Ernest Afari

• PhD, MSc, BSc(Hons), Dip.Ed
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Bahrain

Many factors within the learning environment interplay to shape student experiences and academic outcomes. Understanding and optimizing these elements can lead to environments that nurture not only academic success but also holistic personal growth and lifelong learning skills. The present study explored the relationship between learning environmen...

The present study investigated the associations of students sense of school belonging, instructional clarity in mathematics lessons, students like learning mathematics, students confident in mathematics, and mathematics achievement among eight graders in Jordan. Participants were 7,176 students from Jordan who participated in Trends in Internationa...

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a global survey conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to assess educational systems by evaluating the academic performance of 15-year-old school students in mathematics, science, and reading. In PISA 2022, 13,437 students from Australia participated...

In recent years, there has been growing interest in studying how students' interactions with information and communication technology (ICT) impact their academic performance, particularly in subjects like mathematics. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between ICT use and students' performance in mathematics in Türkiye, using...

Students who learn English as a foreign language (EFL) or English as a second language (ESL) often struggle with limited vocabulary and poor reading comprehension skills. This action research explores the effectiveness of implementing scaffolding instruction for university level EFL/ESL students in improving their language learning skills, namely c...

Objectives: Interest in Mindfulness in several professions including teaching has increased. To develop the techniques and methods based on mindfulness, several research papers were carried on this topic in teaching according to a comprehensive definition that takes into account awareness, memory and retention to describe a variety of teaching prac...

In any field, effective teaching and learning are greatly aided by information and communication technology, or ICT. ICT integration in education has received significant attention in educational system reforms, which emphasized it as an essential component in improving the learning process. Educational organizations have been particularly concerne...

Message from the Guest Editors Dear Colleagues, The recent introduction of the artificial intelligence language model, ChatGPT, has led to its initial capabilities garnering major attention in educational enterprises. The objective of this Special Issue is to provide a current overview of the significant impact of ChatGPT as a tool for teaching and...

The call for the implementation of integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (iSTEM) teaching has been on the rise. This teaching approach helps students to develop innovative skills and meet twenty-first century challenges. However, teachers need to possess positive attitudes toward iSTEM teaching to implement it. Therefore, stu...

Students become more actively involved in their studies when teachers integrate ICT into their lessons. Since computer self-efficacy is positively related to the integration of technology in education, improving pre-service teachers’ computer self-efficacy could increase their intention to use technology. The present study explores the association...

To examine the relationship between students' perceptions and their non-cognitive outcomes, this research uses secondary analysis of PISA data from 14,167 students in the United Arab Emirates. Seven factors of learning environment were identified after reviewing the literature. The findings reveal that six factors of the learning environments had a...

Non-cognitive abilities, also termed as Social and Emotional Skills (SSES), are believed to have a profound and far-reaching impact on individuals' growth and development. Previous psychological experiments confirmed that non-cognitive factors could have an impact on education, health and social well-being. The SSES reports by OECD offer insights o...

The present study sought to examine the effect of gender on student engagement in English language learning and self-regulation in a tertiary institution. Three hundred and eighty-nine first-year students from a Gulf state responded to the engagement in English language learning and self-regulation (EELLS) survey developed by Zubaidi et al. (2016)....

Educational planners and researchers believe that social and emotional skills play a crucial role in functioning well in the 21st century. This paper investigates how social and emotional skills mediate the relationships between students' cognitive ability and academic achievement. Recently, the OECD organised a large-scale international project to...

Purpose This study examined the conceptions of assessment and its relationship to self-regulation and self-confidence among pre-service teachers. Design/methodology/approach Participants were 278 pre-service students attending a teacher's college in Bahrain. This study employed the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to investigate the rel...

Past research has consistently revealed that students' academic self­ efficacy is strongly related to academic achievement. Furthermore, some researchers have suggested that academic self-efficacy is associated with learning environment constructs of involvement, teacher support, investigation and cooperation. The purpose of this study was to inves...

In this study, we examined relationships between learning environment characteristics (disciplinary climate, teacher support, and teacher feedback) and student outcomes (enjoyment of reading, and reading achievement) among 12,058 students from China who took part in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment. The results of structural...

The current generation of students grow up in the age of technology. They are exposed to a plethora of devices that allow them to stay connected at all times. The impact and adverse consequences of the overuse of social media on school performance are well documented in the literature. Drawing from the recently available data from the study on soci...

Reading is a basic skill that is needed for academic success and employment opportunity. Aliteracy, or the lack of a reading habit, and lower motivation to read, are problems at the university level, especially among ethnically diverse adults. Reading self-efficacy is associated with reading comprehension, word reading, foreign language learning an...

Relationships between students’ perceptions and their non-cognitive outcomes (epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy and attitudes to science) were investigated through secondary analysis of data from 14,167 United Arab Emirates students who participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Structural equation modeling (SEM...

It is becoming necessary for trainee teachers to willingly accept technology as a tool for learning, effective teaching and assessment. The aim of this study is to measure trainee teachers’ perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, subjective norm, facilitating conditions, attitude towards technology use and behavioural intention to use technolo...

The study reported in this chapter explored the reliability and validity of an instrument to measure salient factors related to the motivational and self-regulation of students in English language classrooms.

Because adolescent life satisfaction is associated with important affective, behavioural and health-related outcomes during both adolescence and later life, strategies for promoting adolescent life satisfaction have potential social value. In the study reported in this article, associations are reported between perceptions of the school climate and...

Assessment is a process of evaluating the quality of learning, and teachers devote a substantial amount of time to assessment related activities (Levy-Vered & Alhija, 2015). There are many types and forms of assessments that teachers can select for assessing students. In the school settings, formative and summative assessment are common activities....

As the university environment can present unique challenges, it is important to look at the ways in which childhood trauma can impact student resilience, especially in non-Western contexts. The present study examines the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and measures of resilience among college students in Turkey. Students r...

The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework developed over a decade ago is still valid and applicable in educational contexts when dealing with the use of technology in teaching and learning. With widespread availability of devices and prolific use of technology among students, teachers need to be conversant with various techn...

The present study explored the relationship between grit, motivational beliefs and self-regulation among undergraduate students in the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. These factors place the responsibility of learning on the students, rather than the educational environment. As most studies continue to focus on Western, educated...

Given that schools are, potentially, powerful sites for influencing adolescent behaviour, it is important that there is greater understanding of the psychosocial aspects of the school climate that can be leveraged for this purpose. The research reported in this article used structural equation modelling (with data from a sample of 6120 students at...

This study examined the effect of gender on students attitudes towards Mathematics. 1039 elementary students from a Gulf state responded to the Math and Me survey (Adelson & McCoach, 2011) which has two constructs (Enjoyment of Mathematics and Mathematical Self-Perceptions). Data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM), in particula...

A conceptual understanding of how students learn and what motivate them to choose a specific approach to learning have been of interest to all educators. A number of instruments that measure students learning styles and orientations, study preferences and ways of knowing exist in the literature. This study explored the reliability and validity of t...

We investigated students’ perceptions of their science classroom environments with the use of the What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire at the university level in Myanmar. The translated questionnaire was administered to 251 students in first-year science classes at a university. Both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory fa...

Teaching in the classroom today can no longer sustain the interest of students and be effective if the process involves traditional approach - teachers as sole provider of content information. In recent years technology has played a significant role in transforming education to more progressive and interactive activities. However the use of technol...

This study explored the reliability and validity of the inventory that measures attitudes toward mathematics among middle school students. The original version of Attitudes toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) was adapted and translated into Arabic language and administered to middle school students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The data were a...

The well-documented increase in student mental health issues in Australia and growing recognition of the need for education to play a part in students’ identity formation prompted this study. The research reported in this article sought to identify specific elements of the school climate that were likely to influence the interplay of adolescent hea...

The past several decades of research in education has suggested that students’ attitudes, interests, beliefs, and values are important to educators and such affective dispositions are often predictor of students’ subsequent behaviour which leads to academic success (Popham, 2005). Voluminous studies have been conducted in the field of mathematics e...

It is increasingly important that next generation of students must acquire problem solving, critical thinking and collaborative skills to succeed in their career aspirations in the 21st century. Technology plays a crucial role in assimilation of these skills. Among flourishing arrays of technologies, robotics provides challenges and opportunities t...

The purpose of this study was to examine college students' intention to use computer technology in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The study measured perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEU), attitude towards computer use (ATCU), and intention to use (ITU). Data collected from 327 college students, attending two institutions of higher...

This study examined the relations between school climate variables and students’ feeling of wellbeing, life satisfaction, ethnic identity, moral identity and resilience. Furthermore, the study also examined the interrelationships between these five outcome variables. Six aspects of the school climate were measured: teacher support, peer connectedne...

The current study addresses student perceptions of math and science professors in the Middle East. Gender disparity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education continues to exist in higher education, with male professors holding a normative position. This disparity can also be seen in the United Arab Emirates. As female participa...

The development of teamwork skills is an important aspect of engineering education as the interdisciplinary nature of the industry requires graduates to be able to work professionally with others in a team-based environment. Any miscommunication or obstruction from team members can result in lower team performance, thereby affecting the overall goa...

The study on attitudes towards learning has a long tradition in mathematics education. While attitude as a construct has been investigated from different aspects, the researchers recognized that attitude encompasses many other related factors. This paper describes the affective factors that form attitudes and their important role in mathematics ach...

Over the past few years, the relationship between attitudes and behavior has been of a major interest to educators. Previous studies have found varying degree of associations between attitudes, behavioral intention and perceptions and corroborate the fact that attitudes influence patterns of behavior. As computer technology is becoming pervasive in...

This study explored the reliability and validity of the inventory that measures attitudes toward mathematics among middle school students. The original version of Attitudes toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) was adapted and translated into Arabic language and administered to middle school students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The data were a...

This study explored the reliability and validity of the inventory that measures attitudes toward mathematics among middle school students. The original version of Attitudes toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) was adapted and translated into Arabic language and administered to middle school students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The data were a...

The technology acceptance model (TAM) has been recognized as the most frequently used in the information system and business research in the past. But in recent years, educational researchers and practitioners also employ the model to explain the students’ and teachers’ perceptions on technology use and the relationships between the attitudes, usef...

Hiring practices of English language teachers often reflect stereotypical perceptions of “nativeness” as an indicator of teacher effectiveness. In this respect, the present study explores the impact of teacher’s ethnicity, as well as student and teacher gender, on student expectations of English language instructors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE...

The purpose of our study was to examine the effects of two psychosocial features of the classroom environment (teacher support and personal relevance) on college students' academic self-efficacy and enjoyment of mathematics lessons. Data collected from 352 mathematics students attending three higher education institutions in the United Arab Emirate...

This study examined the effects of psychosocial features of the classroom environment on Emirati college students’ attitudes (academic efficacy and their enjoyment of mathematics lessons). A bilingual version (English and Arabic) of The What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire and Enjoyment of Mathematics Lessons and academic efficacy...

The purpose of our study was to examine the effects of two psychosocial features of the classroom environment (teacher support and personal relevance) on college students’ academic self-efficacy and enjoyment of mathematics lessons. Data collected from 352 mathematics students attending three higher education institutions in the United Arab Emirate...

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Attitudes towards Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) developed Tapia and Martha (2004). Data collected from 269 middle school students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were used to validate the questionnaire. A maximum likelihood method of extraction and a varimax rotation with...

Students spend up to 20,000 hours at educational institutions by the time they finish university (Fraser, 2001). Therefore, students’ observations of and reactions to, their experiences in school – specifically their learning environments – are of significance. The term learning environment refers to the social, physical, psychological and pedagogi...

Over the past 40 years, research has consistently shown that the quality of the classroom environment is an important determinant of student learning (Fraser, 2007, 2012). That is, students are likely to learn better when they perceive their classroom environment positively. According to Hanrahan (2002), research on science pedagogy suggests that t...

The primary focus of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of games when used in tertiary-level mathematics classes in the United Arab Emirates. Our study incorporated a mixed-method approach that involved surveys (to assess students’ perceptions of the learning environment and attitudes towards mathematics), interviews, observations of c...

The primary focus of this study was to investigate the impact of games activities in mathematics classes. The study incorporated a pre-post approach that involved surveys to assess students' perceptions of psychosocial features of the learning environment, academic efficacy and students' enjoyment of mathematics lessons. A sample of 90 students fro...

We investigated whether the introduction of games into college-level mathematics classes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was effective in terms of improving students’ perceptions of the learning environment and their attitudes towards of mathematics. A pre–post design involved the administration of English and Arabic versions of two surveys (one...

We investigated the relationships between global self-esteem, academic self-efficacy and academic performance among a sample of 255 college students in the United Arab Emirates. The widely used Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale (RSES; Rosenberg, 1965) and an academic self-efficacy scale, modified from (Jinks and Morgan, 1999) were used to assess studen...