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Recent global educational initiatives and reforms have focused on\nincreasing the number of students pursuing STEM subjects, and ensuring students\nare well-prepared, and suitably qualified to engage in STEM careers. This paper\nexamines the contributions of the four disciplines - Science, Technology,\nEngineering and Mathematics - to the field of STEM education, and discusses\nSTEM literacy; factors influencing students’ engagement in STEM education;\neffective pedagogical practices, and their influence on student learning and\nachievement in STEM; and the role of the teacher in STEM education. Through a\ncritical review of 237 studies, three key factors were identified: (1) the\nimportance of focusing on the junior secondary phase of schooling to maintain\nstudent interest and motivation to engage in STEM, (2) the implementation of\neffective pedagogical practices to increase student interest and motivation,\ndevelop 21st century competencies, and improve student achievement, and (3) the\ndevelopment of high-quality teachers to positively affect students’ attitudes and\nmotivation towards STEM.

The claim of advancing the use of Personal Learning Environments arose from the ideas of an ongoing learning process which lasts throughout a lifetime and informal learning being a meaningful part of the development of an individual’s expertise. In order to develop expertise, the following steps are necessary: first, one must explore the competences related to the profession; second, one must discover what these competencies and skills involve; and third, one must reflect on how to master the techniques involved. In addition to this kind of individual process, it is also important nowadays to acknowledge that demonstrating that one has achieved the necessary competences is important information for many audiences, such as workplaces, networks and employers. Nowadays, the most effective way to show one’s competence to a wider audience, as well as to review one’s skills oneself, is to create a digital record or portfolio (an ePortfolio). However, making an individual’s competence transparent in a digital format has proven complicated. This study focuses on exploring vocational student teachers’ competence through their ePortfolios, mainly using a theoretical framework of the pedagogical infrastructure design. The study reveals that there is a lot of variation in the quality of ePortfolios and therefore more scaffolding is needed to support student teachers in making their teacher competence visible through ePortfolios. The study advocates both creating a workspace ePortfolio as well as making competence transparent through a showcase ePortfolio.

This paper examines the potential benefits and challenges of using the generative AI model, ChatGPT, in higher education, in the backdrop of the constructivist theory of learning. This perspective-type study presents five benefits of ChatGPT: the potential to facilitate adaptive learning, provide personalised feedback, support research and data analysis, offer automated administrative services, and aid in developing innovative assessments. Additionally, the paper identifies five challenges: academic integrity concerns, reliability issues, inability to evaluate and reinforce graduate skill sets, limitations in assessing learning outcomes, and potential biases and falsified information in information processing. The paper argues that tertiary educators and students must exercise caution when using ChatGPT for academic purposes to ensure its ethical, reliable, and effective use. To achieve this, the paper proposes various propositions, such as prioritising education on the responsible and ethical use of ChatGPT, devising new assessment strategies, addressing bias and falsified information, and including AI literacy as part of graduate skills. By balancing the potential benefits and challenges, ChatGPT can enhance students’ learning experiences in higher education.

Abstract This paper asks how undergraduate engineering education supports students' ethical development, broadly defined, in a diverse sample of U.S. engineering schools and offers an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of those efforts. The paper draws on observational case studies that were based on site visits to undergraduate mechanical and electrical engineering programs at seven universities or engineering schools in the U.S. It begins by proposing professional codes of ethics in engineering as a useful framework for thinking about the goals for student learning in the area of ethics and professional responsibility. The paper then discusses how and to what degree these goals are being addressed in the case study schools, with additional context provided through reference to published research in the field. The paper concludes with recommendations for strengthening the teaching of engineering ethics and professional responsibility.

This paper will explore a curriculum framework that explicitly addresses the reduction of heterosexism as a means to produce students that are culturally competent of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Van Den Bergh and Crisp (2004) place great importance on addressing beliefs/attitudes, knowledge, and skills when broaching culturally competent practice with the LGBTQ population. Beliefs/attitudes, knowledge, and skills in an educational approach will be advocated in this paper. Specifically, the creation of a constructivist environment will be endorsed as a means for students to critically assess their own beliefs/attitudes, knowledge, and skills. A curriculum framework that utilizes classroom activities related to heterosexual privilege, policy, and practice role plays will be discussed. This curriculum framework is intended to prepare social work students to work with LGBTQ clients.

EDITORIAL NOTE: See https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD015328.pub2, https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD015330.pub2 and https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD015326.pub2 for more recent reviews that cover this topic. BACKGROUND: Prevention of childhood obesity is an international public health priority given the significant impact of obesity on acute and chronic diseases, general health, development and well-being. The international evidence base for strategies to prevent obesity is very large and is accumulating rapidly. This is an update of a previous review. OBJECTIVES: To determine the effectiveness of a range of interventions that include diet or physical activity components, or both, designed to prevent obesity in children. SEARCH METHODS: We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, PsychINFO and CINAHL in June 2015. We re-ran the search from June 2015 to January 2018 and included a search of trial registers. SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of diet or physical activity interventions, or combined diet and physical activity interventions, for preventing overweight or obesity in children (0-17 years) that reported outcomes at a minimum of 12 weeks from baseline. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two authors independently extracted data, assessed risk-of-bias and evaluated overall certainty of the evidence using GRADE. We extracted data on adiposity outcomes, sociodemographic characteristics, adverse events, intervention process and costs. We meta-analysed data as guided by the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions and presented separate meta-analyses by age group for child 0 to 5 years, 6 to 12 years, and 13 to 18 years for zBMI and BMI. MAIN RESULTS: , 95% CI -0.14 to -0.05). However, there is moderate-certainty evidence that they had little or no effect on zBMI (MD -0.02, 95% CI -0.06 to 0.02). There is low-certainty evidence from 20 RCTs (n = 24,043) that diet combined with physical activity interventions, compared with control, reduced zBMI (MD -0.05 kg/m2, 95% CI -0.10 to -0.01). There is high-certainty evidence that diet interventions, compared with control, had little impact on zBMI (MD -0.03, 95% CI -0.06 to 0.01) or BMI (-0.02 kg/m2, 95% CI -0.11 to 0.06).Children aged 13 to 18 years: There is very low-certainty evidence that physical activity interventions, compared with control reduced BMI (MD -1.53 kg/m2, 95% CI -2.67 to -0.39; 4 RCTs; n = 720); and low-certainty evidence for a reduction in zBMI (MD -0.2, 95% CI -0.3 to -0.1; 1 RCT; n = 100). There is low-certainty evidence from eight RCTs (n = 16,583) that diet combined with physical activity interventions, compared with control, had no effect on BMI (MD -0.02 kg/m2, 95% CI -0.10 to 0.05); or zBMI (MD 0.01, 95% CI -0.05 to 0.07; 6 RCTs; n = 16,543). Evidence from two RCTs (low-certainty evidence; n = 294) found no effect of diet interventions on BMI.Direct comparisons of interventions: Two RCTs reported data directly comparing diet with either physical activity or diet combined with physical activity interventions for children aged 6 to 12 years and reported no differences.Heterogeneity was apparent in the results from all three age groups, which could not be entirely explained by setting or duration of the interventions. Where reported, interventions did not appear to result in adverse effects (16 RCTs) or increase health inequalities (gender: 30 RCTs; socioeconomic status: 18 RCTs), although relatively few studies examined these factors.Re-running the searches in January 2018 identified 315 records with potential relevance to this review, which will be synthesised in the next update. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Interventions that include diet combined with physical activity interventions can reduce the risk of obesity (zBMI and BMI) in young children aged 0 to 5 years. There is weaker evidence from a single study that dietary interventions may be beneficial.However, interventions that focus only on physical activity do not appear to be effective in children of this age. In contrast, interventions that only focus on physical activity can reduce the risk of obesity (BMI) in children aged 6 to 12 years, and adolescents aged 13 to 18 years. In these age groups, there is no evidence that interventions that only focus on diet are effective, and some evidence that diet combined with physical activity interventions may be effective. Importantly, this updated review also suggests that interventions to prevent childhood obesity do not appear to result in adverse effects or health inequalities.The review will not be updated in its current form. To manage the growth in RCTs of child obesity prevention interventions, in future, this review will be split into three separate reviews based on child age.

This paper considers some of the changes in social work education in the UK, particularly focusing on practice learning in England. The changes and developments are briefly identified and examined in the context of what we know about practice learning. The paper presents some findings from a small scale qualitative study of key stakeholders involved in practice learning and education in social work and their perceptions of these anticipated changes, which are revisited at implementation. The implications for practice learning are discussed.

This study used the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method to investigate the influence of work-life balance (WLB) on individual well-being (career satisfaction and psychological well-being) among an Open Distance Learning (ODL) university’s staff. Furthermore, the moderating effects of supervisor support and family support on the relationship between WLB and both components of individual well-being were also examined. Data were collected via an online survey, in which 94 academic, academic support, and operational staff working in one of Malaysia’s ODL universities took part. The findings confirmed that the WLB of this institution’s employees influenced their career satisfaction and psychological well-being. Besides that, supervisor support and family support were found not to moderate the relationship between WLB and individual well-being. In addition, the findings have contributed to an improved understanding of the WLB of an ODL university’s staff.