feedback, without explaining the reasons behind the predictions. Our proposed approach is based on an algorithm that explains the root causes behind a decline in student performance, and generates data-driven recommendations for taking appropriate actions. The proposed approach was implemented in the form of a dashboard to support self-regulation by students on a university course, and was evaluated to determine its effects on the students' academic performance. The results revealed that the dashboard significantly enhanced students' learning achievements and improved their self-regulated learning skills. Furthermore, it was found that the recommendations generated by the proposed approach positively affected students' performance and assisted them in self-regulation [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing students' reading and numeracy skills remain key goals of contemporary schooling. In Australia, the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests have assessed these skills since 2008. Previous research found a significant gender gap in favour of females for the NAPLAN writing test, yet no study has examined whether gender gaps exist for reading and numeracy or their developmental pattern across the school years. Given the educational and public interest in NAPLAN and its considerable costs, it is important to understand what these tests reveal about student outcomes. The paper presents the first investigation of patterns of male and female student achievement on the NAPLAN reading and numeracy tests from 2008 to 2021. It applies the equivalent year level technique to explain the pedagogical significance of NAPLAN achievement and compares the findings with the writing gender gap to present a fuller picture of male and female achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile edge computing (MEC) has revolutionized the way of teaching in universities. It enables more interactive and immersive experiences in the classroom, enhancing student engagement and learning outcomes. As an incentive mechanism based on social identity and contest theories, team competition has been adopted and shown its effectiveness in improving students' participation and motivation in college classrooms. However, despite its potential benefit, there are still many unresolved issues: What type of students and teams benefit more from team competition? In what teaching context is team competition more effective? Which competition design methods better increase student academic performance? Mobile edge computing provides the ability to obtain the data of the teaching process and analyze the causal effect between team competition and students' academic performance. In this paper, the authors first design a randomized field experiment among freshmen enrolled in college English courses. Then, the authors analyze the observation data collected from the online teaching platform, and predict individual treatment effects of academic performance in college English through linear and nonlinear machine learning models. Finally, by carefully investigating features of teams and individual students, the prediction error is reduced by up to 30%. In addition, through interpreting the predictive models, some valuable insights regarding the practice of team competition in college classrooms are discovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the importance of definitions in the context of academic discussion, highlights the inconsistent terminology used to describe e-learning, and examines a range of different definitions of e-learning used by academic authors since 2011. Following an outline of the methodology, the paper identifies 15 unique definitions of e-learning in peer-reviewed papers published between January 2011 and December 2022. The 15 definitions are analysed for significant properties, and these properties are reviewed to assess whether they are essential components of e-learning. The paper then proposes a functional definition of e-learning, including all essential elements of e-learning and eliminating elements that may be present in some, but not all, instances of e-learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formative writing assessment (FWA) has been gradually investigated from multiple perspectives. Nevertheless, there is restricted experimental evidence of how the teachers unobtrusively monitor and assess the simultaneous pausing of cognitive writing process in psychological regards by a micro-formative writing assessment (MFWA). By utilizing the sparsely used software inputlog, this creative study focuses on the simultaneous traces of the cognitive writing process at a renowned university. The data mainly consists of 24 writing texts and in-time interviews with those students. The software inputlog is used to elucidate the distribution of pauses and the traces of revision. The examination of student interviews provides very deep insights into cognitive understanding of memory. The findings chiefly suggest that pausing features of cognitive writing process are mainly used to diagnose the exact status quo of students' academic performance and to show the distribution of pauses, potentially due to the context of online writing. Moreover, from pause data gathered systematically, it is possible to transform writing process from formative assessment to simultaneous assessment. The paper has some implications for observing the dynamics of cognitive writing process and collecting fine grained data for language teachers to know the real psychological writing problems of students, which, in turn, promotes to the adjustment and reform of writing assessment in psychological regards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early career academics face a rapidly changing higher education sector and too little is known about what helps them flourish in the profession. This paper responds to that gap by reporting research undertaken in a single or intrinsic case study of one Australian university. We invited participation from a full cohort of 1019 academics in one large College. Of those, 41 early career academics or ECAs and 45 more senior academics or MSAs engaged in a 50-question survey. Of those, 18 ECAs and 16 MSAs who had flagged interest then completed an in-depth interview. We learned about: ECAs' work; what they and MSAs think impedes and enables that work; work-life balance; and experiences of mentoring and career development. We also asked for their perspectives on the future. We found remarkable agreement across the two cohorts that mirrors concerns expressed in a growing, internationally significant literature. Members of both cohorts appealed for strengthened organisational and sectoral commitments to caring career pathways and sought more certainty in challenging times. Our findings led us to conclude that academics have high hopes that universities and those in higher education policy settings can address work overload; enhance professional development across all duties; make leaner systems and processes; have more realistic expectations about research; and better value academics' profound commitments to higher education. Those findings accord with other results reported in comparable jurisdictions around the world and add weight to an increasingly compelling case to recentre and refocus on people in university organisational cultures and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition to university is a time of great change and adjustment. The challenges of university life can lead to numerous negative consequences for the students. Despite the importance of successful transition for both the student and the university, the current body of literature comprises methodological inconsistencies and disparate analytical goals that make it difficult to identify the most salient and effective factors that help predict transition success. This paper presents a systematic review of research linking personal level risk and protective factors to the outcome of academic achievement among students making the transition to university. This is part of a larger review, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Synthesis Without Meta-analysis (SWiM) guidelines, preregistered on the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO, CRD42022330515), searching PsychInfo, Web of Science, and ERIC databases. Records were included if they studied ‘traditional’ first year students transitioning to university and were longitudinal in design and excluded if they looked at specific subgroups of students (e.g. international students). The search yielded 27 articles that were eligible, highlighting a broad range of salient factors ranging from personality traits to procrastination and perfectionism. The findings are discussed in relation to moving the research forward towards an intervention to enhance the probability of successful student transition to university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India introduced competency-based medical education (CBME) in the year 2019. There is often confusion between terms like ability, skill, and competency. The provided curriculum encourages teaching and assessing skills rather than competencies. Though competency includes skill, it is more than a mere skill, and ignoring the other aspects like communication, ethics, and professionalism can compromise the teaching of competencies as well as their intended benefits to the patient and the society. The focus on skills also undermines the assessment of relevant knowledge. This paper clarifies the differences between ability, skill, and competency, and re-emphasizes the role of relevant knowledge and its assessment throughout clinical training. It is also emphasized that competency assessment is not a one-shot process; rather, it must be a longitudinal process where the assessment should bring out the achievement level of the student. Many of the components of competencies are not assessable by purely objective methods and there is a need to use expert subjective judgments, especially for the formative and classroom assessments. A mentor adds to the success of a competency-based curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to examine students' performance in paper-based and online-based tests. In the context of the study, students' performances were considered in the General Physics course between 2014 and 2015 and 2018–2019 academic years. The participants of this study are 417 students of Engineering and Science faculties at a public university of Kyrgyz Republic. Students' achievement scores in paper-based and online-based tests were obtained and appropriate statistical analysis methods were employed. According to the results, students' demographic data (i.e. gender, faculty and major) have different effects on their performance, and students performed better in online-based tests compared to paper-based tests. Additionally, the study aimed to analyze instructor perceptions related to testing types that interviews were conducted with 26 instructors of the General Physics course. The majority of the instructors indicated that they experienced difficulties related to the traditional form of evaluation due to the following reasons: lack of time to give personal feedback to each student, lack of time for objective evaluation, and difficulty of evaluation of crowded student groups. Therefore, they indicated the necessity of online test implementation in the context of the General Physics course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral students' program non-completion continues to be a worldwide phenomenon. Given the challenges across the globe following the 2020-22 pandemic, we need scholarly and skilled PhD and education (EdD) doctoral program graduates. A place to look for retention improvement is by studying what students learn and how they are taught in their university doctoral programs. One purpose of this case study was to describe how 12 EdD students in a program seminar responded to instruction in research and writing strategies during their first year of a four-year program. The second purpose was to examine student responses to formative assessments and describe and explain ongoing instructional adjustments using a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) framework within our own faculty community of practice. Analysis of surveys and student work indicated that writing and research strategies were instructive, engaging, and useful in building research and writing foundations. Analysis of multiple formative assessments helped us refine our instructional strategies during the year. Because all students completed the first high stakes program milestone (comprehensive paper) in year two, our findings suggested that the seminar's instructional strategies established a foundation for student success and timely program progress. Using multiple formative assessments over time was critical in strengthening our teaching practice as well. We recommended instructional practices associated with student research and writing skill development as well as student progress and retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This meta-analysis examines the correlation between goal orientation and related variables in online learning to examine the influence of individual goal orientation on online learning as well as the differences arising from diverse cultural backgrounds. The study analyzed 27 papers from 2000 to 2022, comprising 8 US and 19 Korean studies. The average effect size of goal orientation and related variables, such as learning satisfaction, self-efficacy, and task value, were also analyzed. In addition, moderating effect according to the country and type of goal orientation was examined to evaluate differences arising from cultures. It was found that learning immersion, learning participation, and intention to continue learning, showed a high average effect size with goal orientation, with the other related variables also demonstrating a significant average effect size. There was no moderating effect of the state in the relationship between goal orientation and academic achievement, although a moderating effect existed according to the type of goal orientation. Based on the results of this study, we analyzed the variables that can reinforce learning along with goal orientation in online learning situations. Therefore, our findings will help formulate various educational support directions that can lead students to successfully gain knowledge through online learning, which has been growing expeditiously in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 80,000 children in England were being looked after in Local Authority care in 2020 and a further 40,000 people were defined as 'care leavers'. Although a significant body of research highlights the prevalence of educational low achievement in the care experienced population, official government figures show that around 13% of care experienced pupils progress to higher education by the age of 19. In a climate of 'widening participation' in which universities encourage inclusion and student diversity, this research invited students with a care background to discuss their experiences of settling into university life. Data was collected using in-depth interviews with 42 students from four universities and an online survey completed by 192 students in 29 universities in England and Wales. Findings revealed that although care experienced students overcome significant challenges to progress to higher education, over half considered dropping out. Others reported feeling isolated and inadequately supported, both financially and pastorally, by their institution. This paper uses a lens of resilience to consider the environmental factors that impact upon student transitions, and concludes that universities must act to balance inequalities in order to appropriately welcome and appreciate care leavers for the skills and experience they bring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published accounts of school interventions often focus on a small 'slice' of the complex systems and layers of learning across schools and homes. A series of studies into a digital intervention in low SES schools, is summarised here providing a fuller picture of how students' engagement in digital contexts contributed to their social and emotional skills; and as a consequence, whether these skills impacted on achievement in writing. Overall, 9 to 13 year olds found self-regulation both harder and different when on line. The intervention was associated with higher levels of self-regulation when online, but had no effect on social skills. These patterns were related to specific features of the schools' practices and instructional foci. Students' use at home added to the general effects, with social media usages reducing ratings of self-regulation (e.g. chatting), others increasing social skills (e.g. commenting on blog posts), but high levels of parental monitoring positively impacted both. Parents' own digital experience and their beliefs were related to their guidance. Higher levels of social emotional skills (specifically, response inhibition and cognitive empathy) were associated with gains in writing achievement. Putting the slices together enabled a more complete picture of the intervention, including how: (a) it supported the development of self-regulation online but needed more focus on social skills; (b) higher levels of self-regulation and social skills impacted writing; and (c) the coherence between settings contributed to these skills, underlining the need to provide support and advice to some parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-cognitive abilities, also termed as Social and Emotional Skills (SSES), are believed to have a profound and far-reaching impact on individuals' growth and development. Previous psychological experiments confirmed that non-cognitive factors could have an impact on education, health and social well-being. The SSES reports by OECD offer insights on multiple facets of non-cognitive information during adolescents' growth, which seeks further understanding of the mechanisms and contextual features influencing the formation and development of students' non-cognitive skills as well as subject learning. Based on the OECD 2019 Suzhou data, this study tested a number of hypotheses concerning social and emotional skills and subject learning achievements, including mathematics, reading literacy and arts. The results confirmed that various social and emotional non-cognitive constructs emerged to be facilitating disciplinary learning, including mathematics, reading literacy and arts achievements. This paper offers some reflections on the integration of non-cognitive skills in designing the education policy guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A previous meta-analysis found that active learning has a positive impact on learning achievements for college students in STEM fields of study. However, no similar meta-analyses have been conducted in the humanities and social sciences. Because major dissimilarities may exist between different fields or domain of knowledge, there can be issues with transferring research findings or knowledge across fields. We therefore meta-analyzed 104 studies that used assessment scores to compare the learning achieved by college students in humanities and social science programs under active instruction versus traditional lecturing. Student performance on assessment scores was found to be higher by 0.489 standard deviations under active instruction (Z = 6.521, p < 0.001, k = 111, N = 15,896). The relative beneficial effect of active instruction was found to be higher for some course subject matters (i.e., Sociology, Psychology, Language, Education, and Economics), for smaller (≤ 20 students) rather than larger class or group sizes, and for upper level rather than introductory courses. Analyses further suggest that these findings are not affected by publication bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the incidence of the Colombian armed conflict on the academic performance of secondary students at the municipal level for the years 2003 and 2017. By using a General Nesting Spatial model, results suggest the conflict negatively affects academic performance. In 2003, a period of high conflict intensity, terrorist population attacks showed both direct and indirect negative effects on the test scores. In 2017, a period of low intensity, only direct negative effects were reported for the variables of forced displaced people, homicides, and victims of threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting students' performance in distance courses is a very relevant task to help teachers identify students who need reinforcement or extension activities. Nevertheless, identifying the student's progress is highly complicated due to the large number of students and the lack of direct interaction. Artificial intelligence algorithms contribute to overcoming this problem by automatically analyzing the features and interactions of each student with the e-learning platform. The main limitations of the previous proposals are that they do not consider a ranking between the different marks obtained by students and the most accurate models are usually black boxes without comprehensibility. This paper proposes to use an optimized ordinal classification algorithm, FlexNSLVOrd, that performs a prediction of student's performance in four ranking classes (Withdrawn < Fail < Pass < Distinction) by generating highly understandable models. The experimental study uses the OULA dataset and compares 10 state-of-the-art methods on 7 different courses and 3 classical classification metrics. The results, validated with statistical analysis, show that FlexNSLVOrd has higher performance than the other models and achieves significant differences with the rest of the proposals. In addition, the interpretability of FlexNSLVOrd is compared with other rule-based models, and simpler and more representative rules are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a large sample of students from a Dutch university to describe variations in academic performance following a change in the strictness of academic dismissal policies. The research setting includes one moment in which the performance threshold for academic dismissal has been changed, keeping constant other characteristics of the educational system. Using a descriptive approach, we show that after the threshold has been raised the number of credits earned by academically weak students increases. A higher threshold level also brings their study effort forward in time, as evidenced by a decrease in the number of no-shows and an increase in the number of credits earned during regular exams. We also show that some students perceive the minimum performance level as a target level. The evidence suggests that variations in the implementation of academic dismissal policies affect students' tendency to procrastinate, especially among weaker students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporal punishment (CP) is a widely spread disciplining practice among parents and caregivers globally. Our paper aimed to explore the relationship between the parental attitudes towards CP, expected outcomes of CP, and parenting practices on one hand, with the reported dysfunctions of their children, on the other. Additionally, we aimed to explore the relationship between the use of CP and the reported academic, developmental, and psychological–emotional dysfunctions of their children. The present study involved a nationally representative sample of 1186 parents in Serbia, who had at least one child aged 0–18 years at the moment of interviewing. The parents filled out a series of questionnaires on their attitudes towards CP, expectations of CP outcomes, and their parental practices. Findings indicate that parents that report having a child with dysfunctions have positive attitudes towards CP and expect positive outcomes of CP. These parents also report using more CP as a disciplining method, as well as other harsh disciplining practices. We also identified parental positive expectations of CP, use of physical assault, psychological aggression, neglect as significant predictors of reported child dysfunctions severity. Having all the results in mind, we can assume that children with health-related and school-related issues might be at potential risk of further maltreatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While augmented reality (AR) technology has shown the potential to facilitate students' hands-on activities, few studies have explored its effectiveness in acoustic topics. This paper introduces an AR-based application for learning about the Doppler effect and investigates its educational effectiveness on students' learning achievement, interest, and attitude compared to a two-dimensional (2D) learning tool. Eighty-five junior high school students participated in our study, and they were randomly assigned to two groups (AR: n = 44, 2D: n = 41). The results revealed that students in the AR group outperformed those in the 2D group in terms of their learning achievement and interest. Both groups showed positive attitude toward the Doppler class and physics learning. Moreover, students presented a high level of cognitive perception toward the AR learning tool. This study provides a case for the application of AR in acoustics learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher expectations not only relate positively to student achievement, but also to student beliefs such as their self-concept. Nevertheless, most studies focus on the relations with student achievement, followed by studies on beliefs. Beliefs are a significant determinant of academic success and can include student self-concept or emotions, such as anxiety. The extent to which anxiety can be influenced by teacher expectations has been investigated in very few studies. This paper examined how teacher expectations related to changes in student achievement, self-concept, and anxiety in mathematics within a school year. The data were from a longitudinal study "Outcomes of teacher education", funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and based on 28 teachers and 509 primary school students. Teacher expectations were operationalized using the residual approach. Student mathematics achievement was assessed via a standardized mathematics test and their self-concept as well as their mathematics anxiety via a questionnaire. The multi-level structure was considered in the analyses, because the interclass-correlation of student mathematics achievement exceeded the critical value of 10%. The results showed that teacher expectations were positively related to student achievement as well as self-concept and negatively related to anxiety towards mathematics. The change in the explained variance was small (self-concept and anxiety) to large (achievement). The results extend findings on the expectation effect in the classroom, as they focus not only on student achievement but also on student beliefs and are discussed regarding their significance for academic success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional education systems do not provide students with much freedom to choose the right training of study that suits them, which leads on long-term to the negative effects not only on social, economic and mental' well-being of student, but also will have a negative effect on the quality of the work produced by this student in the future. In addition, skills and talents in a specific area refer to general skills and working life practices. This paper presents a pedagogical orientation system based on blockchain technology and machine learning that accurately predicts the future specialized training and profession in which the common core student will have more opportunity to succeed. Python programming language has been used to implement the suggested pedagogical orienting mechanism in two key steps. (1) In the profiles matching step we have used the incidence matrix to correlate the professional and training profiles. (2) The student ranking issue was resolved at the ranking profiles step using the learning to rank methodology. The data used to feed the various machine learning algorithms in our system are stored on the blockchain, representing the academic results of 320 students at the end of the common core training in the computer science department of 20th august 1955 university in Skikda, Algeria, which served as a database for subsequent experiments and served to confirm the system's feasibility and credibility. The proposed system has demonstrated its effectiveness by accurately predicting the future specialized training compatible with the student's scientific capabilities, allowing him to succeed and excel. Also, it has contributed to reducing the possibility of falsifying results and certificates while enhancing security and transparency through blockchain protocols. Finally, this system encourages all participants to trust the automatic orientation process, which makes it possible to improve the issues experienced in the fields of education by enhancing interactions between the student, the university, and the employing industries during the educational orientation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the key findings from two student surveys undertaken at our institution in the academic years 2020-21 and 2021-22. The research was based on the Bretag et al. (2018) student survey undertaken in various Australian universities. After discussions with both Bretag and Harper, we adapted the questions to our context – a Russell Group university in the UK – but included similar questions to enable a comparison, and to find out if there were common themes. The main aim of the surveys was to understand our students' awareness of what is meant by the term 'academic integrity', defined as 'being honest in your work, acknowledging the work of others and giving credit where you have used other people's ideas/data' https://secretariat.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/109/2022/12/academic%5fintegrity.pdf. The responses provided an important insight into student attitudes to academic integrity, their understanding of academic malpractice, and their awareness of the penalties if found to have plagiarised, and if found guilty of contract cheating (Medway et al., 2018; Morris, 2018; Harper et al., 2019). The surveys also identified what students would find useful in developing their understanding of academic integrity, and this underlines the importance of consulting our students. Key findings include gaps in the information provided to students, the need for regular and timely reminders of the principles of academic integrity, and the need for guidance to be written using student-friendly language. The findings informed our recommendations in terms of teaching and learning at School/Faculty level and to policy at University level, to further support student success. In the context of the key issues raised by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) Academic Integrity Charter (2020), we discuss examples of best practice currently undertaken at the University of Leeds, on-going discussions regarding developments, and our recommendations for further embedding a culture of academic integrity. We argue that all students should have the same baseline experience and therefore promoting this ethos is the responsibility of all staff who teach and support students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) are one way to assess competencies, and are designed to bridge the gap between theoretical competencies and real world clinical practice. Aims: This was a systematic review which aims to answer the question: "Which EPAs related to Emergency Medicine are described for medical schools?". Methods: We included original qualitative, interventional and observational studies (cross-sectional, case-control, and cohort studies) that described EPAs relevant to Emergency Medicine for Medical School. The search strategy was created using a combination of keywords and standardized index terms related to EPAs and Emergency Medicine. Results: The search strategy identified 991 citations. After screening the titles and abstracts, we identified 85 potentially relevant studies. After the full-text review, a total of 11 reports met the criteria for inclusion. Conclusion: Recognizing a patient requiring urgent or emergent care and initiating evaluation and management is the most common EPA related to Emergency Medicine described at Medical Schools. Use of EPAs is associated with increased student satisfaction and improved competences. However, there is a lack of undergraduate EM specific EPAs being systematically developed and published, and this should be an area to be explored in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]