Higher education institutions increasingly seek to promote students’ intercultural competence (IC), yet its conceptualization remains a challenge. The first aim of this study was to explore how a purposive sample of n=77 domestic, undergraduate students at a public university in Germany define IC. The second aim was to assess to what extent such definitions are context-dependent by comparing IC definitions provided by domestic students (with predominantly German nationality and little international experience/exposure) with those provided by n=130 international, undergraduate students at a private university in Germany (with predominantly non-German nationality and more extensive international experience/exposure). A qualitative content analysis showed that domestic students defined IC mostly in terms of attitudes followed by external outcomes while the opposite was true for the international students. Differences in IC definitions between the two samples are discussed with regard to various contextual factors. Our results suggest that such contextual factors should be considered when designing measures to promote IC development in university students.

It can be said that effective development of intercultural sensitivity depends on the regulations and practices in the curriculum. Integrated program implementations are seen as one of the ways of regulation. In the study, a nested integration model was used in a single discipline. In this context, scientific research methods are considered as a discipline, and the achievements of this discipline and intercultural sensitivity development activities are integrated. Understanding different cultures correctly and not being prejudiced are very important for the development of intercultural sensitivity. Scientific research methods course provides students with scientific attitudes and behaviors. In this course, it is thought that students will be able to develop sensitivity by examining different cultures with scientific attitudes and behaviors. In this context, it is aimed to reveal the effectiveness of intercultural sensitization development activities integrated with scientific research methods course gains. The quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest and a control group was used in the study. The study group comprised of 86 second-grade students in the English Teacher Training Department. In order to measure the intercultural sensitivities of the students before and after the test procedure, the five-point likert type “Intercultural Sensitivity Scale” developed by Chen and Starosta and adapted to Turkish by Bulduk, Tosun and Ardic was used as data collection tool. It is concluded that the curriculum of scientific research methods integrated with intercultural sensitivity development activities is effective in developing students' intercultural sensitivities.

The purpose of the study was to examine and evaluate the impact the “flipped classroom” model-based learning environment accompanied by multimedia-based textbook entitled “Ukrainian language (for professional purposes)” provides for the language proficiency and learning styles of the university students majoring in language and literature teaching. A multimedia textbook “Ukrainian for Special Purposes” was designed for the study. A multi method approach was used to gather feedback and quantitative methods were used to analyze the data. Specifically, a 2X2 split-plot design was used to analyze the quantitative data and the two-way ANOVA for Mixed Measures was used to designate the main effects for column and row factors and their interaction effect related to the efficacy of the experiment. Textalyzer software was used to process the students’ responses to survey questions. The results reported a shift in student preferences in learning, including a greater desire to engage independently with computer-assisted work, quicker problem solving, increased motivation to study, and improved time management and lifelong learning skills. The study may better inform building the learning process for the students with limited learning opportunities or studying the distance learning model. Despite the experimental group involving only the students majoring in Economics, this methodology could be applicable to teaching Ukrainian for specific purposes to other majors, such as: Psychology, Educational Management, etc. The research is advancing the knowledge of integration multimedia tools into teaching, and specifically the use of multimedia textbooks in the “flipped classroom” settings to deliver the language course to the students majoring in literature and language teaching.

University attempts to respond to globalization to build international trust by conducting internationalization as the bridge of their selected strategies. The efforts needed to build international trust are promotion strategies. This study aims to elaborate the effective promotion strategies in Jenderal Soedirman University, Indonesia. The data were collected by some deep interviews, observation, and documentation. The result shows that the promotion strategies includes, first, the university’s direction to be recognized globally by a strong vision, international accreditation for its study programs, and being the center of special studies. Second, the university publicizes the university’s programs, activities, excellence, and uniqueness through printed or online media, foreign institutions, and individuals. Third, the university initiates international collaborations with foreign universities and institutions by building good interpersonal communication, forming teams for international collaborations, initiating activities to build trust among individuals, and getting involved in international events. Last, the university offers scholarships for foreign students to increase inbound students.

Research productivity plays an important role in the prestige and reputation among higher education institutions. However, the time spent to do research among Filipino academics is the most pressing issue since they can barely meet the requirement for research productivity. Further, the lack of time for data gathering aggravated the drawbacks for research productivity. Data gathering is at the core of almost all research activity, the absence of factual and reliable data will lead to an invalid and illogical inference. In research years, there has been a massive agglomeration of data in large volumes coming from diverse sources pertaining to almost all facets of human activity which is worthy of investigation- known today as Big Data. This research has two (2) main objectives; the first is to find out the underlying reasons why Filipino academics are not enthusiastic to do research. The second is to evaluate the value of big data utilization for research productivity based on the assessment of the faculty members. This research used the Rasch model to measure the responses of Filipino academics with regards to their reasons for not doing enough research work as well as on their assessment for value creation of big data utilization using a polytomous item response selection scale.

The purpose of this research is to experimentally evaluate how the “flipped classroom” model used to deliver Business English, which is commonly an integral part to the ESP course at tertiary schools of Economics in Ukraine, to the students majoring in Economics fosters students’ critical thinking skills and improved their academic performances and what students’ perceptions of this model are. The learning environment used a multimedia-based textbook entitled “Business skills through English”. This was experimental research which used a mixed-methods approach. Students’ critical thinking skills and academic performance (learning outcomes) were the variables for this study. Placement tests, needs analysis questionnaires, Course Satisfaction Questionnaire, a test to assess the students’ critical thinking skills were used to collect the statistical data. Cronbach Alpha coefficient was applied to interpret the test on critical thinking data and SPSS AMOS statistical package programme was used to analyse the consolidated data. The study found that the “flipped classroom” model used to deliver ESP and Business English to the students majoring in Economics has the potential to provide a better learning experience for the students and teaching experience for the teachers. This model fosters students’ critical thinking skills by involving them in problem-solving-based learning and improves their academic performances by increasing their responsibility for learning results and stimulating them to use different learning styles. Overall, the above model substitutes a teacher-centered with a student-centered approach that engages learners in the true-to-life business world and language environment. In this way, learning Business English and ESP at higher educational institutions in Ukraine is a move from just training memory (memorizing professionalism-related English vocabulary and doing grammar drills) to applying language as a learning medium in the specifically designed vocational contexts.

In Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, international teachers, who were in mentorship positions were interviewed for their experiences with mentee resistance to mentoring. In this paper, the authors investigate aspects of the perception of resistance to mentoring in the program for long-service teachers. It is the aim of this paper to explore the definitions that mentors attach to resistance, based on their experiences in one NIS School. The questions to be answered were how the mentors defined mentoring, and how the mentors experienced resistance from their mentees. Semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face. The mentor responses were captured on a dictaphone, and transcribed later. Eleven teachers participated in the interviews. The definitions of mentoring resistance were examined in seven categories as hesitation, stagnation, body language, fear, unavailability, and mistrust of the mentor. Stagnation was the largest category, displayed by unwillingness to try new things, unwillingness to see own limitations, close mindedness, unwillingness to see own weakness, and passivity in action.

Nowadays, teaching and learning activity employing the flipped classroom model has an important position in the process of providing education. This research aimed at identifying and analyzing articles examining the flipped classroom model that has been published in several reputable international journals issued in the 2010-2019 timeframe, which was conducted using bibliometric studies. The research was conducted using a 4-stages systematic mapping method: (1) searching for articles using the Publish or Perish application in the Scopus database, (2) classifying the articles for the bibliometric analysis, (3) checking and completing the metadata of those articles, and (4) conducting bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer application. The bibliometric analysis produced seven findings, as follows: (1) the trend of flipped classroom publications continued to increase from 2013-2019; (2) the ten most contributive journals has published 88 articles by 2019; (3) the ten most cited articles has produced 1,155 citations; (4) the three highest order of author keywords most widely used in flipped classroom articles were flipped classroom, active learning, and blended learning; (5) author collaboration with strong links only occurred in 21 authors through one document; (6) institutional collaboration with strong links formed through 28 collaborating institutions; and (7) state statistics were formed into three clusters and spread across various countries through contributions from authors who were in charge of 456 institutions. The flipped classroom model can be concluded as an educational model that is currently popular among researchers.

The study aimed to: 1) determine the e-learning design oriented inquiry learning based on character education in multimedia courses, 2) find out the feasibility of e-learning oriented inquiry learning based on character education in multimedia courses, 3) identify the effectiveness of e-learning oriented inquiry learning based on character education in multimedia courses. This study employed the research and development design. The research and development model used is the Borg & Gall model. The subjects involved in the feasibility test were 8th semester and 2015-2016 academic year students, while the subjects included in the effectiveness test were the 7th semester and 2016-2017 academic year students of Educational Technology Department Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha. The instruments used to collect data in this study were questionnaires, learning outcome tests, and character behavior observation sheets. Descriptive statistical analysis and inferential statistics (t-test) were used to analyze the data. The results indicated significant differences in learning outcomes of the 7th semester and 2016-2017 academic year students learning multimedia courses, before and after using Edutech Smart e-learning. The study concluded that that the learning media developed are effective to enhance the quality of learning in multimedia learning. Efforts should be made to develop e-learning by optimizing more varied presentation methods.

The teaching and learning in Indonesian elementary schools focus both on students’ concept mastery and character development.  Teachers are encouraged to implement a learning model that integrates character values and yet promote learning interest.  This study was aimed at investigating the mathematics learning interest of grade three elementary school students through the integration of thematic learning with character education, referred to as the character-integrated thematic learning model. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design, this study involved 70 students and employed a questionnaire to obtain data, which were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. Descriptively, the average scores of students' learning interest before and after the implementation of the character-integrated thematic learning model are respectively 117.54 and 140.69 with the gain index of 0.44 in the fair category. While score obtained for thematic learning model are 116.11 and 120.23 with the gain index of 0.07 in the low category. The results of the statistical inference analysis using the independent sample t-test were obtained t-count of 4.98 > t-table of 1,667. This indicates that there has been a significant increase in students’ learning interest scores with the implementation of character-integrated thematic learning model. Thus, this learning model can be applied to pay attention to the development of student’s character which has an impact on increasing student’s learning interest.

More and more student trajectories involve an academic stay abroad. To achieve the intercultural, personal or linguistic objectives associated with such placements, social inclusion with peers and faculty in the place of study is needed. This paper applies Bourdieu’s theory of capital as a conceptual framework to examine the experiences of students who have competed a placement abroad, in particular students from educationally disadvantaged families, students with disabilities, and migrant students. Longitudinal data were taken from the German National Education Panel Study (NEPS) with N=8.469 students. The findings show the interrelatedness of social inclusion and a placement abroad: students who experience high social inclusion with peers and faculty at the beginning of their studies are more likely to study abroad. Social capital with faculty increases after such a placement, in particular for at-risk student groups, while no difference in the increase in social inclusion is observed between student groups. The findings imply a need for early interventions as some of the effects already take place in the first semester.

This study aimed to analyze the critical thinking skills of students in learning of environmental change material using e-learning madrasah. This study used explanatory sequential design by mixed-methods experiment. The data were collected by interviewing, observing, and essay testing that have indicators modified from critical thinking skills by Watson-Glaser, Facione, and Ennis. There were 67 participants in this study as 7th grade student at a junior high school in Sleman district. Quantitative data analyzed by determining average score and standard deviations and, qualitative data analyzed from interviews and observation. Quantitative analysis showed that there were 3 levels of student’s critical thinking skills which were 14 students (20.90%) in the high category, 38 students (56.72%) in the middle category, and 15 students (22.38%) in the low category. Qualitative analysis indicated learning model made students to learn actively, independently, and enthusiastically looking for several sources. This study provided information about student critical thinking skills in junior high school, especially in the environmental change matter which are still low. Thus, the alternative learning strategies to improve students critical thinking skills are very needed. Besides, information on the application of the discovery learning model with e-learning Islamic school was obtained in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several reforms have been introduced to help enhance Vietnamese people’s English competencies. However, research on what reforms Vietnamese teachers support or resist is limited. Also, the impact of teachers’ demographic information on their responses to reforms is underrepresented. This mixed-methods study used a questionnaire, responded by 102 English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers, and six semi-structured interviews to address the gap. The results revealed that the teachers supported the reforms in their teaching context. They preferred using their self-developed or self-adapted materials to using required materials. On the other hand, using the VSTEP framework for designing tests was not supported. Teachers’ demographic information, especially educational qualification, significantly differed one’s responses to reforms from those of another. Some practical implications were discussed at the end of this paper. Also, some recommendations were presented to be considered for further studies.

The pervasive development and momentous changes of internationalization in higher education have led to the acceleration of research on its key component – the curriculum. However, there has not been any comprehensive analysis of the research status of the internationalization of the curriculum (IoC). To address the gap, this study employs the bibliometric method to construct an intellectual structure of research on the topic. The data, retrieved from the Scopus Database, consisted of 386 publications. The extracted data were then analyzed using citation, co-authorship, and keyword co-occurrence analysis. The results reveal a significant growth in research volume during the last ten years and the domination of Global North in the geographical distribution of publications. Besides, the most prominent authors include those who introduced fundamental knowledge on the topic. The most cited works and the most popular publishing sources focus on various aspects of internationalization of higher education. They also show a multidisciplinary interest in the topic. Finally, concerning newly emerged themes of studies on IoC, “cultural competence” and “internationalization at home” are outstanding keywords. The research findings emphasize IoC as a potential research matter. Hence, this study is recommended as a starting point for future researchers when examining related subjects.