Luke K Fryer

The University of Hong Kong | HKU · Faculty of Education

The literature on cognitive processing and strategic processing is murky with regard to how these types of processing influence learning. One reason for this is that the frameworks used to investigate these relations have separately focused on different aspects related to cognitive processing with little integration between them. To address these i...

The meta-analytic evidence aligning aspects of instruction and critical individual differences with student achievement continues to mount. Scant research effort has, however, been invested in connecting these findings to and through substantive theory which might drive both further research and enhance classroom practice. The current theoretically...

Chatbots will have a growing role within formal education. What should that role be? How might we treat chatbots as an opportunity to enhance and reenergise teaching and learning? This position paper suggests that answers to these questions should start with our foundational psychological theories about what students need to function and develop we...

Students entering higher education experience significant declines in both performance and motivation. Compulsory foundational gateway courses are an obvious source of difficulty. Low cost at-scale support is much needed during this critical period, but when and how remain open questions. Grade goals and self-efficacy provide short-term motivation,...

Motivating students to persist in learning they did not choose is one of the most challenging parts of being an educator. Psychological, classroom-based interventions have been popularised, but less research has explored online support outside the classroom. An experimental test of the efficacy of a programme of informational nudge videos for the s...

Learning management systems (LMSs) have facilitated access to courses beyond conventional classroom environments via distance and asynchronous education. Although numerous studies have examined LMS usage in higher education institutions, review of scales measuring the LMS experience of both students and teachers remains scarce. This scoping review...

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted education, necessitating alternative methods to traditional face-to-face teaching. This dramatic change, in tandem with increasing awareness of the metaverse—a virtual reality (VR) world wherein humanity might learn, work and socialise–has made a clear need for a better understanding of the pot...

The linkages between students' self-efficacy and interest necessitates a deeper look at how changes in students' self-efficacy impact their interest in learning across a course and in the longer-term. The longitudinal contribution of students' self-efficacy beliefs' latent growth for their interest in studying in a specific domain in the shorter- (...

Understanding how task experiences support proximal and longer-term desires to reengage is central to understanding learners' individual differences. At the heart of this issue, is the interplay between an individual's perceptions of task difficulty and the situational interest they experience. This interplay is increasingly researched but not yet...

A few researchers have utilised leaderboards, a prevalent gamified element, in education to facilitate students' learning. Nevertheless, no existing review was identified to provide a comprehensive overview regarding the use of leaderboards within education. To address this gap, this systematic review examined the design, implementation, and effect...

Research investigating the use of processing and regulation strategies across different cultures can shed light on the internationalisation of teaching and learning. Previous cross-cultural studies investigated limited representative samples and relied on geographical stereotypes. Published and unpublished ILS (Inventory of Learning patterns of Stu...

Along with the development of systems for natural language understanding and generation, dialog systems have been widely adopted for language learning and practicing. Many current educational dialog systems perform chitchat, where the generated content and vocabulary are not constrained. However, for learners in a school setting, practice through d...

Studies on learning strategies across cultures in higher education inform the internationalisation of teaching and learning. Previous comparisons relied on geographical generalisations (e.g., “Asian”, “Western”, “Latin-American”) or only variable-centred methods, which can overgeneralise the contexts they represent. Eight learning strategy datasets...

Interest is linked to long-term domain engagement, and achievement. However, practical connections between formal education and (situational and individual) interest development can be difficult to implement. The study investigates the effects of student experience components at the task and course levels on domain interest development in a first-y...

Along with the development of systems for natural language understanding and generation, dialog systems have been widely adopted for language learning and practicing. Many current educational dialog systems perform chitchat, where the generated content and vocabulary are not constrained. However, for learners in a school setting, practice through d...

The huge impact of COVID-19 on education, in tandem with increasing awareness of the metaverse, has made a clear need for a better understanding of the potential contribution of virtual reality-based simulation environments for students’ learning outcomes. The present scoping review is an examination of the effects of VR experiences on students’ mo...

This is a protocol for a study that aims to develop a questionnaire in both Chinese and English version that measures students' learning experience in the use of LMS. Three specific research questions that relevant to measuring the LMS experience of students using multiple constructs will be addressed: (1) Do the selected constructs have sufficient...

Critical thinking and strategic processing have become ubiquitous both in the educational research literature as well as practice. However, neither of these constructs has had commonly agreed upon definitions or common agreement on how they relate to each other. This review first lays the conceptual stage for how these constructs have been defined...

Interest is a critical fuel for and outcome of learning. Building on and refocusing the Four-Phase Model of interest development, this study provides a window into the ecology of the learning experience and interest it generates. This research uses a novel mobile assessment platform to test learning experiences in three university courses (Organic...

Background Considerable evidence suggests that students' achievement emotions are important contributors to their learning and success online. It is, therefore, essential to understand and support students' emotional experiences to enhance online education, especially under the COVID‐19 context. However, to date, very few studies have investigated...

As research questions in the rapidly growing field of Open, Distance, and Digital Education shift from if to how these forums should be approached, a paramount and complementary area of research is the accompanying motivation students’ exhibit to learn in ODDE environments. This chapter critically examines the existing literature on student motivat...

As research questions in the rapidly growing field of Open, Distance, and Digital Education shift from if to how these forums should be approached, a paramount and complementary area of research is the accompanying motivation students’ exhibit to learn in ODDE environments. This chapter critically examines the existing literature on student motivat...

Gamified formative assessment has been increasingly popular within English language education due to its potential to promote learning processes. However, no existing review was identified to synthesise the effectiveness of gamified formative assessment for English language learning, especially for school-aged learners. This scoping review contribu...

A wide range of empirical studies have explored various situational interest sources (e.g., novelty, utility-value) within learning activities. This review aims to systematically summarize the situational interest sources identified by existing empirical studies based on the four-phase model of interest development (Hidi & Renninger, 2006) and to s...

Students arrive to university with varying readiness to navigate high-stakes large-enrolment courses. Declines in students' ability beliefs (e.g., self-efficacy beliefs), motivations (e.g., interest) and achievement are well known. A bespoke mobile testing platform is used to moderate declines through automated large-scale feedback comparing goals...

Background: In 2018, the national decision was made for foreign languages (generally English) to become a formal school subject in Japanese elementary schools. There is considerable evidence to suggest that many elementary school teachers remain poorly equipped to satisfy these curricular requirements. As part of Japan’s response to covid-19, chrom...

The learning styles hypothesis—and particularly the meshing hypothesis—state that learners’ preferences about their preferred modality of learning (i.e., visual, aural, or kinesthetic) predict learning gains on academic tasks. Despite the fact that this hypothesis is not borne out by the scientific evidence available to us, it still remains in wide...

Developing the fundamentals of a foreign language is a major focus of most elementary school language programs (Butler, 2015). One of the established key fundamentals for all later language studies comes in the form of awareness and understanding of the sounds commonly used in the new language, commonly known as phonological awareness (PA). Finding...

This is a registration of a protocol for a scoping review which aims to provide a comprehensive overview regarding how built-in social tools in MOOCs affects students' belongingness, interest and completion rate, and identify relevant research gaps.

Background: Self-efficacy beliefs have well established theoretical and empirical linkages to persistence and achievement. Budding theoretical and recent empirical research has worked to connect self-efficacy to interest. Building on research in these areas, burgeoning research has begun to examine the relative role of intercept and slope of self-...

How students experience educational environments and the interconnections between their readiness, task experiences and their long-term desire to reengage with course content are critical questions for educators. Research postgraduate students (n=310) at a research- intensive university in Hong Kong, engaging in a 24-hour introductory teaching cour...

How students experience educational environments and the interconnections between their readiness, task experiences and their long-term desire to reengage with course content are critical questions for educators. Research postgraduate students (n = 310) at a research-intensive university in Hong Kong, engaging in a 24-h introductory teaching course...

Effective assessment of university experiences is critical for quality assurance/enhancement but fragmented across the Pacific-Asian universities. A shared conceptual and measurement foundation for understanding student experiences is a necessary first step for inter-institutional communication across the region. The current study is a first step t...

en Higher education's rapid expansion is paired with growing social expectations of its benefits and concern on its teaching quality. In response to these, institutional/national surveys based on an array of theories are widely used in universities for quality assurance, enhancement, and benchmarking. This paper reviews three major types of instrum...

Background: Self-efficacy has well established theoretical and empirical linkages to persistence and achievement. Budding theoretical and recent empirical research has worked to connect self-efficacy to students' interest. Building on research in these areas, burgeoning research has begun to examine the relative role of intercept and slope of self-...

Much of formal higher education research on learning experiences has focused on processing strategies and outcomes, however, less attention has been paid to their precursors. This study employed Biggs’ 3P model to examine the contributions of learning conceptions (as part of learning patterns (LPs) research; construction of knowledge, intake of kno...

Higher education’s rapid expansion is paired with growing social expectations of its benefits and concern on its teaching quality. In response to these, institutional/national surveys based on an array of theories are widely used in universities for quality assurance, enhancement, and benchmarking. This paper reviews three major types of instrument...

The paired development of an individual’s knowledge and interest in an object/topic has well-established theoretical and empirical support. Their shared role within learning experiences has similar support but has less often been researched intensively in formal contexts such as classrooms. To address this gap, four studies in four foundation unive...

Motivations-beliefs for learning and their relationship to instructional experiences are a poorly understood aspect of higher education. Notably, interest is an individual difference that both researchers and educators alike believe should be supported. However, this support is too often relegated to the craft of instruction. To be enhanced broadly...

Background: The use of chatbots as learning assistants is receiving increasing attention in language learning due to their ability to converse with students using natural language. Previous reviews mainly focused on only one or two narrow aspects of chatbot use in language learning. This review goes beyond merely reporting the specific types of cha...

Young learners require developmental benchmarks to improve awareness of the phonemes in a new language. This study aimed to extend our understanding of Japanese elementary school students’ general and specific phonemic awareness across four years of English instruction. A public elementary school 3rd-6th year students in Japan (n=261, ages=8–12) pa...

How do students become interested in a new domain of study? How does students' readiness (prior interest, self-efficacy and prior knowledge) play a role in this process? How do specific learning experiences play a role in this process?

Interest is a critical fuel for and outcome of learning. Building on and refocusing the Four-Phase Model of interest development, this study provides a window into the ecology of the learning experience and interest it generates. This research tests a task interest model for understanding learning experiences in three university courses (mathematic...

Phonemic awareness is a necessary but not sufficient skill for language development. Phonemic awareness is therefore a critical factor for initial foreign language learning leading to ultimate attainment of literacy in the new language. The current study presents a test of phonemic awareness applied to the Japanese elementary school EFL environment...

Formative assessment can be seen as an integral part of teaching and learning, as formative assessment affects students’ learning and vice versa. Students’ motivation can theoretically be placed at the centre of this reciprocal relationship, as formative assessment is assumed to affect students’ need satisfaction of autonomy, competence and related...

Graduate students often teach in higher education but lack necessary experience, while enrolment for teacher-training courses is often voluntary with varying standards. The development and malleability of graduate students' teaching approaches, self-efficacy, interest and teaching ability were evaluated in a mandatory teaching course at a research-...

Bots are destined to dominate how humans interact with the internet of things that continues to grow around them. Despite their still budding intellectual capacity, major companies (e.g., Apple, Google and Amazon) have already placed (chat)bots at the center of their flagship devices. Chatbots currently fill the internet acting as guides, merchants...

Interest and self-efficacy are crucial to academic success. This study addresses two gaps in our understanding of their development and support during university courses: how prior self-efficacy and interest plays a role in, and how different classroom activities build toward the development of students' future interest and self-efficacy. In this s...

Students' gender can have subtle long-term effects on students' motivation, engagement, and ultimate achievement in learning a new language. Given the current focus on motivation in primary and secondary schools in many Asian countries, understanding both boys' and girls' orientations toward learning English may offer insight into students' future...

Numerous theorists have offered opinions about motivational differences between learning a new language and other school subjects. At the same time, little empirical evidence for the differences has been brought forward. In this study, we aimed to address these motivational differences and similarities between learning a new (foreign) language and...

Self-report is a fundamental research tool for the social sciences. Despite quantitative surveys being the workhorses of the self-report stable, few researchers question their format-often blindly using some form of Labelled Categorical Scale (Likert-type). This study presents a brief review of the current literature examining the efficacy of surve...

While self-report measures are ubiquitous in the educational research literature, the benefits of self-report are often maligned. Rather than discarding or ignoring data generated from self-report measures of cognitive processing and motivation, research is needed to determine when and if self-report measures can contribute to our collective unders...

As a prelude to this special issue on the promise and pitfalls of self-report, this article addresses three issues critical to its current and future use. The development of self-report is framed in Vertical (improvement) and Horizontal (diversification) terms, making clear the role of both paths for continued innovation. The ongoing centrality of...

Self-report is a fundamental research tool for the social sciences. Despite quantitative surveys being the workhorses of the self-report stable, few researchers question their format—often blindly using some form of Labelled Categorical Scale (Likert-type). This study presents a brief review of the current literature examining the efficacy of surve...

Student learning and development in higher education is a broad topic. While learning and development are certainly related components of the university experience, researchers have generally focused on one or the other, thus creating two research streams that rarely converge. In student development, there are at least three long-established bodi...

The present chapter will present what is, as yet, a very small niche within the strategic processing research literature: the (potential) role of person-centered analyses for strategic processing research. This chapter is organised into three sections. The first aims to situate person-centered quantitative research methodologies within the plethora...

Handbook of Strategies and Strategic Processing provides a state-of-the-art synthesis of conceptual, measurement, and analytical issues regarding learning strategies and strategic processing. Contributions by educational psychology experts present the clearest-yet definition of this essential and quickly evolving component of numerous theoretical f...

Research postgraduate students (RPgs) are often accepted into degree programmes for their research potential rather than proficiency in teaching and communication skills. In Hong Kong, previous exposure in these areas vary among RPgs, and introductory training courses are often employed to mitigate the experience gap. The aim of this study was to i...

The special issue offers a new, up-to-date look on a plurality of non-cognitive individual difference factors with the potential to meaningfully influence language learning in formal educational settings. For the purpose of this discussion, we use the commonly accepted operational definition of non-cognitive individual difference factors as specifi...

This poster presents a framework for determining whether (and then when) to use technology to support learning inside and outside classrooms. The framework first seeks to focus educators’ attention on the critical teaching-learning aims which technology might support (e.g., Peer learning, Feedback, Self-directed learning, and Enjoyment/Motivation)....

Numerous theorists have offered opinions about the differences between learning a new language and other school subjects. At the same time, little empirical evidence for the differences has been brought forward. In this study, we aimed to address the motivational differences and similarities between learning a new (foreign) language and learn one's...

Across three first-year science courses (Mathematics-Analysis, Biochemistry and Introduction-to-Physics), an online tool for the micro-analytic collection of students’ interest in lecture-hall/tutorial tasks/activities was piloted/refined. Utilising Partial Least Squares (PLS) latent regression modelling, data from three courses were each modelled,...

This review positions current conceptions of interest and its development as a critical and (importantly) sustainable source of motivation for learning a new language across formal education. We begin with the gap in our understanding of motivation to learn a new language generated by the longstanding dominance of applied linguistics identity/socio...

We tested the interplay between ability-beliefs (self-efficacy and self-concept) and interest at three levels of specificity (Domain, Course and Task), and their relationship with students’ interest in the domain and self-efficacy for the course across one semester of study. Longitudinal latent modelling of the first-year students (n=128) studying...

Strategies – and the motivation to use them – are critical to helping learners solve complex problems and complete complex tasks. These strategies and motivation are specific to certain domains – such as science – and even specific to certain tasks. Policies to improve learners’ strategies and motivations should consider the learners themselves, th...

How do we support students through their difficult transition to secondary school? Perceived value for and perceived ability to be successful during secondary school are a crucial part of any answer to this question. These perceptions and their interaction with classroom instruction are at the heart of many issues students face in this challenging...

17 With increasing globalization, English has become an essential tool for communication across national and cultural borders. For Asia-Pacific countries, which include a diverse range of languages, there is a sustained and growing interest in expanding the percentage of their population competent in English (Kachru, 1997). As a result of this move...

The current study used a longitudinal design to model initial interest and utility-value as antecedents of de- veloping interest and course proficiency. Using measures from four time points across one academic year and competency assessed at the beginning of the previous year, we examined direct and mediated contributions of utility-value, self-eff...

Conversation practice, while paramount for all language learners, can be difficult to get enough of and very expensive. In this mobile age, chatbots are an obvious means of filling this gap, but have yet to realize their potential as practice partners. The current study was undertaken to examine why chatbots are not yet a substantial instrument for...

The idiosyncrasies of the Japanese system of education generate specific trends in the development of Japanese students' motivation. From the perspective of modern engagement and motivation theories, every level of Japanese schooling differs in its degree of institutional and societal focus on externally and internally controlled sources of motivat...

This chapter explores the methodological choices made in an illustrative complex and longitudinal study of classroom interest in a language task. They walk the reader through choices that must be made in a quantitative analysis step by step while also advocating for best practices in quantitative research, such as using technology as a partner in r...

Biggs’ Presage-Process-Product (3P) model provides a flexible model for testing hypotheses about intra-psychic and contextual effects on student learning processes and outcomes; however, few empirical studies have effectively tested the longitudinal and reciprocal effects implied by the model. The current study provides an empirical test of theoriz...

Teaching to promote motivation in Japanese elementary schools is about helping students engage with material. Engagement describes how students think, act, and feel when they work on their learning tasks. Research has indicated that supportive teaching in elementary schools involves several specific elements, including pacing, clarity