Dr Zara Ersozlu

Computational thinking (CT) has been accepted and embraced by educators and researchers alike, but many questions remain surrounding what concepts and topics have been used in CT, what tools have been used to help teach CT, and the current range of research on CT. In this paper, we address those questions and the state of professional development (PD) used to train teachers and preservice teachers in CT. Using a scientometrics analysis to map data from the scientific literature based on different kinds of published research, we found that most publications were published in education-related sources and that CT in relation to mathematics teaching was mostly about teaching computing skills and teaching computer programming using practice and algorithmic thinking in engineering and in STEM, mostly at the higher education level. Additionally, our results revealed that Scratch was the dominant tool used to teach programming skills at all school levels and in teacher education. Research on PD illustrated a main focus centred on improving computational thinking via programming skills in rural and urban areas of teaching. Lastly, we conclude that high-impact research outputs support the notion of computational thinking as a problem-solving process.

Mathematics anxiety in initial teacher education is a growing issue that reflects on teacher quality and their student's maths anxiety and abilities. Previous studies have presented a range of different perspectives to mathematics anxiety. We aimed to explore further the reasons of mathematics anxiety in preservice teachers and suggest some intervention strategies in reducing maths anxiety for initial teacher education systems. We used a mixed methodology in this research analysing both qualitative data along with some quantified data derived from qualitative data sources. The findings provide insights to causes of maths and test anxiety along with some intervention strategies that teacher educators can use in their future teaching.

Mathematics anxiety is well known and studied concept. Most of the studies have been focused on the effects of mathematical anxiety on students' academic achievement, especially from the viewpoint of analysing large national and international data sets. We aim to bring a different perspective to the existing research on mathematics anxiety and resilience by considering the measurement equivalence across cultures, so they can be compared fairly. We used Multi Group Invariance analysis with this purpose. Our findings suggested that full metric and partial scalar model invariance were confirmed which advise that the mathematics anxiety scale can be compared across two countries. We also ran multiple regression using Fisher's Z to understand the reciprocal relationship among the variables across two samples. Preliminary results revealed that the perceived mathematics anxiety and perceived mathematics ability predict the measured mathematics anxiety equally well for both Australia and Russia.

This study analyzed the latest four PISA surveys, 2009, 2012, 2015, and 2018, to explore the association between students' ICT-related use and math and science performance. Using ICT Engagement Theory as a theoretical framework and a three-level hierarchical linear modeling approach, while controlling for confounding effects, ICT-related independent variables of interest were added to the models at the student, school, and country levels. The series of models revealed that, in general, an increase in ICT availability and ICT use both inside and outside school had a negative association with learning outcomes, while students' positive attitude toward ICT demonstrated a strong positive relationship. However, students' perceived autonomy related to ICT use had the strongest association with academic performance, which is consistent with the changing nature of the modern learning environments. Findings revealed that virtually all forms of student ICT use, both inside and outside of school and whether subject related or not, had no substantive positive relationship with student performance in math or science. Conversely, higher student attitude toward, confidence in, belief in utility of, and autonomous use of ICT was associated with higher math and science performance for each of the four years of the study. Incidentally, we also found that while country GDP per capita had no consistent association with student performance, a school's provision of extra-curricula activities did. Recommendations for educational leaders, teachers, and parents are offered.

TeachLivE¿, a mixed-reality simulated classroom technology, has been used in initial teacher education programs to provide repeatable experiential learning opportunities for students now for more than a decade and in more than 80 universities worldwide. However, no broad scale investigation has been conducted into how the platform has been used or what research has been generated as a result. The aim of this study is to provide insight into the types of TeachLivE¿ research carried out since its inception and to identify trends and potential gaps in this research. Peer-reviewed academic primary research publications¿journal articles (23), conference proceedings (12), and thesis dissertations (20)¿were reviewed for participants, research methods, analysis, research design, data collection tools, and design approaches. Of the 102 articles identified as relevant, "instructional skills development" and "integration of TeachLivE¿ in teacher education" were the most commonly researched topics. Findings indicate that preservice teachers were the most commonly studied group of participants, research methods were predominately qualitative, single-subject experimental research design was employed most often, and the most used data collection tools were surveys and observation. These findings highlight that the range of topics is increasing, with studies on in-service teachers in school-based contexts beginning to emerge as a new area of interest. This systematic review has implications for researchers and the developers of TeachLivE¿. It provides valuable insight and recommendations for future studies in this emerging teacher education field, where technology is not simply used "in the classroom" but rather "as the classroom."

The goal of this study is to analyse the publications on mathematics anxiety to contribute to the development of the related literature. A total of 537 papers on mathematics anxiety published in various databases of Web of Science between 2000 and 2018 years were retrieved and analysed through bibliometric analysis approach. Bibliographic coupling of the source, the authors, the countries, the institutions, the publications and co-occurrences of the author keywords were analysed and visualised through VOS Viewer software. Maths anxiety has been studied frequently with the concepts of anxiety, motivation, self-efficacy, self-concept, maths performance, maths achievement, gender-related differences, test anxiety, working memory, arithmetic, mental arithmetic, and numeracy. Frontiers in Psychology and Learning and Individual Differences have been the top journals, and the University of Chicago has been the most influential institution, and the USA has had a significant prevalence in this area.

The existence of special schools aims to provide education opportunities and environment for physically and mentally disabled people. The provision of more exquisite and diversified services for parents, at ease, placing the children in the schools becomes an essential issue for current special schools. The special needs of students are more complicated that special schools have to overall study the service being more exquisite and diversified to correspond to the needs of students and parents. For this reason, the management of special schools takes the priority when discussing the function of special education institutions. Data Envelopment Analysis is applied to evaluate efficiency in this study. Shanghai, being the municipal city and the national central city of People's Republic of China, presents the education quality at the head nationally. Special schools in Shanghai are therefore selected as the evaluated units in this study. The research results show strong efficiency of 1 DMU, revealing the good efficiency of special education execution, 4 DMUs with the efficiency between 0.9 and 1, revealing the efficiency being easily promoted, and 5 DMUs with the efficiency below 0.9, presenting obvious inefficiency. Moreover, the efficiency analysis with Malmquist shows the improvement of efficiency changes between two periods of special schools. Finally, suggestions are proposed according to the conclusion, expecting to assist in the development of special education in China.