ABSTRACT
Teacher technology integration research on persistence is needed. Teachers' persistence is strongly associated with their autonomous motivation, as defined by self-determination theory (SDT); however, most SDT-based studies have focused on teachers' support and students' motivation and well-being. SDT founders also recently suggested that future studies should include teacher motivation towards the use of technology. Accordingly, this experimental and longitudinal study aimed to investigate how the proposed support encouraged and sustained the low- and high- quality teachers' integration practices. It proposed a school learning support intervention with three dimensions-leader, expert, and peer support-to meet teachers' basic needs and thereby increase their motivation for and persistence in classroom technology integration. It had a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, involved 122 school teachers and lasted for 22 months. Pre-, post- and delay- questionnaires and two arounds of interviews were used to collect the teachers perceptions on needs satisfaction and technology integration practices. The results suggest that the support increased the extent to which the teachers' needs were met, resulting in more high-quality (student-centered) but not low-quality (lecturing) integration practices. However, the intervention sustained both types of integration practices. The findings offer three major empirical implications, makes two theoretical contributions, and offers four practical suggestions for researchers and practitioners.
ABSTRACT
The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines were extensively studied to understand inclusive learning and teaching in higher education. However, to date, there have been few studies that approached UDL-based asynchronous university courses from the needs satisfaction perspective in self-determination theory (SDT). To address this gap, researchers designed and implemented two 15-week asynchronous online courses based on UDL. They then tested their effectiveness with college freshmen (N = 225) by adopting a sequential explanatory mixed method. The study aimed to examine (i) whether asynchronous instruction based on UDL catered to inclusion and diversity across gender and academic background and (ii) whether the instructional design supported learner engagement and needs satisfaction. The findings showed that both male and female students as well as Arts and Sciences students equally engaged in the courses and perceived the needs support from the course design. However, the study also found that although universal design supported autonomy and competence, it nonetheless failed to fully satisfy learners' relatedness needs. The researchers concluded by discussing empirical and theoretical implications.
ABSTRACT
A growing interest has been observed among K-12 school educators to incorporate maker pedagogy into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education to engage students in the design and making process. Both cognitive engagement and emotional engagement of students can be promoted through satisfying the psychological need of relatedness that concerns a sense of connection and belonging. How to support relatedness would influence the effective development of students' cognitive competencies, namely creativity and critical thinking, and non-cognitive characteristics, namely interest and identity. Therefore, the present study investigated how two relatedness support strategies-real-world problems (RWP) and mentoring influence the development of student's STEM-related cognitive competencies and non-cognitive characteristics in STEM marker activities. We implemented a 7-week intervention study with three classes of Grade 9 students (aged 13-15 years) in Hong Kong (n = 95). Three intervention conditions were designed in the experiment, comprising textbook problem (TBP), RWP, and RWP with mentoring (RWPM). Our analysis showed that (i) the differences in creativity among the three groups were non-significant, (ii) the RWP and RWPM groups showed stronger critical thinking than the TBP group, and (iii) the RWPM group exhibited stronger STEM interest and identity than the other two groups. This study revealed the effectiveness of adopting RWP strategy in developing secondary students' perceived cognitive competencies (e.g., creativity and critical thinking) and the feasibility of employing a mentoring mechanism for cultivating learners' perceived non-cognitive characteristics (e.g., STEM identity and interest). Hence, we also offered practical suggestions for teachers.
