Measurement is fundamental to scientific inference, yet educational and psychological research often relies on instruments that are shortened, partially administered, or otherwise modified without evidence that the resulting scores remain valid. This article examines measurement fragmentation, defined as the use of selected parts, abbreviated forms, or derivative versions of an instrument as though they were interchangeable with the validated form. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) are used as a case example because their strong full-version psychometric foundation and frequent fragmented use in published research make the consequences of non-equivalent measurement unusually visible. The full TTCT is supported by stronger reliability and validity evidence than fragmented TTCT uses, whereas derivative forms such as the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults have weaker support. When these non-equivalent forms are treated under a single instrument label, apparent theoretical inconsistency and attenuated meta-analytic estimates may reflect measurement artifacts rather than properties of creativity itself. The article concludes that stronger educational and psychological research requires explicit reporting of test versions, version-specific reliability and validity evidence, and closer editorial scrutiny of altered measurement procedures.

Professional competency frameworks are important for aligning educational outcomes with workforce needs. While multiple frameworks exist across sectors, the underlying research-informed design principles guiding their development remain fragmented. This systematic review synthesizes methodological approaches and proposes research-informed design principles used in developing professional competency frameworks across diverse professions, identifying common patterns and informing future framework design. A systematic review was conducted following PRISMA 2020 and SWiM guidelines. Searches across major academic databases yielded 3656 records. After screening, 47 studies met inclusion criteria. Data extraction focused on methodological processes and development activities. Thematic analysis was used to generate a set of initial design principles: (1) Foundational Inquiry and Evidence Gathering; (2) Consensus-Building and Collaborative Validation; and (3) Framework Development and Iterative Refinement. The development of competency frameworks is inherently cyclical, interdisciplinary, and iterative, blending empirical inquiry with collaborative validation. The identified research-informed design principles offer a transferable blueprint applicable across sectors, from healthcare to education and other industries. Thus, it is strongly recommended that future studies use these initial research-informed design principles to inform competency development. The systematic review has been registered to Open Science Framework (OSF).

This qualitative descriptive study examined how school leaders in Arkansas and Tennessee, as part of their teacher supervision responsibilities, encourage and support teachers’ reflection as a key component of professional growth. Drawing on supervision and reflection literature, the research focused on what leaders do to move away from simply checking evaluation criteria boxes and instead work alongside teachers to drive meaningful improvement. Data were collected from interviews with 16 school leaders across both states and analyzed for common patterns. The findings revealed three key themes: (1) purposeful questioning and reflective dialogue help develop teacher agency; (2) leadership strategies such as building trust and modeling vulnerability foster reflective practice; and (3) challenges include time constraints, veteran teacher resistance to change, and lack of trust in the evaluator’s feedback. The findings indicate that leaders view reflection as essential to shifting supervision from monitoring to partnership. Effectiveness, however, depends on intentionally creating non-evaluative contexts and embedding reflection in school routines. This study offers practical insights for reframing supervision as a collective, growth-oriented process within instructional leadership.

Understanding rate of change requires reasoning about measurable quantities and how one quantity changes relative to another. To support this kind of reasoning, teachers should develop the ability to notice students’ quantitative and covariational reasoning. This study examines how preservice teachers (PSTs) attend to, interpret, and respond to students’ quantitative and covariational reasoning in video-based analyses of water-filling rate-of-change tasks. Drawing on relevant research, professional noticing is examined through the lenses of quantitative reasoning and covariational reasoning. Using a design-based qualitative approach, secondary PSTs participated in structured analyses of students’ problem-solving discussions related to rate of change. Data were collected across eight semi-structured sessions. This study reports qualitative analyses from two sessions (Sessions 1 and 2) that focused on rate of change. Findings show that PSTs’ initial attending shifted from perceptual task features (e.g., pouring speed, references to time) toward identification of measurable quantities, recognition of coordination between height and volume, and comparison of equal volume increments. PSTs’ interpretations progressed from recognizing secondary-variable coordination to identifying direct covariation, and their instructional responses became more targeted and content-specific. However, challenges persisted in interpreting students’ informal and visually mediated covariational reasoning. This study contributes to research on professional noticing by integrating quantitative and covariational reasoning as analytic lenses and highlighting implications for teacher preparation in calculus education.

The current study examined the perceptions of elite high school students in the United Arab Emirates about their experiences in learning and acquiring mathematical concepts and skills through the ALEKS system that stands for Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces. ALEKS is an e-assessment and tutoring platform that facilitates the teaching and learning of mathematics for students in Grades 5–12 using versatile and personalized teaching functions. Eight participants of equally mixed gender participated in the study, four Grade 9 and four Grade 10 students. A qualitative research design in the form of one-to-one semi-structured interviews was used to have a deeper understanding of students’ ALEKS experiences, identify the challenges encountered while studying with it, and pinpoint the benefits and advantages of using ALEKS. Results showed that participating students frequently used ALEKS because of two main factors, including rewards promised by teachers and immediate feedback and feeling of immediate achievement provided by the platform. Challenges related to ALEKS were language barriers among the Arabic-speaking students studying in English, a lack of human interaction and support, time management issues, and the necessity for supplementary resources. Multiple advantages were also found, most noticeably how the ALEKS individualized adaptive learning environment helped participants gain more knowledge of mathematical concepts and develop their mathematics skills. Recommendations for mathematics teachers and policymakers include allowing students to utilize ALEKS in small groups in school, aligning ALEKS themes and topics with textbooks learning goals and objectives, giving systematic and personal guidance for increased independent use at home, and making bilingual editions and Arabic-language assets (e.g., tutorial videos) available.

This paper reports upon the visual research methodology of artifact construction employed in semi-structured interviews to explore how Saudi women in academic leadership positions cultivate and maintain wellbeing. Ten Saudi Arabian women academic leaders were invited to draw, diagram, or annotate how they cultivate, maintain, and express wellbeing in a rapidly changing cultural context. Four exemplary artifacts were selected for analysis. Findings include that while semi-structured interviewing made themes visible, artifact construction extended the themes and illuminated unique aspects of the research question. Specifically, the artifacts illustrate wellbeing as holistic, interwoven of hedonic and eudaimonic aspects, and positioning self and others in a lattice of being well. It is intentional, balanced, spiritually sourced and sustained. It is generous and generative, animating abundance as both a process and a product of wellbeing. The artifacts are more than just a visual complement to the research story; they methodologically tap into the research question differently than verbal methods alone. While not every research participant accepted the invitation to construct an artifact, and methodological drawbacks are considered, the ones who did accept the invitation demonstrated that artifact construction captures complexity at the conceptual intersection of wellbeing and female academic leadership. This paper contributes new knowledge on the efficacy of artifact construction; in this case, in research sites beyond culturally ‘western’ ones.

Keyword recognition represents a fundamental skill in programming, yet little research has examined how novices develop this ability or how language background affects keyword learning. This study investigated cognitive load and keyword recognition accuracy amongst 27 novice programming students (15 English as an additional language [EAL] and 12 English as a native language [ENL]) during an intensive six-week Python course. Students completed a keyword recognition task at Weeks 1 and 6, identifying and classifying 23 Python keywords while reporting cognitive load using the Klepsch instrument. The results revealed no significant improvement in identification accuracy (Week 1: 39.80%; Week 6: 48.16%) or classification accuracy (40% at both time points) despite intensive instruction. The reported extraneous cognitive load significantly increased from Week 1 to Week 6 (p = 0.039, d = 0.99), contradicting Cognitive Load Theory predictions that schema automation reduces extraneous load with experience. EAL students reported a significantly higher intrinsic cognitive load (p = 0.030, d = 0.91) and a marginally lower keyword identification accuracy (p = 0.058, d = −0.54) than ENL students. All students (100%) who identified keywords also missed duplicate instances, indicating universal incomplete processing. These findings challenge assumptions about schema development timelines in programming education and document measurable linguistic barriers that persist even after substantial instruction, with implications for inclusive computing pedagogy.

Parental involvement is widely recognized as a key component of effective schooling, particularly in educational environments that emphasize community, developmental continuity, and holistic pedagogy. Alternative education models such as Waldorf schools have expanded internationally, yet empirical evidence on how parents perceive and structure their experiences within these institutions remains limited. This study investigates parental perceptions of Waldorf education in Hungary through a nationwide questionnaire survey of 585 parents whose children attend Waldorf schools. To explore the latent structure of parental evaluations, Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted, followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis to test the stability of the resulting model. The analyses identified four coherent dimensions of parental experience: Trust and Pedagogy, Community and Engagement, Perceived Long-Term Educational Prosperity, and Information and Transparency. Additional analyses examined how these dimensions vary according to institutional characteristics, parental participation in school community activities, and intentions regarding long-term enrollment. The results indicate that pedagogical trust constitutes a relatively stable evaluative dimension across institutions, while perceptions related to community engagement, long-term educational prospects, and transparency are more strongly associated with institutional maturity. Parents who intend to remain in Waldorf education until the completion of upper secondary schooling report consistently higher evaluations across all dimensions. By empirically identifying the structure of parental experiences in a European alternative education context, the study contributes to research on parental engagement, school choice, and the institutional cultures of alternative schooling.

Background: Interactive learning resources developed with the H5P platform have been progressively adopted to support autonomous learning and conceptual consolidation. However, empirical evidence regarding their impact on academic performance in theoretically demanding university courses remains limited. The primary aim of this study was to examine the effect of the structured integration of an interactive digital pedagogical resource developed with multiple-choice H5P on the academic performance of higher education students enrolled in a Motor Control course. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted to compare two independent groups: a control group (CG; n = 90) and an intervention group (IG; n = 115), which had access throughout the semester to a multiple-choice interactive resource developed using the H5P platform. Academic performance was operationalized as the score obtained on a written summative assessment. Baseline equivalence between groups was assessed using an initial diagnostic test. Between-group comparisons were performed using robust non-parametric statistical procedures and further examined using a linear regression model adjusted for relevant covariates. Results: No statistically significant differences were found between groups in the baseline diagnostic test (p > 0.05), indicating comparable starting levels. At the end of the intervention period (≈2 months), the intervention group obtained significantly higher scores in the summative assessment (p < 0.001), with a large effect size (d = 0.87). Conclusions: The findings suggest that the structured integration of multiple-choice H5P resources may positively contribute to academic performance when used as a complementary tool alongside traditional teaching. These results reinforce the pedagogical potential of multiple-choice H5P to support autonomous learning and conceptual consolidation, while also highlighting the need for future research employing more rigorous experimental designs and process-based measures to better understand the underlying learning mechanisms.

Generative AI (GenAI) in education has become a divisive topic. While some teachers view GenAI as a transformative tool, others caution against harms and impacts on teaching and learning. Since the usefulness of a tool depends on the user, how teachers view and use GenAI and their perceptions of its role in teaching and learning may influence its benefits and risks. The study adopts a qualitative approach, interviewing 23 higher education teachers with teaching experience across disciplines. Using the Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) and sensemaking frameworks to guide and analyse the interviews, a set of opportunities, challenges, and threats associated with integrating GenAI in higher education was identified. Teachers highlighted opportunities, including using GenAI as a study buddy. Concerns were raised about students’ overreliance on GenAI, GenAI undermining the teaching and learning process, and issues like undetected plagiarism. The findings suggest a need for professional development to help teachers understand GenAI and how it can be effectively used in teaching. Some teachers warned against the paradox of using a tool to save time, only to find that it might increase workload and frustration. These insights contribute to developing guidelines and informing policymaking to ensure integration of GenAI in education.