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Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Artificial Intelligence in Formative and Shared Assessment in Higher Education
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Formative and Shared Assessment (F&SA) processes refers to the application of AI-based technologies to support formative and continuous assessment in Higher Education (HE). F&SA systems involve the ongoing monitoring of students’ learning, the provision of feedback that enables them to regulate and improve their performance, and the collection of information that informs the continuous improvement of teaching practice. In this context, AI can serve a dual purpose: when orientated towards students, it enhances learning outcomes; when directed at educators, it supports the development of their pedagogical expertise through tools designed to assist in the creation of assessment instruments, the generation of automated feedback, the analysis of learning data, and the design of simulation environments that foster the development of professional competencies. The integration of AI into F&SA practices holds considerable potential to transform traditional assessment approaches by enabling more personalised, adaptive, and timely feedback for both students and educators. In this shared assessment framework, students may likewise draw on AI applications to support specific dimensions of their learning, including academic writing, knowledge organisation, and the generation of educational content, thereby becoming active participants in their own assessment processes. However, the incorporation of AI into F&SA also requires careful consideration of the pedagogical, ethical, and institutional challenges it entails, particularly those related to academic integrity, cognitive offloading, and the responsible use of AI tools. It is therefore essential to promote AI literacy in HE among both faculty members and students, fostering a critical and informed engagement with these technologies that ensures the pedagogical relationship, along with the shared, formative nature of assessment, remains at the core of meaningful learning processes.
  • 15
  • 22 Jul 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Guiding Doctoral Students into Research Communities
Research communities refer to the learning and social environments within which members engage in scholarly activities. Consisting of diverse actors involved in research processes, research communities provide opportunities for doctoral students to become familiar with the shared norms, values and cultures that are particular to each group. Research communities not only allow members to access pertinent knowledge, information and resources, but also offer social support and foster a sense of belonging in academia, helping students to develop into independent scholars. During their studies, doctoral students often participate in various research communities, ranging from the research lab at their institution to international networks connecting researchers from different countries. This paper focuses on ways to guide doctoral students into research communities, both within and outside of their institutions. In addition, it examines the formal and informal processes that facilitate their integration into these communities.
  • 14
  • 15 Jun 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.
  • 13
  • 19 May 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Discipline-Sensitive Generative AI in Higher Education
Generative artificial intelligence in higher education refers here to the use of computational systems that produce text, code, explanations, feedback-like responses, images, and other outputs from user prompts in university learning, coursework, assessment, and student study practices. This entry focuses on how students use generative AI while studying, preparing assignments, seeking explanations, revising work, programming, brainstorming, or responding to assessment tasks. It defines such use as a situated educational practice shaped by disciplinary expectations, assessment design, AI literacy, study habits, and academic integrity norms. From this perspective, the same AI-supported action may be acceptable as learning support in one course, ambiguous in another, and inappropriate when it conceals authorship, fabricates evidence, or substitutes for independent academic performance.
  • 13
  • 03 Jun 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Science Festivals: Evolution, Structures, Impacts and Challenges
Science Festivals are public events focused on showcasing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in a celebratory and engaging setting similar in atmosphere to an arts or music event. Aimed at the general public, science festivals vary widely in form and duration, lasting from anywhere between a day and several weeks, and featuring interactive activities such as hands-on workshops, live demonstrations, lectures, and performances. Many include dedicated programming for schools, but they differ from school-based science fairs, which are aimed primarily at students and parents and are typically held on school premises. Their aims include sparking curiosity, promoting scientific literacy, enabling visitors to interact with working scientists, and making science fun and accessible. Festivals are distinct from other informal science engagement formats due to their temporary, joyful nature and diversity of offerings. The modern science festival concept originated in Edinburgh in 1989 and has since experienced rapid global spread. Hundreds of events now take place annually throughout Europe and North America, and to a lesser extent other parts of the world, supported by associations such as the UK Science Festivals Network, the European Science Engagement Association, and, in the USA and Canada, the Science Festival Alliance. Some of the largest festivals see attendance figures in the hundreds of thousands, and across the world, millions of people participate every year. An emerging body of research literature, situated within a variety of social science disciplines and lenses, suggests that festivals are greatly enjoyed by their attendees, and succeed in boosting science interest, increasing knowledge, and improving perceptions of science among visitors, making them a potential asset for societies that place a high value on scientific activity among the population. However, the events have also attracted criticism for their limited audience diversity, with visitors being disproportionately drawn from highly educated and affluent groups, prompting suggestions that they are ‘preaching to the converted’. In response, some festivals have introduced targeted initiatives such as community outreach and partnerships to attract audiences from underrepresented communities. Despite these ongoing challenges, science festivals continue to evolve and grow as platforms for inspiring curiosity and fostering meaningful public dialogue around key scientific topics.
  • 12
  • 22 Jun 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Democracy and the Pedagogy of the Possible in Schools
The terms democracy and the pedagogy of the possible name an approach imagining schools as sites where more just, inclusive and participatory collective life can be practised, particularly in early childhood. The entry brings three traditions into dialogue. (a) Critical pedagogy, particularly in its post-structuralist, Foucauldian, and post-Marxist readings, engages with Rancièrian critiques of pedagogical mastery and offers a vocabulary for examining how power, knowledge, subjectivity, and hegemony are produced and contested within educational life. (b) Freinet pedagogy, extended through Fernand Oury’s Institutional Pedagogy, contributes a politically grounded, practice-first repertoire of cooperative techniques, classroom institutions, and democratic forms of organisation. (c) Educational commons approaches frame knowledge, space, time, and pedagogical relations as shared goods, collectively produced, cared for, and democratically governed by a community of teachers, children, and families. In this perspective, the child is approached as a commoner and agent in the here and now. The educator, in turn, is understood as a fellow commoner and reflexive practitioner, capable of acting beyond the logics of both the state and the market. Together, they co-shape the everyday life of education. Eight shared dimensions, namely the relational, the political, praxis, agency, anti-enclosure, prefiguration, community, and the schoolized mind, traverse all three traditions, with care as their transversal thread. The framework is conceived as a hospitable theoretical and practical space, not as a self-contained doctrine. It is heuristic in orientation, bringing these traditions into conversation because each contributes a complementary layer to democratic educational life.
  • 12
  • 18 Jun 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Doctoral Student Wellbeing: Conceptualization, Challenges and Pathways Forward
Doctoral student wellbeing refers to the perceived state of psychological, physical, and social health experienced by a person during the process of completing a doctoral thesis. From a eudaimonic and salutogenic perspective, this construct goes beyond the mere absence of distress and incorporates dimensions such as meaning and purpose in life, personal growth, autonomy, feelings of mattering, and the quality of academic and personal relationships. It is a multidimensional construct shaped by the interaction between personal variables, including prior psychological history, personality traits, and task motivation, among others, and contextual variables, such as funding conditions, quality of supervision, departmental culture, family and personal circumstances, and social and institutional support networks. Doctoral wellbeing is therefore dynamic: it evolves throughout the different phases of the doctoral process and is influenced by conditions specific to this population that distinguish it from other groups of students or workers. It has emerged as a critical concern in higher education research, driven by evidence of high rates of psychological difficulties among this population. This entry paper offers a narrative and conceptual review of the current state of knowledge on doctoral student wellbeing, identifying the main challenges facing this group, the factors that influence their wellbeing, and the pathways forward in terms of intervention and future research.
  • 12
  • 15 Jun 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.
  • 9
  • 12 Mar 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Multicultural Education in Teacher Preparation as an Integrative Framework: Culturally Responsive, Critical, and Democratic Approaches
Multicultural education remains a foundational yet contested area of teacher preparation in increasingly diverse, unequal, and politically polarized educational contexts. This conceptual review examines multicultural education through culturally responsive, critical, and democratic approaches by synthesizing foundational scholarship and recent research published between 2023 and 2026. Although these traditions have been widely examined, they are often treated as separate perspectives, limiting the development of a coherent framework for teacher preparation across diverse educational settings. Guided by the question of how multicultural education is conceptualized, enacted, and sustained within teacher preparation programs, the review argues that multicultural education is most effective when embedded throughout curriculum, assessment, clinical practice, and program design rather than confined to stand-alone diversity courses. The synthesis demonstrates that implementation remains predominantly fragmented or additive, acknowledging diversity without systematically advancing equity. To address this limitation, the article proposes an integrative conceptual framework organized around three complementary pedagogical orientations—culturally responsive, critical, and democratic—operationalized through reflective practice, curriculum transformation, community and contextual engagement, and pedagogical translation. The framework further incorporates contemporary scholarship on intercultural education, culturally sustaining pedagogy, democratic citizenship, Indigenous education, and decolonizing perspectives, extending existing conceptualizations of multicultural teacher preparation. The review concludes by identifying persistent challenges related to institutionalization, faculty capacity, policy contexts, and assessment while outlining directions for future research and program development across diverse national and sociocultural contexts. By integrating recent scholarship within a unified conceptual framework, the article offers teacher educators, researchers, and policymakers a comprehensive model for designing coherent, equity-oriented teacher preparation programs.
  • 7
  • 10 Jul 2026
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Science Curriculum Research Through the Lens of Scientific Literacy: A Scoping Review
This article aims to inform the scholarly debate on curriculum research in science education through a systematic scoping review of 140 empirical articles from four leading science education journals. Scoping review methodology was selected to map the breadth, nature, and thematic landscape of curriculum research rather than to evaluate intervention effectiveness or establish evidence hierarchies. Data were retrieved through database searches and thematic content analysis of articles published in 2009 through 2025. Based on formulations of scientific literacy framework, the analytic framework was used to conceptualize curriculum research. The review identified seven themes: nature of science and policy; inquiry-based learning; curriculum standards, materials and assessment; scientific practices; context-based and socioscientific issues education; teacher professional development; and equity and social justice. Categories focusing on standards, materials, and content leaned toward Vision I. Categories emphasizing practices, inquiry, and contexts tended to bridge Visions I and II. Categories focusing on social issues and equity tended to cross and link Vision II and III. While the category centered on teacher professional development uniquely encompassed all three visions, Vision II perspectives (science as related to society) remained dominant but increasingly aligned with Vision III frameworks, such as critical engagement, social and political engagement, and transformative education. The review emphasized the critical role of teacher pedagogical design capacity in addressing the implementation differences between intended and actual curricula.
  • 4
  • 21 Jul 2026
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