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Abstract Background Applied Calculus courses serve hundreds of thousands of undergraduates as quantitative preparation and gatekeepers across diverse fields of study. The current study investigated how motivational factors are associated with students’ learning outcomes in Applied Calculus courses from the perspective of self-determination theory—a sound comprehensive motivation theory that has been supported by considerable research in psychology and education. In order to have a nuanced understanding of students’ motivation and learning in Applied Calculus courses, we used three different types of learning measures to investigate students’ mathematics achievement, including course grades, a standardized knowledge exam, and students’ perceived knowledge transferability. Results We tested the relationships between motivational factors and learning outcomes with a multi-semester sample of 3226 undergraduates from 188 Applied Calculus classrooms. To increase the precision of our analysis, we controlled for three demographic variables that are suggested to be relevant to mathematics achievement: gender, minority group status, and socioeconomic status. With a series of multilevel modeling analyses, the results reveal that: (1) competence satisfaction predicts college students’ mathematics achievement over and above the satisfaction of needs for autonomy and relatedness; and (2) autonomous motivation is a more powerful predictor of college students’ mathematics achievement than controlled motivation and amotivation. These findings are consistent across different types of learning outcomes. Conclusions Self-determination theory provides an effective framework for understanding college students’ motivation and learning in Applied Calculus courses. This study extends self-determination theory in the field of mathematics education and contributes to the dialogue on advancing undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education by providing evidence to understand how motivational factors are associated with students’ learning outcomes in undergraduate mathematics courses.

Mentoring relationships between research supervisors and doctoral students play a key role in doctoral students’ success. Self-determination theory assumes that the quality of these relationships can be defined in terms of fulfillment of students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Studies on how supervisors and students build need-supportive relationships are, however, lacking. Taking a schema-based perspective, this article investigates supervisors’ and doctoral students’ (mis)alignments in schemas on how to fulfill students’ basic needs in their relationship. Qualitative data were obtained from a sample of 18 interviews (nine dyads) to reveal the schema-driven sensemaking of students and their supervisors. Findings show that the idea of schema similarity might be too simple: For each of the three basic needs, tensions arise between students’ and supervisors’ schemas. These need-based schemas in action offer a fresh perspective for understanding why some supervisor-doctoral student relationships are experienced as successful while others are not.

The technology interface and student engagement are important factors that can contribute to sustainable student satisfaction. Technology has become an integral part of the recent teaching–learning setup and it can significantly impact student satisfaction. Additionally, student engagement is vital for sustainable student satisfaction. Engaged students are more likely to take an active role in their education, participate in discussions, and ask questions. When students are engaged, they feel a sense of ownership over their learning experience, which can lead to higher levels of satisfaction. Therefore, educational institutions should strive to provide students with technology that is intuitive and easy to use and create an environment that fosters engagement and collaboration. By doing so, institutions can increase student satisfaction and improve overall academic outcomes. This research study was primarily conducted to understand the potential of the technology interface (TI) and student engagement (SE) in enhancing student satisfaction (SS). The study uses a survey to collect responses from 400 respondents from higher educational institutions (HEIs). PLS-SEM has been used to test the proposed hypothesis. Three dimensions of the technology interface (TI) include cyber infrastructure, quality of e-content, and technology-assisted facilities. It is essential to understand how the technology interface influences student engagement (SE) through three dimensions, viz. new skills development, active involvement, and academic achievements. The student satisfaction scale has an employability perspective, teaching perspective, and learning perspective as subscales. Initially, the study examines the influence of the technology interface on student engagement. The findings support a positive impact on student engagement. The next step was to study the direct effect of the technology interface on student satisfaction. The results lend support to a positive influence. An attempt was also made to investigate the mediation of student engagement between the technology interface and student satisfaction. The findings highlight that with the mediation of student engagement, the influence of the technology interface on student satisfaction is improved. This study is one of the pioneering empirical studies highlighting the importance of the technology interface on the mediation of student engagement in student satisfaction. Technology may be a prerequisite, but it needs to be translated to student satisfaction by using it with student engagement (new skills development, active involvement, and academic achievements). The study has meaningful implications for policymakers at universities to enable them to strategize around practices conducive to the implementation of technology, and for student engagement activities to enhance student satisfaction in higher education institutes (HEIs).

OBJECTIVE: Although adaptive e-learning environments (AEEs) can provide personalised instruction to health professional and students, their efficacy remains unclear. Therefore, this review aimed to identify, appraise and synthesise the evidence regarding the efficacy of AEEs in improving knowledge, skills and clinical behaviour in health professionals and students. DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis. DATA SOURCES: CINAHL, EMBASE, ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed and Web of Science from the first year of records to February 2019. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: Controlled studies that evaluated the effect of an AEE on knowledge, skills or clinical behaviour in health professionals or students. SCREENING, DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS: Two authors screened studies, extracted data, assessed risk of bias and coded quality of evidence independently. AEEs were reviewed with regard to their topic, theoretical framework and adaptivity process. Studies were included in the meta-analysis if they had a non-adaptive e-learning environment control group and had no missing data. Effect sizes (ES) were pooled using a random effects model. RESULTS: From a pool of 10 569 articles, we included 21 eligible studies enrolling 3684 health professionals and students. Clinical topics were mostly related to diagnostic testing, theoretical frameworks were varied and the adaptivity process was characterised by five subdomains: method, goals, timing, factors and types. The pooled ES was 0.70 for knowledge (95% CI -0.08 to 1.49; p.08) and 1.19 for skills (95% CI 0.59 to 1.79; p<0.00001). Risk of bias was generally high. Heterogeneity was large in all analyses. CONCLUSIONS: AEEs appear particularly effective in improving skills in health professionals and students. The adaptivity process within AEEs may be more beneficial for learning skills rather than factual knowledge, which generates less cognitive load. Future research should report more clearly on the design and adaptivity process of AEEs, and target higher-level outcomes, such as clinical behaviour. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42017065585.

Abstract The latest development of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), particularly ChatGPT, has drawn the attention of educational researchers and practitioners. We have witnessed many innovative uses of ChatGPT in STEM classrooms. However, studies regarding students’ perceptions of ChatGPT as a virtual tutoring tool in STEM education are rare. The current study investigated undergraduate students’ perceptions of using ChatGPT in a physics class as an assistant tool for addressing physics questions. Specifically, the study examined the accuracy of ChatGPT in answering physics questions, the relationship between students’ ChatGPT trust levels and answer accuracy, and the influence of trust on students’ perceptions of ChatGPT. Our finding indicates that despite the inaccuracy of GenAI in question answering, most students trust its ability to provide correct answers. Trust in GenAI is also associated with students’ perceptions of GenAI. In addition, this study sheds light on students’ misconceptions toward GenAI and provides suggestions for future considerations in AI literacy teaching and research.

The production-oriented approach (POA) has been developed over ten years to overcome the weaknesses in English instruction in tertiary education in Mainland China. The POA tries to integrate the strengths of Western instructional approaches with Chinese contextual features and consists of three components: (a) teaching principles; (b) teaching hypotheses; and (c) teacher-mediated teaching processes. The teaching principles include ‘learning-centered’, ‘learning-using integration’, and ‘whole-person education’, and the teaching hypotheses are ‘output-driven’, ‘input-enabled’, and ‘selective learning’. The teaching processes contain three phases, each mediated by the teacher: motivating, enabling, and assessing. The three principles set guidelines for the other two components; the three hypotheses serve as a theoretical basis for the teaching process; the three-phase teaching process reflects and illustrates the principles while testing the hypotheses.

This report draws from the lessons P/PV has learned from a deeply invested community of afterschool practitioners, administrators, practitioners, funders and influential stakeholders. This research would not have been possible were it not for the steadfast commitment, patience and largesse of each individual listed below.