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It is important to understand information and communication technology (ICT) and digital resources in classroom teaching and learning processes. Pre-service teachers' attitudes towards ICT and digital resources in teaching and learning processes are important for positive attitudes in students towards these tools. The study employs a mixed methods study targeted teachers who have completed their internship training to understand the knowledge, attitude and usage of ICT and digital resources tries to find a correlation between these three facets. It employs a questionnaire with validated tools for measuring attitude, knowledge and usage of ICT and Digital Resources and the results are tabulated. Using statistical analysis of mean and standard deviation, the study affirms a positive correlation between Knowledge, attitude and usage of ICT and Digital Resources by Pre-Service teachers. This study recommends that pre-service teachers be given adequate training and exposure to ICT & Digital Resources for a better learning transaction and technology usage.

The introduction of Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT) in November 2022 brought about rapid changes in the workplace and academia. Its usage ranged from student assignments to workplace targets in the engineering field. Although it has brought novel ideas to its application in various fields and task efficiency in the workplace, its perceived application varies among students, teachers, and professionals. This study employed the snowball sampling technique and interviews with eight students, eight faculty members, and eight working professionals from computer science engineering who used ChatGPT regularly. The study adopted a qualitative research design and employed the narrative data analysis technique. Researchers conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews to elicit user experiences from the recruited samples. The findings brought out six main and twelve subordinate themes regarding ChatGPT user experiences: adapt, adopt, embrace, ease, speed, engage, and automate. The inclusion criteria involved ChatGPT users from the computer science engineering domain only. Future research may focus on developing ChatGPT user policies for various fields of their applications.

Understanding the factors that influence students' results in hybrid learning environments is becoming increasingly important in today's educational environment. The goal of this research is to examine factors that influence students' academic performance as well as their level of participation in blended learning environments. A comprehensive study was conducted with 330 interested participants from the prestigious government polytechnics of the state of Karnataka in order to achieve this goal. Our data acquisition approach relied on the administration of a meticulously crafted survey questionnaire. The conceptual framework underpinning this study seamlessly integrates Transactional Distance Theory (TDT) principles with valuable insights derived from prior research. The Welch test and one-way ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) are two statistical approaches that we used selectively to reinforce our research which produced surprising results. These findings underscore the pivotal role played by certain specific factors. The geographical location of learners and the medium through which they pursue their studies have emerged as critical determinants significantly influencing academic performance. Aspects like the frequency of login activities and active engagement in forum discussions have been found to exert a positive influence on learners' academic performance. In contrast, the duration of sleep did not show a significant impact on performance. These insights bear tangible implications for teachers and policymakers who are dedicated to the enhancement of the quality of BL programs with the ultimate goal of enriching the overall educational experience.

Introduction: The burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is a major challenge for countries, regardless of their level of development. Social branding is an emerging approach to health promotion for NCD prevention. In this paper, the process of social branding is documented as a case study to help researchers develop similar kinds of interventions in the settings in which they work. Methods: The process of developing a social brand is documented through conversations with the project team, observations in the field, interaction with community local members, and information gathered through photographs, videos and newspaper clippings. Results: The social brand focused upon in this study was named the "Aarogyachi Vaari" (Health Pilgrimage) inspired by the "Pandrapur Wari," a religious pilgrimage undertaken in the state of Maharashtra, India. Various stakeholders from self-help groups, panchayat raj institutions and schools from the local village collaborated successfully to implement the health event in a manner similar to the way in which diverse religious groups come together for the Pandrapur Wari religious pilgrimage. The Aarogyachi Vaari took the form of a strategically planned health event consisting of various health promotion stalls, many developed by local villagers themselves. The organisation of the event was aided by resource mobilisation within the local community. Discussion: Social branding can be an effective tool for health promotion in community settings. Studying people's cultural preferences and what makes them feel connected and excited can lay the foundations for the creation of a social brand that reflects their choices and helps them take up healthy behaviours on their own. It is possible to mobilise a community for health through social branding that is culturally relevant and connected to the interests and priorities of local people.

Background: NETS-T Standards for teachers define the knowledge and skills that teachers or educators need to have in order to successfully and effectively integrate technology in teaching and learning. Purpose: It is essential for every community to know the status of their teachers' NETS-T educational technology practices. Methods: A questionnaire consisting of 6 educational technology factors, with a number of items or performance indicators, under each factor was administered to 76 Grade 10 English medium Secondary School teachers. The sample included 14 male teachers, and 62 female teachers from 11 schools that were conveniently selected. Results: Findings were that most teachers strongly agree to the items mentioned under the TOC factor and PPP factor, while most of them agreed to the items mentioned under PDL, AAE, SEL, and TLC factors. A significant statistical difference in the distribution of the average scores of items for pairwise comparisons of some schools was found under TOC, PDL, AAE and PPP items. Conclusions: There was no significant statistical difference in the distribution of average scores of items for pairwise comparisons of schools under SEL and TLC factors.

Education in the 21st century has become more technology integrated, and the shift from conventional modalities of teaching to technology-assisted teaching methodologies accelerated during the pandemic years. The current study employed a qualitative research design (n=12) to explore this shift and the expectations of these novel teaching modalities from both facilitator and learner perspectives in urban higher education settings in India. An inductive thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed that there is a significant gap in lecturers' and students' definitions and expectations of smart learning environments. The themes that emerged from the data were bifurcated into lecturer and student perspectives on smart learning environments and included innovative nature, novelty and complexity, student excitement, and limitations of content. Based on the findings, lecturer and student expectations of SLE platforms had points of convergence and divergence which are unique to the socio-cultural positions of the participants. The current study argues the need to devise methods to improve the efficacy of SLEs in developing economies.

The employability of the intellectually challenged has received little attention in the past. In order to fill this research gap, the present study was undertaken. The study is centered on the experiences of six intellectually challenged individuals who received employability training at a non-governmental organization. A focus group discussion along with a case study was conducted. The researchers employed the Rigorous and Accelerated Data Reduction (RADaR) technique to analyze the data from the focus group discussion. Results from both the focus group discussion and the case study revealed that the training program has had a significant impact on the lives of the participants and has aided them in becoming economically empowered and independent.

This article is concerned with an institutional initiative designed to encourage the development of an outreach culture which can support fairer, more equal, access to higher education (HE) in India. The initiative constituted the final impact phase of a 5-year Fair Chance Foundation (FCF) research project (2017-2022) which explored gendered pathways to fair access to HE in the northern Indian state of Haryana. We present the methodology used to prepare a toolkit, named an Outreach Activity Resource (OAR), which enabled staff in government colleges in Haryana to plan and conduct pilot 'taster days'. The article provides an assessment of the outcome of these events. It argues that a practitioner as researcher methodology and a collaborative 'bottom up' research approach provide the basis for the development of contextually appropriate outreach activities to support fairer, more equal, access to higher education (HE). We argue that the adoption of 'top down' initiatives, in very different economic, social and cultural contexts to the those where they were originated, may fail to address the way in which the local 'problem' presents itself and may hinder the development of a contextually informed outreach culture which will support fairer, more equal access to HE. In contrast, initiatives such as the one presented here can contribute essential locally informed expertise, built on contextually informed research, to national and international policy making in relation to widening access to HE in an era in which massification is extending across the globe.

Concept maps help detect misconceptions and provide revision exercises to assess comprehension once a topic has been introduced. A concept map is a schematic drawing used to show the connection among the concepts in propositional form. A concept map is a helpful tool for illustrating the relationships between main concepts and sub-concepts. The main objective of the study was to identify misconceptions about the human digestive system among higher secondary students using concept maps. The data was collected from higher secondary students XI class students) (N = 388) with the help of students' preliminary concept maps and researcher-made concept map tools. Findings of the study showed that secondary school students hold misconceptions related to the human digestive system, i.e. few (22.68%) students have misconceptions such as 'Human Digestive System is the process by which hard food is converted into simple diffusible assimilable nutrients', few (19.32%) students have misconceptions such as 'Alimentary Canal starts with the throat," etc. The present paper will help use concept maps for the identification and remediation of students' misconceptions.

The research in cooperative learning (CL) is robust. Despite the empirical research benefits of CL, its implementation faces challenges in teacher education classrooms. Teacher educators resist using CL and stick to the frontal teaching method. All this may be due to the difficulties perceived by teacher educators in implementing CL. The researchers used a concurrent triangulation mixed method research design to explore the perceived challenges of cooperative learning implementation among teacher educators from India. The researchers administered a questionnaire and obtained 300 responses from teacher educators through a survey, followed by a semi-structured interview among eight survey participants. The research findings revealed that the average perceived challenges among teacher educators are 63% due to teacher challenges, learner challenges, curriculum syllabus, and administrative challenges. Female teacher educators perceived higher challenges than males. ANOVA results revealed a difference in challenges faced across the age group. These results demonstrate the need for future researchers to conduct a more in-depth examination of the challenges in implementing CL with more extensive samples in various educational settings in other world regions to develop effective solutions.

Science outreach programs that enable real-time interactions between scientists and school-aged children are known to positively impact learning gains and students' perceptions of scientists. To expand K-12 outreach by scientists, it is important to build structured outreach programs which offer scientists well-defined opportunities, while providing school students regular and diverse interactions. We describe Talk To A Scientist, a science outreach platform in India, where scientists use a webinar-based approach to share their research with K-12 students (6 to 16 years). Running weekly for nearly 3 years, Talk To A Scientist has hosted over 100 live interactions, with a wide reach to participants across the country. Here, we outline the framework used to build Talk To A Scientist and discuss key gains, considerations, and challenges in the development of the program. We also suggest potential adaptations with which this framework can serve as a guideline for the implementation of similar K-12 outreach programs across diverse country- and context-specific settings.

The purpose of this research is to review peer-reviewed articles on the effects of e-learning on the academic performance of university students. The SCOPUS database was searched for peer-reviewed articles. The data obtained were analyzed using the content analysis method. Twenty-seven articles were found in journals indexed in the SCOPUS database and considered suitable for this study. Two researchers used the content analysis method to determine the effects of the articles reviewed. The results showed that studies in this area have increased in intensity in recent years. These studies were generally conducted over five years. It was found that quantitative methods were predominantly chosen. Researchers published most articles in 2021 and 2022. Most of the studies reviewed used a quantitative design, and only seven articles chose an experimental research design. Most studies were conducted in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, India, Iran, and Turkey. The results show that different measurement instruments or tools were used to measure students' academic achievement. The impact of the peer-reviewed articles on the impact of e-learning on college students' academic achievement was examined in four categories. These categories are detailed in the results. Finally, pedagogical conclusions are drawn in light of the results obtained.

This study explores perspectives of adolescents and emerging adults on having conversations around death and dying, if there is a value in discussing death early in life, and to explore the views on likelihood of introducing death education in Indian curriculum. Using constructivist grounded theory of qualitative research, the study inquired the perspectives of adolescents and emerging adults employing semi-structured interviews. All participants showed interest in discussing the topic; they actively participated in sharing their views, something that they heard, and inquiring about cultural practices. In analyzing the interview data, mainly three themes emerged: 1. Understanding death in relation to shadow and spirit stories; 2. Existential view on death and managing grief and anxiety; 3. Social and cultural narratives into death education. This study sets out to address a gap in research among adolescents and emerging adult attitudes and opinions toward death. However, there is a need to understand barriers in normalizing conversations around death and dying in wider communities in India and further research is essential.

Formative assessment is a valuable tool in medical education as it allows students to reflect on their own learning and make necessary corrections. The use of innovative techniques in formative assessment can make it more engaging and effective for students, particularly utilizing electronic tools. A word cloud is a visual representation of data that is created using text inputs from a group of individuals. The resulting image shows the most frequently used words in a larger font, allowing quick understanding of the common themes and concepts in the group's responses. Mentimeter is an online platform for interactive presentations where students can provide their responses to a question, which can then be visualized as a word cloud. The study aims to explore the benefits and drawbacks of using word cloud formation as a formative assessment technique in the classroom, utilizing the online platform Mentimeter.

An evaluation of extant research reveals a significant blind spot around investigating the enrolment decision-making of Indian international students in the STEM fields. This study qualitatively explores the motivations of Indian international students to pursue a STEM Master's program in an industrialised country. To elicit pertinent information, 29 Indian international students in four leading study-abroad destination countries (the USA, Australia, Germany, and the UK) were interviewed online. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using a thematic approach. The analysis reveals 20 motivation themes that underlie the enrollment decision making journey of the respondent set. Although some themes are traditional pull factors common in extant studies (e.g., career advancement, university reputation, migration), several other motivations may be more salient to the STEM international students in this study (e.g., an opportunity to be a part of high-quality research with expert faculty, a yearning for internships and projects with leading business organisations). The findings reveal that students' enrollment decisions are motivated both intrinsically and extrinsically. The intrinsic motivations show the international student's innate scholarly interests and aspirations. Extrinsic motivations reflect the international student's need for rewards and conscious valuing. The findings of this qualitative exploration act as a market intelligence input for university managers and host country policymakers to develop compelling value propositions.

Recent studies have shown numerous models and theories of technology integration among teachers, apart from which, this study intended to take a step forward on how this technology integration has enhanced further in developing teaching practices in the form of teacher learning, pedagogical strategies, teacher performance, and student engagement. The challenge lies in inculcating innovative teaching methods to align with students' tech-savvy preferences, emphasizing the importance of educators to embrace the technology. This research also explored the role of institutional support in enhancing the outcome variables. The research strategy of this study relies on the quantitative method but also qualitative aspects have been considered to construct the model and hypothesis. The data in the present study has been collected using the structured questionnaire, where 700 samples were collected from faculties working in Higher Educational Institutions in Karnataka, India using stratified and convenient sampling. Moreover, to satisfy the objectives, mediation and moderation analysis has been conducted with SPSS and AMOS. The results revealed that technology integration is significant in Teacher Learning and their pedagogical strategies. Moreover, the influence of technology integration on teacher performance and student engagement is significantly high with the mediation of teacher learning and pedagogical strategies. Interestingly study also proved that higher institutional support contributes to higher teacher performance and students' engagement through technology integration. This result recommends teachers to incorporate various pedagogical strategies through the use of technology. Overall present study encourages institutional support in putting forth technological development in educational settings for a dynamic e-future.

Students often find choosing a career to be one of the formidable choice since it affects not only their personalities but also their future life and income trajectory. Considering which, this study examines the various factors influencing students' career choice. In this study, responses have been collected from 342 commerce and management students through proportionate stratified sampling method. Upon validating the questionnaire's reliability and accuracy and collecting the necessary data, the objectives were achieved through the application of multiple regression analysis, t-tests, ANOVA and correlation assessments. Personal factors, future job opportunities and factors related to working conditions significantly contribute to students' career choices but Peer/Parents/Family-related factors and Financial Factors were found to be insignificant in the prediction of career choices. The link between factors and chosen careers is also moderated by the extent of obstacles such as financial/economic issues, personal difficulties and excessive educational requirements to pursue the course, with higher barriers decreasing the influence of different factors on students' career choices. This result encourages the need for tackling student challenges in choosing their career. This finding will aid organisations in developing HR strategies and will assist college counsellors to appropriately guide students in their future careers.

The present study aimed to explore the association between creativity, intelligence, and personality. The study recruited sixty healthy volunteers in the age range of 20-40 years from Bengaluru city (formerly Bangalore), South India, and administered tests for fluid intelligence (Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices), personality (Big Five NEO-FFI), and divergent thinking (Wallach & Kogan Creativity Test). Findings revealed that intelligence and openness to experience were positively correlated with the fluency, flexibility, and originality dimensions of creativity. The hierarchical multiple regression analysis suggested openness and fluid intelligence significantly predicted creativity. This suggests that individuals who are more open to new experiences continue to integrate new and diverse information into their existing knowledge base. When combined with contextual and emotional stimuli, this integration process can lead to more varied and innovative responses to divergent thinking tasks.

The current study explored the neuroanatomical basis of creative personality using the voxel-based morphometric (VBM) approach. The sample comprised two groups -- Creative (CR) group (professional creative artists) and matched controls with no demonstrated artistic creativity (NC) with 20 participants in each group, in the age range of 20-40 years, right-handed (screened using Edinburgh Handedness Inventory) and had minimum average intelligence (IQ > 90 on Raven's Progressive Matrices). Professional creative artists were selected using the creativity achievement questionnaire, creativity was assessed using the Wallach & Kogan test of creativity, and personality was administered using NEO-FFI. The result indicates that creative individuals have significantly higher openness to new experiences and it positively correlates with the right middle frontal gyrus. VBM analysis indicates increased gray matter volume in the inferior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate gyrus in the CR group, pointing toward the integration of cognitive and imaginative processes that might be implicated in creative personality.

In the realm of learning, teaching and learning occur simultaneously, with continuous learning happening through the act of teaching. This study, attributed to Phil Collins, underscores the symbiotic nature of teaching and learning. B.Ed. colleges exemplify this concept, where student teachers engage in both learning and teaching within authentic classroom settings. This paper delves into the objectives, the role of the student teacher, the efficacy of the teaching program, and the challenges encountered in the B.Ed. Internship Program. According to NCTE regulations, student teachers are required to complete a sixteen-week internship during the second year of the B.Ed. course, fostering comprehensive development. The aim is to assess the internship's impact on trainees' growth and thoroughly examine the challenges they face. The assessment encompasses fifty questions across ten dimensions: classroom management, lesson planning, personal constraints, instructional objectives, infrastructure, workload, emotional aspects, mentoring, educational technology, and evaluation methods. Two hundred samples were gathered from B.Ed. students enrolled in various colleges across Tamil Nadu in India. A random sampling technique was used. Percentage analysis was employed as the analysis technique. The results show that the students highly applied their skills in their teaching practice.

This study discusses a robust narrative of the relationship between higher education and the stakeholders in the digital era. It proposes an integrated higher education marketing framework using the Cue-Utilization approach with perceived situational appropriateness as the frame of reference. A multi-stakeholder perspective is explored using semi-structured in-depth interviews with India, the UK, Nigeria, and UAE participants. The study's findings indicate that relationship quality associated with relationship marketing is critical for student engagement. The results further validate the cues that are the surrogate indicators of high relationship quality in an ecosystem of higher education. It illustrates through a framework the factors affecting relationship marketing and their role in enhancing stakeholder engagement. Digitization adds another layer of complexity in relationships and relationship marketing for higher education in the given context. Therefore, nurturing relationships and increasing digital scalability can constitute the most relevant factors for advanced higher education marketing.

Introduction: The learning approach of undergraduate medical students can be influenced by motivations toward learning medicine as well as perceived outcomes such as their specialty preference in the future. In this study, we analyze the relationships between learning approach, motivation to study medicine, and factors related to their specialty preference. Methods: We conducted a structured questionnaire-based survey of undergraduate medical students after one year of joining. Learning approaches were assessed using a published questionnaire used on medical students after adapting it to our context. Questionnaires validated earlier in our setting were used to assess motivation to study medicine and specialty preference. Factor scores were extracted to examine the relationships between motivations to study medicine and specialty preference with their learning approaches. The data obtained were also analyzed based on the demographic characteristics of students. Results: Deep learning approach factors such as deep motivation, deep strategy as well as surface motivation were correlated positively (Pearson's r > 0.2 and p < 0.05 for all mentioned analyses) with the motivation to study medicine factor for professional calling and with the personal satisfaction factor for specialty preference. Deep motivation and deep strategy factors of the learning approach were also correlated with the professional growth factor of specialty preference. Conclusion: Deep learning approaches appear to be related to motivation to study medicine factors related to the professional calling and demands of the profession as well as for perceived personal satisfaction related to future specialization requirements.

Purpose: Many studies have illustrated the vast advantages which blended learning has to offer to the learning community. However, when a learner accesses a digital platform, one cannot ignore the negative repercussions which the learner would be subjected to in the process. Our study tries to analyze the negative repercussions of digital media distractions on their wholistic development. Design/methodology/approach: Information pertaining to the use of digital media among students for blended learning and the consequent distractions faced by them in the process was elicited through a well-structured questionnaire from pre-university and university students. The PLS-SEM model was constructed to identify the effect of digital distractions on students' academic performance, outlook of life and health, keeping counseling and spiritual inclination as moderating variables. Findings: From our research, we inferred that the students' time spent on a digital platform was directly related with their time spent on blended learning and their tendency to get distracted. However, they were more prone to e-distractions than e-learning. Furthermore, e-learning did not enhance their academic performance. However, distractions had significant negative repercussions on their mental health. Counseling that the students were getting in their educational institutions did not play any significant role in improving their mental health. Originality/value: Studies which have been undertaken to analyze the negative repercussions of blended learning on the wholistic development of students are scarce. Given the increasing popularity of blended learning among South Asian students in recent times, our study has tried to bridge this gap.

Education in its essential meaning should beget a civilized and socio-emotionally intelligent, competent mindset in its stakeholders. However, this seems an ideal situation which is impractical owing to several conditions and constraints that impede the implementation of holistic education. Pedagogical practices initially relied on rote learning and thereafter several reforms in educational policies asserted the importance of nurturing global competency among the learners. However, this shift from rote learning to a more self-directed learning is a challenging transformation which is idealized to a great extent. In this article, we argue that a sudden shift may not be possible, and to realize learner autonomy and their self-directedness, there should be a gradual but steady progress from pedagogy to andragogy and then to heutagogy. Self-directedness and learner-centredness are the crucial aspects of heutagogy. Taking examples from a case study that we conducted with teachers of English from select higher education institutions in India, we analysed the various tenets of heutagogy and its practicality in the Indian context. We investigated how teachers are incorporating aspects of heutagogy in their English classrooms and what major challenges are encountered. Their individual classroom episodes may serve as an initial reservoir of ideas to orient further research in the field. The possibility of embedding the PAH continuum in classrooms is analysed through the lens of socio-constructivist theory. The insights from this study will be valuable for teachers and students who wish to gain a deeper insight into the heutagogical learning paradigm and its integration into language teaching in the classroom.

This study aimed to understand the knowledge, application, and perspective of B. Pharm students regarding artificial intelligence (AI) tools. This study used a quantitative cross-sectional observational design, and data were collected using a questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed among B. Pharm students in India, and 305 participants were included in the study. The results of the study showed that the majority of participants were female, and the mean age of the participants was 20.51 years. The study also found that the participants had limited knowledge of AI and its applications in pharmacy education. Only 34.6% of participants attempted to integrate AI tools into their academic activities. The most commonly used integrated tools were ChatGPT (42.2%) and Google Bard (Gemini) (30.8%). The survey strongly indicated the inclination of the pharmacy student community towards generative AI tools for academic purposes. However, the participants showed positive attitudes towards the use of AI in pharmacy education and believed that it would improve the quality of their education. A significant majority (82.3%) of respondents express interest in attending workshops or training sessions to enhance their knowledge about AI, The study concluded that there is a need for educators and technology creators to develop strategies to integrate AI into pharmacy education to improve the learning experience of students.

Higher education students use digital devices for learning, entertainment, and financial transactions. The present study examines undergraduate (UG) students' challenges faced in cyber security space amid digital environments. The study employed a qualitative research design with a narrative inquiry method to capture the lived experiences, challenges, and coping mechanism of UG students through semi structured interviews. The researchers analyzed the qualitative data of ten UG students using the inductive thematic analysis method. UG students shared overall that they face varied experiences, multiple challenges, and cope with cyber security issues in multiple ways. Findings from the study led to recommendations for stakeholders, which includes designing higher education classes in a more secure way. This may offer students orientation on cybersecurity knowledge which keeps them safe and helps them understand the digital environment overall.

Objective: The quantitative measurement and antecedents of doctoral well-being have not been sufficiently explored in the extant literature, creating a significant gap based on alarming statistics of high attrition rates and psychological distress among PhD scholars. Therefore, based on the theory of conservation of resources, our study examines the role of personal resources such as harmonious passion (HP), Grit, and psychological capital (PsyCap) in enhancing PhD students' well-being. Additionally, it proposes a novel conceptualisation of doctoral well-being, combining research engagement (eudaimonic well-being) and satisfaction (hedonic well-being). Method: We use structural equation modelling to analyse data collected from 239 doctoral students in India's higher educational institutions (HEI). Results: The results show that HP and Grit are significantly and positively associated with doctoral students' well-being while PsyCap partially mediates the relationship of HP and Grit with well-being. Conclusions: HP and Grit are personal resources which can enhance doctoral students' well-being. PsyCap assists in this process through resource gain whereby students with higher personal resources could gather further resources, leading to hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. The study also highlights practical implications for supervisors and management of HEIs.

This work investigates the impact of entrepreneurial experiential learning (EL) on students' entrepreneurial intention (EI), through the lens of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE). To provide a comprehensive viewpoint, the direct impact of entrepreneurial attitude (EA) on entrepreneurial intention has also been looked at. This study, has adopted existing scales to measure entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial attitude, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. For experiential learning, a structured scale has been designed on the basis of its existing scales. Data were collected from 669 students, enrolled in entrepreneurial courses/programs. Punjab, Haryana, and National capital region (NCR) are the three Indian regions considered for the survey. The results highlight that there is a positive influence of experiential learning on entrepreneurial intention though [beta]-value is low (0.042). While the [beta]-value with mediation influence of entrepreneurial self-efficacy between experiential learning and entrepreneurial intention was 0.090 (0.697[multiply]0.130), which states that entrepreneurial self-efficacy mediates and enhances the relationship between experiential learning and entrepreneurial intention. It was also found that there is a direct and strong influence of entrepreneurial attitude on entrepreneurial intention ([beta]-value, 0.872). Thus, there is a need to focus on entrepreneurial attitude, as it strongly influences the intentions of the students. Overall results have a bearing that experiential learning; entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial attitude emerged as important predictors of entrepreneurial intention and explained 89.6% of variations in the model. Moreover, experiential learning with the mediation of entrepreneurial self-efficacy had more impact on entrepreneurial intention. Thus, there is a need to focus on entrepreneurial self-efficacy as well as experiential learning.

Sexual health education among adolescents with intellectual disabilities is an area of concern among parents and educators. Special educators play a vital role in teaching sexual health and safety to their students with disabilities. The present study explores special educators' concerns in teaching sexual health among adolescents with intellectual disabilities. The participants included 35 special educators working with adolescents with intellectual disabilities in India. Summative content analysis of the data collected using a semi-structured interview schedule highlights the neglect of the issues related to sexual health among adolescents with disabilities. Special educators reported the challenges in providing sexual health education. Teachers lacked skills in imparting sexual health education. Developmentally and culturally appropriate sexual health education can help adolescents with a disability learn healthy life skills. The paper emphasizes the need for professional support and training among special educators on sexual health education.

Stories constitute a significant part of the Indian preschool curriculum due to their various benefits in preschool child development. However, the teachers' practice of stories and their perception regarding the influence of stories on preschool child development are vital determining factors in the benefit preschoolers receive from stories. The global concern for providing quality education for preschool children necessitates the exploration of teachers' practices and perceptions; however, such studies in the Indian context, where education is shaped by its multicultural and linguistic diversities, are limited. The present study provides an original contribution to exploring the Indian preschool teachers' practice of stories and perception of the influence of stories on preschool child development using a developed questionnaire, Teachers' Practice and Perception of Stories (TPPS). Ninety-six preschool teachers from English medium schools in Mangalore, India, participated in the study. The findings indicated that irrespective of teachers' demographic variables, they played an active role in telling stories to children and positively believed that stories facilitate speech and language, cognition, literacy, and socio-pragmatic development in preschoolers. The findings broadly apply stories for preschool child development in clinical and school settings.

We examine the role of culture in comprehension. Prominent theories of comprehension conceptualized the outcome of reading as learners' construction of a cognitive representation of texts. We emphasize that such representation reflects not only texts' content, but also individuals' understandings of the real world, as described in texts. We suggest that, thus, individuals should be supported to question and analyze the mental representations that they form; we use the term "culture" to capture such questioning and analysis. Rather than an individual difference factor, we argue for conceptualizing culture as a way of thinking, or as individuals' reasoning about the commonalities and differences in their and others' worldviews and the linking of these to underlying values. When such reasoning is engaged in reference to texts, we refer to this as culturalized comprehension; when such reasoning is further engaged to resist or recast the values introduced in texts to generate counternarratives, we refer to this as critical culturalized comprehension. In emphasizing the importance of culturalized and critical culturalized comprehension and describing the set of cognitive processes involved, we argue for research in educational psychology to examine how learners may be consciously, reflectively, and critically engaged in using texts to understand their world.

Intellectual disability in India is substantially under-reported, especially amongst females. This study quantifies the prevalence and gender bias in household reporting of intellectual disability by estimating the age-and-gender specific prevalence of the intellectually disabled by education, Socio-Demographic Index (SDI) score, place of residence, (rural/urban) and income of household head. We estimated prevalence (per 100,000) at 179 (95% CI: 173 to 185) for males and 120 (95% CI: 115 to 125) for females. Gender differences declined sharply with increased education, was higher for lower ages and low income and varied little by state development. Under-identification and under-reporting due to stigma are two plausible reasons for the gender differences in prevalence that increase with age.

Purpose: This paper investigated the possibilities of implementing inclusive education in the tertiary-level language classrooms and suggests new teaching methodologies adhering to the guidelines of multicultural education (MCE) framework. It explored how Indian teachers fostered social inclusivity in ESP (English for Specific Purposes) classrooms and documented the methods used by the language teachers to sustain a socially inclusive environment in the classroom. Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative study undertaken with 17 faculty members using online interviews and surveys as tools revealed the challenges faced by the teachers. Findings: The results have implications towards teacher training as there is a clear dearth of teacher strategies to foster an equitable and inclusive learning environment inside the classroom. Social implications: Classrooms are the sources of values and perspectives, and teachers are responsible for providing equal opportunities to students who are otherwise marginalised in society. Originality/value: Inclusive education aims at providing equal opportunities to people despite the differences in terms of race, class, caste, region, religion, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and disabilities. India being a multilingual and multicultural country, inculcating values in students to enable them to reflect beyond these differences becomes important.

In most developed nations, there is a general trend of enrolling hearing-impaired children with special education needs in regular schools. Inclusive education refers to children with special education needs becoming part of a mainstream school like typically developing peers. A good method for evaluating the success of such programs is to assess teachers' attitudes towards inclusion. The inclusive education approach may be challenging to implement across all educational setups due to the lack of academic resources, expertise, and training towards inclusive education. This study explored teachers' attitudes and perceptions towards the inclusion of children with hearing impairment in regular schools in Karnataka state. A tool named 'Teachers Attitude Questionnaire' which was developed by Galis and Tanner was used to study the attitudes and perceptions of school teachers. The tool was then revised by considering geographic and cultural differences and was administered to 421 teachers across Karnataka. Analysis revealed a higher score in all the 4 domains of inclusive education which shows that most teachers had a positive attitude towards inclusive education. Results about teachers' attitudes towards inclusive education based on work experience, type of school, gender, medium of instruction, and level of teaching were statistically significant, p < 0.05. This study concludes that teachers' attitudes varied concerning the level of experience and level of teaching. The results of the current study also stress the need for awareness programs to bring more positive attitudes among teachers, to successfully implement inclusive education.

In the current scenario, the words Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Intelligence are the familiar ones among students of all ages. This study analyzes the usage of virtual intelligence during the pandemic period. The students of higher education mostly adopted the present way of teaching by using technology. A Positive approach to virtual Intelligence is exhibited in this study. 142 samples were collected by using a convenient sampling method through the well-framed questionnaire for the data analysis.

The Johns Hopkins University Doctor of Education program was developed with the expressed program outcome of developing leaders who possess the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to rigorously examine educational problems of practice with stakeholders within their context of professional practice using a social justice lens. The purpose of this article is to describe how improvement science principles depicted by Bryk et al. (2015) served as a frame for our Applied Dissertation to support scholar-practitioners to partner with their colleagues in educational institutions and to independently take on the challenges and opportunities they will encounter in their future work. We outline the dissertation through a discussion of these principles and provide four examples of the resulting dissertations and their impact on the scholar-practitioner's context of professional practice and on them as educational leaders.

Early childhood care and development programmes are considered very useful for the children. It is an umbrella term which denotes providing a variety of interventions for young children and their families which includes childcare, education, health, and nutrition, and as well as the parents' support. The first goal of education is to promote early childhood development for vulnerable children. The importance of early childhood care and development was provided by World Health Organisation, UNICEF, and UNESCO for improving physical as well as psychosocial wellbeing of the children's and to develop cognitive skills among the learners to eradicate poverty. In India the early childhood care and development programmes are school based nursery programmes for the age group of 3 to 6, through community groups or play schools where the learners learn through play way method. In India, the institutions were basically designed on the grounds of British Infant Schools and Froebellian kindergartens and were serving the requirements of British rulers and Indian elites. For a normal child, the facility of childcare was mainly informal and was being provided within the family system or in extended kinships. The current study focusses on the early childhood care and development from an Indian perspective. It analyses various initiatives taken by the government of India for girl childcare. Moreover, the author give some measures through which the childcare can be improved in India.

Background: Pretend play is a form of play that involves nonliteral actions. There are limited studies reporting the developmental trends of pretend play behaviours of typically developing pre-schoolers. This knowledge would be beneficial in the early identification of deviations in pre-schoolers who have or are at risk of developing developmental disabilities. Aim: The present study aimed to describe the developmental trends in pretend play skills across different age groups of pre-schoolers. The study also aimed to understand the differential patterns in pretend play observed across the Free Play and Structured Toy Play scenarios. Setting: This study was conducted on pre-schoolers in a classroom of the school. Method: The study followed a cross-sectional study design. Forty-eight participants were recruited for the study and were divided into four groups. A video recording of the child's pretend play skills was recorded using a Sony-HDRCX405 camcorder in Free Play and Structured Toy Play scenarios. The recorded video was coded and analysed for the occurrence of pretend play skills using the Play in Early Childhood Evaluation System (PIECES) coding scheme. Results: The study results depict a developmental trend in the occurrences of pretend play skills in pre-schoolers. It also emphasises the importance of amalgamation of Structured Toy Play and Free Play scenarios for the child's holistic development because of the unique benefits of each scenario. Conclusion: The study findings could help in the formulation of Individualised Education Programme objectives for typically developing children and children with developmental disabilities involving play, thus enabling these children experience normalised, contextually pertinent experiences like their peers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the educational systems to shift from traditional learning to flexible learning. Flexible learning is a combination of digital and non-digital technology that ensures the continuity of inclusive and accessible education in the form of online, offline, or blended modes of teaching and learning processes. This descriptive study determined the learning tools and e-learning resources, learning platform and online learning systems, skills towards learning platform and online learning systems, and learning engagements of students of Cavite State University - Silang Campus (CvSU-SC) amidst the new normal setting of learning. Using stratified random sampling, there were 364 student-respondents represented by four departments who answered the structured questionnaire online using Google Form. The findings revealed that smartphones and mobile applications were the most utilized educational tool and e-learning resources. Google Classroom was the most widely used online learning system during asynchronous classes, while Google Meet was a meeting platform during synchronous scheduled classes. It was found that students' skills towards online learning systems and meeting platforms were proficient. During flexible learning, Facebook was on top of the most convenient, followed by Google and Zoom as perceived by students as accessible, equitable, communicative, monitorable, and sustainable to use. Consequently, it was found that students strongly agreed on preparedness as the most vital to engagement in online learning. Accordingly, findings suggest that strengthening online teaching and delivery of methods by creating content tailored to the needs of the students during flexible learning will propel to ensuring the efficacy of teaching and learning processes. Various suggestions were offered for key players in education in addressing the challenges of online learning.

The objectives of the study on which this paper is based, were to develop an IT [Information Technology] based expert system on dairy cattle diseases for Continuing Veterinary Education (CVE) of veterinarians and to assess its effectiveness. The veterinarians working in three districts under the Animal Husbandry Department, Kerala were the respondents of the study. The research was conducted in three phases. A needs analysis was conducted to prioritize the dairy cattle diseases based on which the content was developed. Concerned experts validated the content of different dairy cattle diseases before being incorporated into the software tools. The perceived applicability of the expert system 'DIAREX-K' was assessed using a stratified proportionate random sampling to identify participants who then completed a structured questionnaire. The majority of the respondents rated the expert system as highly satisfactory and indicated a favorable attitude toward computer usage. Simplicity and design aspects of the system received top ranking. The findings indicate that it is essential for the organization to take the initiative and motivate the veterinary professionals to use computer-assisted aids such as the expert system as a CVE program to improve their clinical and diagnostic practices.

The current stage of society development is very closely related to the digitalization of all spheres of public life without exception. Education in this regard should become the starting point or the basis for the competent and conscious application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, neural networks, and other cyber-physical systems based on AI, as well as robots and robotics objects. Digitalization in education is promoted by economic, social and structural prerequisites. The introduction of these technologies provides new opportunities to improve the educational process, but at the same time the application of these technologies faces some risks, the identification of negative consequences of which is delayed. The aim of the article is to provide the ways for the development of legal regulation of AI, robots and robotics objects in education. The study considers the experience of different countries in the implementation of AI technologies in the educational process, provides the opinions of international UNESCO experts, Russian and foreign researchers. According to the results of the research, three main directions of the relationship between the development of AI technologies and education are identified: 1) training with the help of AI technologies; 2) scientific and practical research of AI and its technologies; 3) training qualified specialists to work with AI in the process of obtaining secondary and higher education. The factors that hinder the implementation of these technologies, as well as the risks of negative consequences of their use in the form of violations of the students' rights are revealed. Findings and proposals for each of the identified areas are formulated.

Notwithstanding the central role played by argumentation in research writing, writing courses on offer to students on the doctoral programmes hardly manifest this significance. To emphasize the role of argumentation in research, this study investigated the effectiveness of an EAP course on argumentation collaboratively taught by two instructors to students enrolled on the doctoral programme in a central university in India. To see the impact of the course on students' argumentation, the data gathered from various writing tasks before, during and after the course were analyzed qualitatively. To understand the overall effectiveness of the course, students' perceptions gathered from the end-of-the-semester questionnaire and teachers' reflections recorded in a dialogic reflective journal were analyzed thematically. Data analysis revealed that explicit instruction of argumentation led to improvement in students' sense of argumentation though such an improvement was not uniform across all the students' written arguments. Both the students' perceptions and the teachers' reflections indicate that various pedagogical decisions made throughout the course contributed to the effectiveness of the course. The findings imply that explicit teaching of argumentation alongside appropriate pedagogical decisions appeared to help these students improve their argumentation.

Software engineering is a core theory course offered in undergraduate engineering programmes which deals with various systematic approaches, methods, and tools that can be employed for designing, developing, testing, and maintaining quality software applications. It is one of the challenging courses for the teaching faculty. After graduation, the students are expected to practice software engineering principles and practices in their prospective projects. In order to satisfy the industrial requirement, and to create industry ready software professionals, software engineering course is offered as theory cum practical course. This article focuses on setting up an effective learning environment for learning software engineering courses. The course is blended with traditional classroom teaching methodology along with a set of pedagogical practices, active learning strategies, ICT tools for content delivery and assessment. This enhanced approach in teaching learning methodology improves student learning outcomes, which in turn helps them to adopt corporate practices more easily.

Entrepreneurship is a powerful tool that reduces unemployment, boosts economic growth, and promotes innovation and social change. With a focus on the promotion of entrepreneurial intention possessed by higher education institutions offering entrepreneurship education, this study assesses the indirect impact of higher education institutions in developing entrepreneurial intention through passion as a mediator. It also investigates the moderating role of individual differences and innovativeness between the entrepreneurship education in higher education institution and the entrepreneurship educational outcome, namely entrepreneurial intention. Also, the moderated mediation relationship between entrepreneurship education in a higher education institution and entrepreneurial intention is assessed. To conduct the cross-sectional study, data was collected from 636 students perusing an entrepreneurship course at colleges affiliated with Bharathiar University in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu (India). A questionnaire with 37 items is used to collect the data as ratings from respondents. The moderated mediation model is designed and tested using the bootstrapping method in the Hayes PROCESS macro model. According to the findings, the association between entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions and passion is negatively moderated by individual differences and innovativeness. Further, the study revealed that the combined effect of the higher education institution, individual differences, and innovativeness on entrepreneurial intention is mediated by passion.