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Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Prosignification in Art Education: Project-Based and Meaningful Learning Towards Active Learning
Prosignification is defined as the process through which the subject generates new meanings by engaging in aesthetic experience, critical reflection, and creative action. Unlike general theories of meaning-making, which primarily describe the cognitive organization of experience, prosignification foregrounds the symbolic–expressive dimension as the central site of meaning production. It refers to the individual and collective capacity to construct meaning from expressive and symbolic experiences, integrating cognitive, emotional, social, and cultural dimensions of learning through intentional creative mediation. Prosignification operates between knowledge construction and subjective experience, enabling learners to connect conceptual understanding with personal interpretation and emotional involvement. Whereas knowledge construction emphasizes epistemic development and transformative learning focuses on perspective transformation through critical reflection, prosignification centers on the aesthetic reconfiguration of experience through symbolic creation and interpretation. Rooted in constructivist and experiential approaches, it unfolds through active, student-centred methodologies, particularly in Project-Based Learning contexts. However, its distinctive contribution may lie in integrating reflection, expression, and creation as interdependent mechanisms of meaning generation. Art education constitutes a particularly relevant context for this process, as its symbolic nature fosters the embodied and shared construction of meaning. Thus, prosignification cannot be reduced to cognitive restructuring or attitudinal change but involves the expressive re-symbolization of lived experience.
  • 24
  • 23 Apr 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Media-Based Cultural Diversity Education: Television as an Informal Actor in the Construction of Cultural Difference
Media-based cultural diversity education is approached here as an analytical synthesis that brings together established research traditions in media and communication studies, including mediatization, representation, and framing. It refers to the process through which media are understood to function as informal educational environments that shape how audiences learn about and interpret cultural differences. In contemporary mediatized societies, media institutions, including television and digital platforms, are understood to shape public understandings of diversity through the selection, framing, and visual representation of minority groups. Television is widely regarded as a particularly influential medium because of its wide reach and its institutional role in producing authoritative narratives about social reality. Through news reporting, documentaries, and other factual programming, television has been shown to circulate meanings about cultural diversity and provide audiences with interpretive frameworks through which minority groups are publicly understood. These communicative practices have been shown to influence how audiences perceive cultural difference, interpret social issues, and negotiate questions of belonging within society. By organizing narratives, frames, and visual repertoires through which cultural groups are portrayed, television has been shown to contribute to the formation of shared social knowledge about diversity and about relationships between majority and minority communities. In this sense, television can be understood not only as a channel of information but also as a cultural institution that shapes symbolic boundaries between social groups and influences perceptions of inclusion and exclusion. As an illustrative context, this entry also refers to representations of Roma communities in Central European media environments, where antigypsyism may be understood as a mediated cultural process embedded in everyday media communication.
  • 23
  • 27 Mar 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Training Doctoral Researchers for Applied Computing Research: Design Science and Action Research in International Contexts
Doctoral training in applied computing and information systems is the structured development of a researcher’s capacity to produce original, rigorous, and scholarship that is relevant to practice, supported through doctoral supervision, which provides academic guidance for research design decisions, progress management, scholarly quality, and researcher development. In this setting, Design Science Research (DSR) is a methodology that generates knowledge through the purposeful design and evaluation of an artifact intended to address a defined problem. In parallel, Action Research (AR) generates knowledge through collaborative, iterative cycles of planned action and critical reflection conducted with stakeholders in real settings. Bringing both traditions together, Action Design Research (ADR) integrates DSR and AR by developing and evaluating artifacts through participatory cycles focused on intervention while maintaining explicit expectations of rigor and contribution. These approaches are often used in international or study abroad research contexts, which are research environments spanning national, cultural, institutional, or governance boundaries and therefore require adaptive methods, careful ethical attention, and sustained stakeholder engagement. This synthesis results in an integrated methodological framework that positions Action Design Research as a supervisory scaffold for doctoral training in applied computing and information systems. The framework integrates Design Science Research and Action Research within an iterative cycle embedded in dialogical supervision and ethical reflexivity. It contributes a structured model for aligning methodological rigor, doctoral learning, and practical impact in complex and international research environments.
  • 23
  • 08 Apr 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Successful School Leadership and Critical Pathways to Improve Student Learning
Since the late 1970s, scholars began to develop effective school leadership models that enhance student achievement. Recent research over the past three decades has consistently shown that school leadership influences student learning mainly through indirect mechanisms rather than direct effects. The purpose of this narrative review is to synthesize the major and emerging research on school leadership models and their indirect effects on student learning and to identify the critical pathways through which school leaders successfully improve student outcomes. This narrative review delineates and presents six key pathways by which school leaders promote student learning and counteract the negative effects of students’ socio-economic status. In addition, the review highlights what distinguishes successful school principals from others and the complexity of school leadership.
  • 22
  • 27 Mar 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Cognitive Load Theory-Informed Curriculum Design in Health Sciences Education
Cognitive load theory-informed curriculum design in health sciences education refers to the purposeful organisation of teaching strategies and learning materials based on the principles of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), a framework developed by John Sweller in the late 1980s. CLT is grounded in cognitive psychology and recognises that the working memory has a limited capacity for processing new information. It identifies three types of cognitive load: intrinsic load, which refers to the inherent complexity of the material being learned; extraneous load, which results from ineffective instructional design or irrelevant information; and germane load, which reflects the mental effort directed toward understanding, integrating, and organising information into long-term memory. In health sciences education, students frequently engage with tasks that require the simultaneous processing of multiple interacting elements, placing high demands on working memory at specific points in time. This includes foundational biomedical sciences such as anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology extending to applied clinical skills, diagnostic reasoning under uncertainty, health service management within complex systems, and ethically grounded decision-making. Without thoughtful instructional design, learners may be overwhelmed by excessive information and cognitive demands, which can hinder understanding, retention, and performance. Applying CLT-informed strategies, educators can reduce unnecessary cognitive burden, sequence learning activities to align with learners’ cognitive capacity, and promote deeper learning. This approach supports more effective knowledge acquisition and transfer and is particularly valuable in content dense academic environments such as medicine, nursing, allied health education, public health and health service management education. Therefore, integrating CLT-informed principles into curriculum design can help optimise learning experiences and support the development of competent health professionals.
  • 22
  • 06 May 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Philosophy of Education
The Philosophy of Education investigates the epistemological, anthropological, and ethical–normative foundations of education. It examines the meaning, purposes, and conditions of possibility of educational processes, bringing to light the implicit assumptions that underlie pedagogical theories and practices. Historically developed in close dialogue with both philosophy and pedagogy, the Philosophy of Education performs a critical–metatheoretical function and, more fundamentally, a constitutive one: it seeks to clarify the formal object of education and to restore its unity and intelligibility. From this perspective, it helps to establish Pedagogy as an autonomous field of knowledge—primarily descriptive–interpretative and only thereafter practical–normative—capable of understanding education as a human phenomenon that is historically and culturally situated.
  • 21
  • 14 Feb 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Analysing the Errors of Renowned Physicists and Chemists Throughout History and Those of Students Before and After Learning About Science
In the present qualitative study, we first synthesize research to clarify the concept of error in science as developed by epistemologists, philosophers, and historians. We also examine the concept of error in educational science, drawing from studies on science learning and teaching. To do this, we analyzed references found through a systematic review of books and journals. We also selected published articles on the history of physics and chemistry and consulted documents authored by scientists in English or in official translations. We guided our selection by choosing sources relevant to conceptualizing error in scientific and educational contexts. Our key findings show two categories of scientific error: those that have contributed to scientific progress and those that have hindered it. Some renowned scientists, such as Aristotle and Buridan, put forward theories of force and movement that were later shown to be false. However, these errors did not always impede scientific advancement. This research highlights how scientific errors have shaped the evolution of science and reveals insights into the scientific process and the resilience of the scientific community. In science education, researchers use various terms such as “student naïve reasoning,” “students’ alternative conceptions,” “students’ alternative theory,” and “misconceptions.” Students’ errors, like scientific errors, can be classified into two categories. The first type involves errors from distractions, misunderstandings, or unintentional mistakes. The second type results from students’ interactions with many natural and man-made phenomena, the common language used in society (which differs from scientific language), and errors passed down by teachers or found in textbooks. Finally, we note that identifying errors among scientists and students supports the development of strategy-based teaching for meaningful science learning. From this perspective, students will be pleased to know that some of their conceptions of force and motion are “similar” to those developed by Aristotle and Buridan, even if these conceptions are false relative to those developed by Galileo and Newton. Recognizing both scientists’ and students’ errors is essential for creating teaching strategies that promote deeper science learning.
  • 21
  • 14 Feb 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
The Apprenticeship of Observation in Teacher Learning
The apprenticeship of observation is a form of anticipatory socialization that is experienced by all individuals who attend K-12 schooling, and is particularly consequential for the subset of this population that eventually becomes professional educators. Based on extensive interviews with professional teachers, sociologist Dan C. Lortie found that the 13,000 h of experience teachers had spent watching their own K-12 teachers constituted a sort of apprenticeship in teaching. This prolonged period of observation is thought to have a profound impact on the work of teachers. By observing their own teachers across thousands of hours, professional educators are said to make decisions in the classroom and in their teaching based on their own individual personalities and preferences instead of pedagogical frameworks or theories; the teacher learning brought about by the apprenticeship of observation leads professional educators to identify teaching they liked and disliked. Teaching decisions made by these educators in the classroom are ultimately based on a binary choice between replicating or rejecting the teaching they previously witnessed as K-12 students. Over time, the apprenticeship of observation has, for some researchers and teacher educators, served as shorthand for describing the replication of traditional teaching approaches across time, in effect suggesting that teachers teach the way they were taught. The power and negative consequences of the apprenticeship of observation have led teacher educators to devise multiple interventions within teacher education programs and pedagogies, which have sought to challenge and overcome the apprenticeship of observation and its negative influence on professional educators’ teacher learning and practice.
  • 21
  • 07 Apr 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Singing-Oriented Language and Music Education (SOLME)
Singing-Oriented Language and Music Education (SOLME) is an accessible, low-resource pedagogical and cognitive framework in which singing serves as the primary interface through which musical activities support both first and foreign language acquisition processes. Early vocalizations in infancy make the overlap between singing and speech highly perceptible, forming a continuum rather than clearly separable domains. Child-directed speech similarly shares key features with singing—such as repetition, emotional engagement, exaggerated pitch variation and rhythm—and both input forms inherently combine musical and linguistic elements. Research has shown that the overlap between singing and language abilities persists throughout the lifespan, positioning singing as a valuable facilitator of language learning processes. Singing, integrated as a musical tool, has proven effective in enhancing key abilities for (foreign) language learning—including phonological awareness, pronunciation, and verbal memory, among others—and in supporting language functioning across diverse communication disorders, from developmental fluency challenges to acquired impairments. This entry outlines the benefits of singing as an integrated means to support musical development as well as first and second language acquisition processes. It outlines functional and structural similarities between singing and language development, from early caregiver–infant interaction to formal foreign-language instruction, and then discusses the many advantages of embedding singing as a musical tool in the (foreign) language learning process.
  • 21
  • 09 Apr 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
A Systematic Quantitative Literature Review of the Contribution of Phonics to Overall Reading Performance for Primary Students
This Systematic Quantitative Literature Review (SQLR) examines instructional content (the what) and instructional strategies (the how) that contribute to overall reading performance for students in mainstream English-speaking primary classes. Drawing on 163 peer-reviewed studies published over four and a half decades, the authors examine instructional content and strategies aligned with six interrelated foundational elements of reading development: phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and oral language. In response to the proliferation of reading research and the limitations of narrative reviews, the five iterative phases of the SQLR method enable rigorous selection, coding, and synthesis of studies reporting quantitative evidence of the contribution of instructional content and strategies to students’ overall reading performance. The second part of the paper focuses on phonics instruction, an element of the teaching of reading central to ongoing public, educational, and political debate. The authors identify significant variation in terms of the scale, duration, and year-levels of the reported research, and foreground the complex roles of teacher professional learning, teachers’ pedagogical decision-making, and implementation fidelity in shaping the research projects. The paper finishes by synthesizing evidence that concludes that while phonics instruction can contribute to overall reading performance, its effects are variable and contingent on specific instructional and contextual conditions.
  • 20
  • 17 Mar 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Cognitive Learning Analytics
Cognitive Learning Analytics (CLA) is an interdisciplinary domain that combines cognitive science and learning analytics to interpret and enhance human learning through theoretically grounded data analysis. It integrates learning analytics with models of cognition to support theoretically grounded interpretation of learner data. Learning analytics, since its inception in 2011, has developed as a research field and applied practice, focusing on “the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts.” It focuses on understanding and optimizing learning processes and environments by leveraging large-scale, multimodal educational data. Cognitive science, in parallel, provides established theories of human learning, memory, attention, and metacognition. CLA links observable behaviors with theoretically defined cognitive mechanisms. Through the integration of cognitive theories and computational techniques, CLA models how learners process information, make decisions, and construct knowledge in digital learning environments. CLA employs diverse data sources—including clickstream logs, eye tracking, biometric signals, and linguistic traces—to infer learners’ cognitive and affective states. These inferences inform adaptive learning systems, personalized feedback mechanisms, and intelligent tutoring tools that respond dynamically to the learner’s mental workload, engagement, or metacognitive strategies.
  • 20
  • 24 Mar 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Resilience in High Abilities: Keys to Overcoming Academic and Personal Challenges
The study of resilience has long focused on understanding how individuals positively adapt to adversity, a process that directly influences emotional stability. Resilience, defined as the capacity to confront, overcome, and transform complex challenges constructively while strengthening oneself in the process, represents a transversal trait in human development. It also entails engaging in a personal growth trajectory that fosters self-awareness and internal coherence. Within the context of high abilities, this construct assumes particular significance, as students with high cognitive potential, but they are not immune to socio-emotional and educational vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities may arise from asynchronies between intellectual and emotional development, among other factors, and influence specific coping strategies that, in turn, affect academic and social outcomes. Furthermore, high abilities students often have unique educational needs that may be insufficiently recognized or supported within their socio-cultural environments. Consequently, resilience in high abilities students should be understood as a dynamic process shaped not only by individual cognitive resources but also by contextual factors. A thorough analysis of the specific vulnerabilities of this population, and their interactions with environmental influences, is essential for fostering resilience and designing psychoeducational interventions that enhance academic achievement, promote inclusive practices, and support overall well-being.
  • 18
  • 24 Mar 2026
Topic Review
Compulsory Frisian language lessons at Dutch schools
In the Dutch province of Friesland, the Provincial States, the highest governing body, oblige all Frisian primary and secondary schools to teach Frisian and all children in those schools to follow it. While still less than a quarter of the children speak Frisian with their friends. Language imperialism? Where does that come from? Have the children been asked? The parents, teachers, school leaders, school boards? Does it have any chance of success at all? Whose school is it actually? In this contribution, through an in-depth literature study, an attempt is made to gain more clarity about the background of this case.
  • 17
  • 09 May 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Serious Video Games: Tools for Learning, Training and Health
Serious video games are digital games designed for purposes beyond entertainment, typically to support education, training, health interventions, or behaviour change. They combine game mechanics with psychological and pedagogical principles, such as feedback, repetition, goal-setting, and scaffolding, to create interactive environments that facilitate learning, skill development, and sustained engagement. In many cases, they are built to simulate realistic tasks or decision contexts, allowing users to practise skills, test strategies, and learn from consequences in a low-risk setting. Within cyberpsychology, serious video games are particularly valuable because they provide structured digital contexts for examining how technology shapes cognition, emotion, motivation, and behaviour. They enable researchers and practitioners to observe how users respond to digital rewards, challenges, social features, and immersive environments, as well as how these features influence outcomes such as self-efficacy, persistence, attention, and emotion regulation. As a result, serious video games operate at the intersection of psychological theory, human–technology interaction, and applied digital intervention design. This entry provides an overview of their development, theoretical foundations, applications, effectiveness, and associated ethical considerations.
  • 11
  • 23 Apr 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Techno-Mathematical Fluency
Techno-mathematical fluency (TmF) is the ability to coordinate mathematical knowledge with technological means—digital and non-digital—to solve mathematical problems and express solutions, by recognising affordances, selecting appropriate tools and data, and integrating them with mathematical ideas in iterative cycles of exploration and integration. It goes beyond instrumental tool use to encompass reasoning, modelling, representation, and communication mediated by technologies, and functions as a form of expertise important for both students’ learning and teachers’ professional practice.
  • 10
  • 19 May 2026
Topic Review
Teaching Geology in Higher Education Institutions under COVID-19
Teaching geology under COVID-19 pandemic conditions led to teaching limitations for educators and learning difficulties for students. The lockdown obstructed face-to-face teaching, laboratory work, and fieldtrips. To minimize the impact of this situation, new distance learning teaching methods and tools were developed. The current study presents the results of an empirical study, where distance learning teaching tools were constructed and used to teach geology to university students. A mineralogical mobile phone application was used to replace laboratory mineral identification and a flow chart to replace laboratory rock identification. Additionally, exercises on faults and maps were developed to fill the gap that was created as field work was impossible. A university course on geology was designed on the basis of the constructed distance learning teaching tools, and more than 100 students from the Department of Civil Engineering attended the course. The results show that the proposed tools helped the students to considerably understand scientific information on geology and supported the learning outcomes. Thus, it is suggested that the teaching tools, constructed for the purposes of the study, could be used in conditions when distance learning is required, or even under typical learning conditions after laboratories, as well as before or after fieldtrips, for better learning outcomes.
  • 8
  • 12 Mar 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Ethno Sense in Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
Ethno Sense is defined as a culturally mediated cognitive–perceptual capacity through which individuals discern, select, and interpret mathematically salient structures in socially situated practices. The increasing recognition of mathematics as a culturally situated practice has prompted growing interest in integrating cultural contexts into mathematics education. Approaches such as ethnomathematics and Realistic Mathematics Education emphasize the importance of culture and meaningful contexts; however, a critical gap remains in explaining how individuals perceive and recognize mathematical structures within culturally embedded experiences. This entry addresses this gap by introducing Ethno Sense as a novel conceptual construct. Conceptualized as a pre-formal layer of mathematical cognition, it explains how culturally conditioned perception, interpretive schemas, and value systems shape the recognition of mathematical meaning prior to formalization. It proposes a mechanism comprising contextual indexing, schema activation and selection, and value-informed interpretation. These processes operate dynamically to guide engagement with culturally meaningful phenomena and the identification of mathematical relevance. The entry further positions Ethno Sense as an epistemological foundation for Ethno-Realistic Mathematics Education, supporting authentic context selection and progressive mathematization. By foregrounding culturally mediated perception, it shifts attention from problem solving to recognizing situations as mathematically meaningful. This study contributes a unifying theoretical construct linking cultural experience and mathematical cognition, and outlines implications for practice and future research on culturally situated learning. Ultimately it offers a lens for understanding reciprocal relationships between culture and mathematics across educational contexts.
  • 6
  • 19 May 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Dimensions of Teacher Professional Identity: A Scoping Review
The rapid institutional and technological transformations of the 2020–2025 period have had a significant impact on teacher professional identity. Drawing on Rosa’s social acceleration thesis and Harvey’s concept of time–space compression, this scoping review examined the dimensions of professional identity emerging in the literature published between 2020 and 2025 among in-service pre-kindergarten through 12th grade (PK-12) teachers, the educational contexts in which these dimensions were addressed, and how they interrelate. Following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines, 45 peer-reviewed articles retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases were analyzed through inductive thematic coding and a dimension–context interaction matrix. Six analytically distinct yet interrelated identity dimensions were identified: Biographical and Personal, Professional and Pedagogical, Emotional and Psychological, Social and Relational, Political and Agentic, and Prospective and Imagined. These dimensions were organized within a dialogical space model distinguishing internal/individual and external/structural domains. The Emotional and Psychological dimension achieved near-universal representation, while the Prospective and Imagined dimension remained the least studied. Six convergence, five divergence, and six gap patterns were identified across seven educational contexts. The findings reveal that, in this period, teacher professional identity is not a fixed attribute carried by the individual but rather a dynamic process continuously negotiated under structural pressures.
  • 4
  • 19 May 2026
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