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This study aimed to examine the mediating role of job crafting in the relationship between self-efficacy in teaching and research (termed 'academic self-efficacy') and organisational commitment among academics. Three hundred and thirty-two academics from nine higher educational institutions in Zhejiang Province and Shanghai, mainland China, participated in this study through responding to three self-report inventories: the Research-Teaching Efficacy Inventory, the Job Crafting Inventory, and the Organisational Commitment Inventory. Results suggested that academic self-efficacy predicted organisational commitment both directly and indirectly through job crafting (especially increasing structural and social job resources) after controlling for age, gender, academic rank, and academic disciplines taught. The findings enrich the literature on self-efficacy, job crafting, and organisational commitment. Furthermore, this study has practical implications for academics and university senior managers in their respective efforts to develop academics' adaptive organisational commitment and enhance the quality of university teaching and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on data collected from multiple sources, this qualitative case study investigates how seven English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) academics from a university in mainland China perceive and cope with their professional vulnerability within the system of performativity. Three themes were generated from the data: (1) professional vulnerability as a state of conformity and self-learning, (2) professional vulnerability as a state of constrained agency, and (3) professional vulnerability as a state of disengagement. The findings not only reflect the complex and dynamic nature of EFL academics' professional vulnerability, but also unpack numerous contextual and personal factors mediating EFL academics' experiences of professional vulnerability. The paper ends with some practical implications on how to mitigate the negative influences that vulnerability has on EFL academics' professional practice within the system of performativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated visual arts college students' perceptions of the gender stereotyping of creativity and the influence of this stereotyping on creative self‐efficacy. The sample consisted of 1198 Chinese visual arts college students. The results showed that (a) both male and female students identified stereotypically masculine traits as more important to creativity than stereotypically feminine traits are, (b) male students demonstrated higher creative self‐efficacy than their female counterparts did, and (c) students' gender significantly moderated the effect of the gender stereotyping of creativity on creative self‐efficacy. Specifically, the gender stereotyping of creativity had a positive effect on male students and a negative effect on female students. These findings revealed that gender stereotypes dominate concepts of creativity in Chinese art education and may hinder female students' development of creative self‐efficacy, resulting in gendered inequality in the visual arts field. The implications of these findings for visual arts education in China are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported here examined college students’ academic self-efficacy, ‘academic press’ and learning achievement, as well as the association between these three variables within learning contexts using interactive whiteboard-based instruction. A quasi-experimental study was conducted using a sample (n = 103) of first-year college students in China. Participants were taught English by either an interactive whiteboard-based or traditional lecture-based instructional approach for three months. The results showed that the interactive whiteboard-based instructional intervention cultivated higher levels of academic press and academic self-efficacy among students and a significant, positive correlation was identified between these two variables. Students’ learning achievement was not affected by the instructional intervention. These results indicate that interactive whiteboard-based instruction offers some distinct benefits. In future work, additional research is needed to clarify how the instructional model relates to understanding learning achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provided preliminary evidences for the validity of the Questionnaire of English Self-Efficacy scale in a sample of college students in China. Results showed that the scale had adequate reliability and validity. Examination of the rating scale structure showed that participants reliably distinguished response categories. The item hierarchy was consistent with the expected item order, supporting the construct validity of the scale. Overall, the items were fairly well matched to the ability of the sample except that there seems to be a need for more difficult items. The information pertaining to the scale is quite encouraging from measurement perspectives and fills the gap in the literature by providing a valid instrument to measure English language learners' self-efficacy in China. The implications of this study to English as a foreign language and English as a second language educators and researchers in the United States and other countries are also discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Helping students to acquire self-regulated learning abilities has become a major goal of our education. This study focuses on a major aspect of self-regulated learning: adaptive help-seeking. Adaptive help seeking behaviors allow students to learn effectively when facing academic difficulty and facilitate adoption of other self-regulated learning strategies. This study explores how Chinese students' perceive academic self-efficacy and social efficacy related to their academic help-seeking behaviors. The hypotheses were supported in an examination of 271 students from three Hong Kong tertiary institutions. When students had high level of social efficacy, they tended to displayed more adaptive and less of non-adaptive help-seeking behaviors. These findings add to the literature on Chinese students' academic help seeking behavior and also have practical implications for teachers seeking to promote self-regulated learning behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]