Problems of Education in The 21st Century, Vol. 78, No. 6A, 2020

Problems of Education in the 21st Century, Vol. 78, No.
6A, 2020
ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)
PROBLEMS OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
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Dr. Monica Baptista, University of Lisbon, Portugal
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Dr., Prof. Andris Broks, University of Latvia, Latvia
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Dr. Paolo Bussotti, University of Udine, Italy
Dr., Prof. Muammer Calik, Trabzon University, Turkey
Dr. Saša A. Horvat, University of Novi Sad, Republic of Serbia
Dr., Prof. Margaret Chan Kit Yok, MARA University of Technology (UiTM), Malaysia
Dr., Angela James, University of Kwazulu – Natal, South Africa
Dr., Prof. Vladimir S. Karapetyan, Armenian State Pedagogical University named after
Kh. Abovyan, Armenia
Dr., Prof. Kuo-Hung Huang, National Chiayi University, Taiwan
Dr. Milan Kubiatko, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic
Dr., Prof. Miroslaw Kowalski, University of Zielona Gora, Poland
Dr., Prof. Lay Yoon Fah, University Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia
Dr. Todar T. Lakhvich, Belarusian State Medical University, Republic of Belarus
Dr. Solange W. Locatelli, Federal University of ABC, Brazil
Dr. Eleonora Melnik, Petrozavodsk State University, Republic of Karelia, Russia
Dr., Prof. Danuše Nezvalova, Palacky University, Czech Republic
Dr. Osman Pekel, Suleyman Demirel University, Turkey
Dr., Prof. Yuriy Pelekh, Rivne State University of Humanities, Ukraine
Dr., Prof. Raffaele Pisano, University of Lille, France
Dr., Prof. Katarzyna Potyrala, Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland
Dr. Costin Pribeanu, Academy of Romanian Scientists, Romania
Dr. Agneta Simeonsdotter Svensson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Dr. Uladzimir K. Slabin, University of Oregon, USA
Dr. Laima Railienė, Scientific Methodical Centre „Scientia Educologica“, Republic of Lithuania
Dr., Prof. Borislav V. Toshev, Sofia University, Bulgaria
Dr., Prof. Milan Turčani, Constantine the Philosopher University, Slovakia
Dr., Prof. Nicos Valanides, Educational Robotics and Science Organization, Cyprus
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PROBLEMS
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Vol. 78, No. 6A, 2020
Contents 1061
Editorial
EDITORIAL FOR THEMATIC ISSUE ON “EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES IN EAST ASIA”

Kuo-Hung Huang, Ching-Ching Cheng .......................................................................... 1062
Articles
CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING FOR THE CHILDREN OF NEW IMMIGRANTS

IN TAIWAN: PERSPECTIVES OF NEW IMMIGRANT PARENTS
Mei-ying Chen, Geneva Gay ...................................................................................... 1065
TEACHING PRACTICES: INTEGRATING POSITIVE THINKING IN PICTURE BOOK

CREATION FOR ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN
Chiu-Hua Huang, Fin-Land Cheng, Ching-Yueh Teng ........................................................1081
FOSTERING AUTONOMOUS LANGUAGE LEARNERS AT A JAPANESE UNIVERSITY

Mayumi Kanazawa ................................................................................................. 1096
AFFECTIVE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO SOUTHEAST ASIAN AND EAST

ASIAN EIGHTH GRADERS’ SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT IN TIMSS 2015
Yoon Fah Lay, Murugan Rajoo ....................................................................................1107
A COLLABORATIVE EXCHANGE TO IMPROVE EARLY CHILDHOOD

EDUCATION OUTCOMES
Yumiko Takagi, Paul Batten, Karen Rattenborg ..................................................................1126
Information
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS ............................................................................. 1137
NATURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION / GAMTAMOKSLINIS UGDYMAS ............................... 1140
EDUCATION POLICY, MANAGEMENT AND QUALITY /

ŠVIETIMAS: POLITIKA, VADYBA, KOKYBĖ ............................................................. 1141

PROBLEMS
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Vol. 78, No. 6A, 2020
1062
EDITORIAL FOR THEMATIC ISSUE ON
“EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES
IN EAST ASIA”
Kuo-Hung Huang, Ching-Ching Cheng
National Chiayi University, Taiwan
E-mail: kuohung@mail.ncyu.edu.tw, chingching_cheng@mail.ncyu.edu.tw
Globalization and education reform is becoming an important topic across the

international arena. In response to global pressures for reform, national educational systems'
quality is increasingly being compared internationally, and education changes are introduced.
For example, uniformity of global curricula, instruction, and testing might result from
worldwide trends such as the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study)
and PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). Also, the growth of English
language usage and immigrants might contribute to a growing uniformity of global educational
practices for the global economy (Springer, 2008). Nevertheless, there is considerable criticism
of the ever-increasing global uniformity in education because ignoring differences in contextual
capacity and culture at the national and local levels will result in unintended and unexpected
consequences for educational practice (Carnoy & Rhoten, 2002).
In geographical terms, East Asia refers to a wide geographical area covering ten
Southeast Asian countries in ASEAN, China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. The spectacular
growth of many economies in East Asia over the past years has evoked studies attempting to
explain this phenomenon in theories of human development. Many countries recognize the
direct link between education and economic development and invest resources to promote
education quality for the new global economy. Nevertheless, there is a correspondingly broad
diversity of wealth, ethnicity, culture, religion, and education systems among these countries.
The government decides the resources allocation and schedule based on national interests,
including reforming the curriculum and identifying economic opportunities. Most importantly,
the policymakers should elaborate on the distilling strategic suggestions from more developed
countries because the great diversity could make the effects experienced differently. Thus,
building the human capacity for competitive markets with minimum globalization risks for
national development becomes a crucial principle for education reform.
At the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in 2000, the education
ministers from member countries recognized the need to continually adjust the focus of
education efforts to prepare for an ever-changing world and identified strategic areas including
IT in education, teacher development, information exchange, and mutual understanding
(Dale & Robertson, 2002). Unlike NAFTA’s rule-based approach or the EU’s Open Method
of Coordination, APEC adopted ‘concerted unilateralism,’ in which all members achieve the
common goal in their way. With unique cultural, social, and economic status, each country
focuses on educational issues in its own right and takes individual action plans. This context
has led us to start the dialogue, insightful commentary, and critique on the educational policies
and practices of Asian countries. This thematic issue aims to facilitate reflection on strategies
for addressing the challenges presented to their education systems under the globalized
environment.
https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1062 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

Kuo-Hung HUANG, Ching-Ching CHENG. Editorial for thematic issue on “Educational challenges in East Asia”
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Facing fierce competition in the fast-growing worldwide economic system, many East 1063
Asia countries encounter new educational challenges. For example, knowledge and skill training
for global markets, education for immigrants and migrant workers and their children, the balance
of regionalization and globalization at schools, and the learning gap between underprivileged
groups. This thematic issue covers several educational issues for culturally, economically, and
learning disadvantaged students. Most of the articles included in this thematic issue are related
to globalization, such as international cooperation, immigrant education, English learning,
and international academic achievement comparisons. Specific summaries of the five papers
included in this issue are as follows:
The paper “Culturally responsive teaching for the children of new immigrants in
Taiwan: Perspectives of new immigrant parents” discusses the education problems regarding
the children of new immigrants in Taiwan. From the new immigrant parents' perspectives,
they expect Taiwanese primary school teachers to implement culturally responsive teaching
to help academic development. Although government projects increase teachers’ recognition
of cultural differences, most Taiwanese teachers cannot implement effective communication
styles, multicultural curriculum design, and culturally congruent teaching. Therefore, more
policies to empower the children of new immigrants and improve their circumstances will foster
culturally responsive caring and effective communication, along with multicultural curricula
and instructional materials.
The paper “Teaching practices: integrating positive thinking in picture book creation for
economically disadvantaged children” introduces a practical teaching program creating picture
books to cultivate positive thinking for economically disadvantaged children. At first, teachers
design picture books incorporating hopeful thinking and develop a teaching plan relevant to
preschool children’s real experiences. Through the teacher’s storytelling and discussion of the
story content, children could express ideas based on their own experiences, set specific goals,
and devise feasible methods for handling adversity to achieve goals.
The paper “Fostering autonomous language learners at a Japanese university” proposes
an approach promoting autonomous learning skills for Japanese students of mixed-level
English abilities. Various activities are developed to prompt students to recognize their actions
and decide what to do to reach their own goals. These measures include a weekly log to record
any increase in learning hours outside the classroom, a learning log to identify the materials
and method for self-study, and a presentation to demonstrate any findings related to students’
motivation and learning habits. The results showed that the students promote engagement
with English outside the classroom and reflection on learning. Besides, they recognized some
improvements in their English learning skills, confidence, motivation, and learning habits.
The paper “A collaborative exchange to improve early childhood education outcomes”
presents the systematic promotion of international strategies at higher education institutions
forming global networks and international collaborative research teams. Through international
joint research on solving regional problems of early childhood education, the constructive
interaction enables researchers and professional leaders of childcare to understand the current
situation and trends for childcare in the United States. Furthermore, promoting exchanges,
including collaboration between researchers and contact with local experts and lectures to local
students, leads to improvements in the quality of childcare and the training of teachers in Japan.
As a measure for advancing sustainable international research, this study can be exemplifying
a case of solving regional problems by promoting exchange for a diversity of cultures and
research fields.
The paper “Affective factors contributing to southeast Asian and East Asian eighth-
graders’ science achievement in TIMSS 2015” analyzes the data of TIMSS to identify the
affective factors contributing to eighth graders' science achievement among Southeast Asian
and East Asian countries. The results indicate that Southeast Asian and East Asian Eighth Grade
ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1062

Kuo-Hung HUANG, Ching-Ching CHENG. Editorial for thematic issue on “Educational challenges in East Asia”
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OF EDUCATION
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1064 Students’ views, favorite, confidence, and value in science are positively and significantly
correlated with their science achievement in TIMSS.
We hope these papers will provide their findings on tackling various challenges to
promote understanding or bridge the differences under unique philosophies and social situations.
Furthermore, we look forward to a growing community of researchers focusing on the global-
scale educational issues and new advances in educational initiatives.
References
Carnoy, M., & Rhoten, D. (2002). What does globalization mean for educational change? A comparative
approach. Comparative Education Review, 46(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1086/324053
Dale, R., & Robertson, S. (2002). The varying effects of regional organizations as subjects of globalization
of education. Comparative Education Review, 46(1), 10-36. https://doi.org/10.1086/324052
Spring, J. (2008). Research on globalization and education. Review of Educational Research, 78(2), 330-
363. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654308317846
Received: October 25, 2020 Accepted: December 28, 2020
Cite as: Huang, K.-H., & Cheng, C.-C. (2020). Editorial for thematic issue on “Educational
challenges in East Asia”. Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 78(6A), 1062-1064.
https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1062
Kuo-Hung Huang PhD, Professor, Department of E-learning Design and Management, National
(Corresponding author) Chiayi University, 85 Wen-long Village, Ming-Hsiung, Chiayi 621, Taiwan.
E-mail: kuohung@mail.ncyu.edu.tw
Website: http://web.ncyu.edu.tw/~kuohung
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5716-7731
Ching-Ching Cheng PhD, Professor, Department of Early Childhood Education, National Chiayi
University, 85 Wen-long Village, Ming-Hsiung, Chiayi 621, Taiwan.
E-mail: chingching_cheng@mail.ncyu.edu.tw
Website: http://web.ncyu.edu.tw/~chingching_cheng
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1090-771X

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CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING FOR 1065
THE CHILDREN OF NEW IMMIGRANTS

IN TAIWAN: PERSPECTIVES OF NEW
IMMIGRANT PARENTS
Mei-ying Chen
National Chiayi University, Taiwan
E-mail: meiying2005_tw@yahoo.com.tw
Geneva Gay
University of Washington-Seattle, USA
E-mail: ggay@u.washington.edu
Abstract
International marriages have increased the population of new immigrants in Taiwan. Most Taiwanese
educators are unaware of the expectations of the new immigrant parents. This ethnographic research
explored whether Taiwanese primary school teachers implemented culturally responsive teaching to help
the children of new immigrants become academically accomplished from the perspectives of the new
immigrant parents. The findings indicated that most Taiwanese primary school teachers were aware of
the challenges the children of new immigrants faced but culturally responsive teaching approaches were
rarely implemented in any meaningful way, and that Taiwan still lacked effective communication styles,
multicultural curriculum design and culturally congruent teaching. While most Taiwanese teachers
recognized cultural differences, they failed to pursue measures to achieve educational equity. The new
challenges and relevant issues are discussed.
Keywords: culturally responsive teaching, ethnographic research, international marriages, primary
school teachers
Introduction
Taiwan is attracting an increasing number of new migrants, particularly women, from the
People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Southeast Asian countries through cross-border marriages.
These marriages are mostly driven by poor economic opportunities in the immigrants’ home
countries, Taiwan’s continuing “Southbound Policy” to promote trade and economic relations
with the nations of Southeast Asia and the need of unmarried Taiwanese men to have children
to continue their family lineage (Chen, 2010; Shiu, 2003). In 2016, the Taiwan government’s
announced “New Southbound Policy” takes the people-oriented approach and aims to foster
bilateral exchange and mutual resources sharing and focuses on talent cultivation, exchange,
and communication (MOE, 2020a). As of 2020, 2.36% of Taiwan’s population consisted of
new immigrants, defined here as non-Taiwanese people migrating to Taiwan for marriage after
1987 (561,630) (Ministry of Interior, MOI, 2020) is more than the total of Taiwan’s Indigenous
Peoples (559,426). The children of these new immigrants are referred to as New Taiwanese
Children (NTC) versus the Taiwanese Children (TC) whose both parents are original Taiwan
citizens. NTC comprise 9.83 % of students in grades 1-6 (97,846, 8.36%) and G7-9 (68,955,
11.3%) (Ministry of Education, MOE, 2020b) posing new challenges to Taiwan’s education

Mei-ying Chen, Geneva Gay. Culturally responsive teaching for the children of new immigrants in Taiwan: Perspectives of new
immigrant parents
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1066 system. Educational success is dependent on active collaboration between teachers and parents,
especially when one or both of the parents are new immigrants, and teachers must develop
an understanding of how such parents perceive schooling (C. Banks, 2019; Hiatt-Michael,
2001). In order to resolve the problems, there are three stages of educational regulations on
the NTC education. The first one is prior to 2013 Torch Project. At this stage, there were not
specific strategies, and it usually focuses on the Chinese language learning and life adjustment
of the new immigrants, and little attention is paid to the NTC bicultural and bilateral identity
development (Chen, 2010). However, the New Taipei City held some multicultural activities
such as Songkran (Waster-sprinkling) Festival in Thailand and Burma. The second stage is the
nation-wide Torch Project (2013-15) collaborated by MOE and MOI focusing on the primary
schools. The idea originated from the Torch Project in New Taipei City in 2007 to increase
multicultural awareness in Taiwan society, and new immigrant languages in public schools (Li,
2009). Meanwhile, there have been multilingual and multicultural mass media, newspapers
and programs sponsored by Taiwan government. For example, there have been (1) Sifangbao,
a multilingual newspaper mainly in Southeast Asian languages and Mandarin Chinese, (2) the
radio program, such as “Taiwan My Home”, (3) the television program (We Are Family), and
(4) Television news in Southeast Asian languages on the Public Television Service Channel 13
(Huang, Ou, & Wu, 2015). In 2017, the Taipei City Government started to celebrate the Festival
of Fast-breaking (Eid al-Fitr). At the third stage, the new immigrant languages are offered as
one of the regular language curriculums in primary school beginning in 2019 Curriculum
Guidelines of 12-year Basic Education. Multicultural education also has become one of the
significant issues that have to be integrated in the regular curriculum (MOE, 2020).
Nonetheless, the parents of NTC are usually reluctant to visit teachers or ask questions
because of their relative lack of proficiency in Taiwanese or Mandarin Chinese or other cultural
differences. In addition, many of these parents work long hours, making it difficult for them to
actively participate in their children’s schooling. Such parents are still acutely concerned with
their children’s education, but their inability to actively participate in the educational process
might serve to exacerbate the cultural gap between home and school (Wu, 2011). Cultural
differences might decrease NTC learning motivation, and low academic achievement could
result in part from teachers being unaware of how to modify their teaching styles to accommodate
the communication needs and learning styles of marginalized students. Therefore, it is crucial
to recognize the perceptions of the new immigrant parents toward their children’s schooling
to establish cultural continuity between the students’ home and school. Culturally responsive
teaching has been proposed as a useful approach to help disadvantaged students, and to develop
a positive identity and fulfil their academic potential (Banks, 2019; Gay, 2010; Grant & Sleeter,
1989; Liu & Lin, 2011).
The primary school level is regarded as the most important foundation for academic
achievement in Taiwan, thus Taiwanese parents are more concerned about the academic
achievement of their children from the primary school level comparing to the kindergarten
level. Also, projects related to new immigrants such as 2007 (New Taipei City) and 2013-
15 Torch Project (nation-wide) concentrated on the primary school because primary school
students’ workload and pressure of entrance examinations are not as heavy as the junior or
senior high school level. This study, therefore, explored the perceptions of new immigrants
towards Taiwanese school teachers in primary school level and their perception of the effect of
implementing culturally responsive teaching on their children to determine the proper role of
culturally responsive teaching. The following research questions were raised:
1. What are the perceptions of the new immigrants on primary school teacher
expectations for the NTC?
2. What communication style do Taiwanese primary school teachers use with the
NTC?

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3. What understanding do the new immigrants have regarding primary school 1067
curricula?
4. What is the new immigrants’ perception of the implementation of culturally
congruent teaching and learning by the primary school teachers?
Culturally Responsive Teaching
Culturally responsive teaching (also referred to as culturally relevant/compatible

teaching) is an appropriate approach to help marginalized students, and is a concept used in the
pursuit of social justice by means of creating cultural continuity between students’ home and
school environments. In this approach, educators raise their own self-awareness and integrate
knowledge about cultural diversity into teaching action to help promote student achievement
(Banks, 2019; Bennett, 2011; Gay, 2010; Ginsberg & Wlodkowsky, 2009; Grant & Sleeter,
1989; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Nieto, 2018). However, many school teachers are left “culturally
blind” by institutional training, personal experience or personal characteristics (Gay, 2010;
Rychly & Graves, 2012).
For classroom teachers, culturally responsive teaching is different from traditional
teaching in the following aspects (Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009): the source of knowledge and
skills are jointly amalgamated by teachers and students through their interaction and through
reflection on subject matter and other issues; it includes learning content based on student
experience and diversity; the learning environment is complex and is cooperatively managed
by both the teachers and students; the outcomes are complex and emphasize understanding
and competence to reorganize knowledge in ways that are comprehensible to the students.
Culturally responsive teaching is validating, comprehensive, multidimensional, empowering,
transformative, and emancipative (Banks, 2019; C. Banks, 2019; Bennett, 2011; Gay, 2010;
Ginsberg & Wlodkowsky, 2009; Grant & Sleeter, 1989; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Nieto, 2018).
Therefore, the critical components of culturally responsive teaching are: (1) contextualized and
culturally-based caring; (2) teacher-student communication; (3) a multicultural curriculum; (4)
culturally congruent teaching and learning with multiple forms of assessment. The relevant
theories and studies will be discussed below.
Contextualized and Culturally-based Caring
Caring is the first prerequisite in culturally responsive teaching and it consists of two
crucial concepts -- contextualizing students based on their respective cultural backgrounds and
establishing high expectations for student performance. The ethnically-diverse students also
need a consistently caring and culturally sensitive environment to motivate them to engage
in learning activities and tasks. Educators, however, should be aware of the variability of
individual personalities, degrees of ethnic affiliation, and kinds of cultural experiences, and use
this awareness to create an inclusive atmosphere in the classroom and school in consideration
of the subjectivity of the students in addition to their ethnicity and personal experiences
(Banks, 2019; Gay, 2010; Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Nieto, 2018).
Teachers should also understand that students could perform better when they are expected to do
well because students comply with and internalize teacher expectations. Furthermore, teacher
expectations are interconnected with their own feelings of efficacy, especially in relations to a
diverse group of students. When teachers are competent and self-confident, they are inclined
to have high expectations and teach effectively. In addition, Jackson (1994) suggested that
building trust between the teacher and students is the primary strategy for engendering student
success. That is, when teachers are caring, committed, competent, confident and content, they
are better able to create an effective teaching and learning leveraging their students’ intrinsic
motivation (Gay, 2010; Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009; Ladson-Billings, 1995).

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1068 Teacher-student Communication
The second requirement for culturally responsive teaching is teacher-student

communication appropriate for the use with students from diverse backgrounds. Such
communication is dynamic, interactive, and contextual. Language is probably the strongest
determinant in regards to whether a student recognizes what is happening in the classroom, and
whether the content is relevant to his or her beliefs, needs and interests. Language could be used
for negotiation to remove labels, and to help students develop their bilingual or multilingual
competences (Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009). Students from different backgrounds also
have different communication styles (e.g., passive-perceptive or participative-interactive)
and these influence their learning motivation and effect, and these affect student learning and
knowledge construction (Gay, 2010; W. Lin, 2011). Students from topic-centered and topic-
associative traditions also develop different ways of organizing ideas in discourse. The first
tradition arranges ideas in a logical and linear order, while the latter is episodic, anecdotal and
integrative. In addition, various ethnic groups may have different interpretations of the same
symbols and signals, thus it is critical for educators to understand various communication styles
and individual variations (Gay, 2010).
Multicultural Curriculum
The multicultural curriculum is the third critical component of the culturally responsive
teaching, and has a great impact on the self-esteem and achievement of marginalized students.
The mainstream school curriculum lacks sufficient ethnic and cultural diversity, and often
implicitly conveys a certain degree of bias against minority students. To increase the positive
ethnic identification and academic performance among minority students, it is essential
to diversify curriculum content, confront prejudices in the curriculum, and create cultural
continuity between home and school. Educators should be diligent in collaborating with
scholars of various ethnic backgrounds, community leaders, and cultural brokers to ensure
that curriculum content dealing with various ethnic groups is accurate and holistic. Various
programs can be used to supplement the mainstream school curriculum and accommodate the
learning styles of minority students to help them retain their cultural heritages and inspire their
academic achievement. Therefore, to provide multicultural perspectives for their students,
school teachers must develop cultural competences for the relevant cultures (Banks, 2019; Gay,
2010; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Nieto, 2018). Banks’ four-levels of integration of multicultural
content can help school teachers design and implement curricula for a transformative and
social action-based approach to help mainstream and marginalized students learn issues from
multiethnic perspectives, and take action to contribute to their communities (Banks, 2019). The
multicultural curriculum is also open to the inclusion of other materials such as picture books,
television programs and so on. The curricula should be relatively effective and be determined
with input from students (Gay, 2010). Previous studies in the context of Taiwan have suggested
that implementing a multicultural curriculum in the classroom increases the learning effects of
the marginalized students (Lu, 2012).
Culturally Congruent Teaching and Learning
Praxis, the fourth dimension of culturally responsive teaching, reflects cultural congruity,
learning styles and cognitive mapping in teaching, learning and assessment. Collaborative
learning builds mutual trust and enhances the ability of each student to contribute. The
multiple instructional strategies of multiple intelligences and diversified curricula also need
to be implemented simultaneously to provide multiple stimulatory resources and to develop

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the students’ intrinsic motivation and strengths. Second, student learning styles may be field- 1069
dependent or field-independent. Children accustomed to field-dependent learning styles might
be easily affected by their environment and prefer working collaboratively, while the latter would
prefer to work individually. Therefore, it is important to understand individual student learning
styles and adopt appropriate strategies. Third, school teachers need to increase the complexity
of learned knowledge and encourage students to challenge the conventional understanding and
norms with critical consciousness, thus empowering students through the use of appropriate
inquiring techniques, instructional strategies and effective feedback (Jackson, 1994). Finally,
multiple assessment formats drawing on multiple intelligences can help students with various
talents to feel successful at school (Gay, 2010; Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009; Ladson-Billings,
1995).
Taiwan New Immigrants tend to be disadvantaged and most of them hardly articulate for
themselves. Little research has focused on the impact of such practices on NTCs, along with
how new immigrant parents perceive their use.
.
Research Methodology

General Background
A qualitative research approach was chosen to have an in-depth understanding of the new
immigrants’ perspectives. Issues related to the perception of new immigrant parents in Taiwan
regarding their children’s education are a relatively recent concern. Given the language and
cultural barriers between the author and potential interlocutors, an effort was made to learn the
basics of their languages and become immersed in their cultures through ethnographic methods
(Carspecken, 1996). Having previously lived abroad in a foreign culture for eight years helped
the researcher be immersed in foreign cultures as the new immigrants were. In addition, it
enabled the researcher to be culturally sensitive, and enhanced the researcher’s competency
interacting with the research subjects in ways that were respectful of their cultural sensitivities
(Spindler, 1982).
Selection of Research Participants
To provide a comprehensive perspective of the immigrant experience, the maximum

variation method was used to include a wide range of participants from different countries of
Southeast Asia (Maykut & Morehouse, 2000). The research sites were mainly in the eastern,
northern and southern parts of Taiwan, and twenty new immigrants were interviewed in
September-December 2019. This study focused on recent female immigrants from Southeast
Asia because such immigrants face a larger cultural gap, and their children face stronger
preconceptions of being academic low-achievers (Chen, 2014). In addition, most new
immigrants from Southeast Asia are females (88.33%) (MOI, 2020) who usually assume primary
responsibility for childcare at home (Chen, 2010). Therefore, new immigrant females concerned
with their children’s education were identified as potential interviewees through schools, non-
profit organizations (NPOs) and word of mouth. Three main criteria of recruiting participants
were: (1) years of marriage between 11 to 20 years whose children were in primary school level
or above, (2) the willingness of participating in various activities related to new immigrants, (3)
demonstrating their concern about their children’s schooling, and (4) still involving in various
activities relevant to Taiwan New Immigrants even though their children are already in junior
high school or above. Differences of age and marriage years of research participants are used
to explore the similarities and differences of perceptions toward new immigrants and NTC of
primary school teachers as well as teaching approach of primary school teachers prior to 2007,

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1070 2013-15 and 2019. These three stages and targets are described in the introduction section.
Background information on participants quoted in the study is summarized below.
Profiles of Research Participants
Vietnamese A, 36-40 years old, had been married for 16-20 years through her husband’s
friend. Her two children are already in college. She dropped out of college in order to marry
in Taiwan. Before working full time at the NPO, she worked as voluntary interpreter at the
Immigration Office to help the disadvantaged Vietnamese immigrants. She also enjoyed
working at the NPO, communities and schools as the cultural teacher to introduce Vietnamese
language and culture to Taiwanese people.
Vietnamese B, 41-45 years old, had been married for 11-15 years through a marriage
agency. Her two children were in senior high school and primary school. She also dropped out
of college to marry in Taiwan. Having been a housewife for about 10 years, she decided to work
as a factory laborer in order to meet friends and earn her own pocket money. On Saturdays, she
taught Vietnamese language and culture at a primary school.
Vietnamese C was 31-35 years old with a college degree, and had been married for 11-
15 years. She met her husband through a friend when she was an international migrant worker
in a factory in Taiwan. Both of her children are in primary school. She was invited to teach
Vietnamese language and culture at schools because of her college degree. She thus had a lot of
interaction with school teachers.
Indonesian A, 31-35 years old, held a diploma of junior high school, and had been
married for 11-15 years. Two of her children were in senior high school, and one was in primary
school. She met her husband through a marriage agency. She mentioned that her father-in-law
recommended her husband to marry her. She and her husband worked as voluntary interpreters
at NPOs for several years to help new immigrants and promote multiculturalist ideas. Therefore,
Indonesian A interacted with school teachers a lot too.
Indonesian B, 31-35 years old, held a diploma of junior high school, and had been
married for 11-15 years. Her child was in primary school. She met her husband when she was
an international migrant worker in Taiwan. Working as a laborer made her eager to participate
in various activities related to new immigrants as a way of outlet from work. Her husband paid
attention to her child’s learning at school very much.
Cambodian A, 41-45 years old, held a diploma of primary school and had been married
for 16-20 years. Her children were in junior high and senior high school. She met her husband
through a marriage agency. Her Taiwanese family was proud of her loyalty and responsibility
and thus she was urged by her Taiwanese family to study Mandarin Chinese and participated in
various activities at her children’s primary school.
Cambodian B, 41-45 years old, held a diploma of senior high school and had been
married for 16-20 years. Her two children were in junior and senior high school. She met her
husband through a friend. Working as a laborer helped her have insightful understanding of
Taiwan’s society, and thus she became a voluntary interpreter and cultural teacher whenever
she was available.
Burmese A, 46-50 years old, held a junior high school diploma, and had been married
for 16-20 years. Her two children were in junior and senior high school. She and her husband
met through a marriage agency. Even though she did not know much Chinese, yet she was the
parent taking care of children’s schooling.
Thai A, 41-45 years old, held a diploma of junior high school, and had been married for
11-15 years. Her children were in primary and junior high school. She worked as a laborer and
worked as a voluntary interpreter at the NPO to help out with the issues on new immigrants. In
addition, she tried to participate in activities related to new immigrants.

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Filipina A, 46-50 years old, had a college degree, and had been married for 16-20 years. 1071
Her children were in senior high school and college. Her female friend introduced her husband
to her. She worked as a voluntary interpreter at the NPO, and was the main caretaker of her two
children. She participated in activities relevant to new immigrants and went to parent-teacher
meetings.
Brunei A, 51-55 years old, held a senior high school diploma, and had been married for
16-20 years. Her children were in senior high school and college. She and her husband met
through a friend and became a housewife after marriage.
The participants and their Taiwanese families were informed that pseudonyms would
be used instead of their actual names, and that their identities would be protected. Interviews
were conducted using semi-structured interview questions focused on understanding the new
immigrants’ conceptions of the implementation of the culturally responsive teaching in schools.
Data Collection
Introductions were first made to potential research respondents through schools and non-
governmental organizations working with new immigrants. Prior to data collection, the authors
first made efforts to establish mutual trust with the research participants by means of visiting
their family at home, conversing with them, helping them on children’s educational issues, and
so on. Most of their family members know about the researcher. The researcher participated
in parties, various workshops, classes and events with new immigrants to solicit comments
on school teachers’ attempts to provide culturally responsive teaching, or lack thereof. The
researcher also observed the parents’ interaction with school teachers, with their children, with
the other new immigrants or with Taiwanese people for triangulation. In addition, two research
participants were invited to do member checks. The interviews were conducted in 2018 after
the participants consented. The meeting time, length of interview, and place were in their
convenience. Interviews were conducted in Taiwanese or Mandarin, using simple constructions
and language and interviewees were prompted to ask questions whenever they didn’t fully
understand the questions. Each participant was asked the following questions:
• What is your perception of the teacher’s attitude towards your child?
• What role do you play in the communication between your child and the teacher?
• Has the teacher designed any specific curriculum or material to help your child maintain
his/her cultural heritage and develop a positive cultural identity?
• What teaching strategy does your child’s teacher use to help your child succeed
academically?

Data Analysis
Data analysis proceeded in three steps. The first step was open-coding, with the
researcher reading through all the data, creating within-case and cross-case data displays to
examine the consistency of the various perspectives. Data was thus categorized to establish the
themes of the findings. These displays also helped develop a holistic portrayal of the research
findings. Other data were generated from impromptu involvement in social functions with the
new immigrants and their families once the researcher had established trust, credibility, and a
sense of connectedness with them. Following the open-coding and classification of the data, the
themes were sequenced and meanwhile the logic and the structure of themes were determined
primarily. In the third step, connections among the themes were identified and organized based
on concepts which could illustrate the participants’ perceptions of the culturally responsive
teaching on NTC.

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1072 Research Results

The findings from this study were organized into four themes based on the critical
components of the culturally responsive teaching and those emerged from the data analysis.
The year or title of the project was presented to differentiate different stages and the societal
atmosphere toward the new immigrants and NTC.
Caring of Taiwanese School Teacher towards NTC
Most participants reported that mainstream Taiwanese values influenced teacher attitudes
toward their children and some teachers still held various prejudices against new immigrants
and NTC especially prior to 2007, the New Taipei City Torch Project. All new immigrants in this
study experienced linguistic and cultural shocks upon arriving in Taiwan. This was especially
true for those who finished high school or university in their home country. In Taiwanese public
schools, students are expected to take turns performing some routine cleaning and maintenance
tasks. According to interviews, some teachers were discriminated against NTC by assigning
less-desirable tasks to NTC. For example, Vietnamese B said that, for two years, her son was
made solely responsible for cleaning toilets. When they received unfair treatment, the new
immigrant parents usually explained it to the NTC as a result of one of their parents being a
“foreign spouse” and that the NTC should tolerate such prejudices against them.
The research participants reported that Prior to 2007, difficulties on the part of new
immigrants in adjusting to Taiwanese society and culture, along with their low proficiency in
reading and writing Chinese, were often mistakenly assumed to be indicators of low intelligence,
and thus NTC were assumed to be low-achieving students. These perceptions might negatively
influence the school teachers, leaving educators inclined to believe that NTC needed extra
help to achieve similar performance levels with native Taiwanese children. New immigrant
parents were pleased with the provision of after-school programs, yet they resisted the negative
perception of their children as low-achievers. Thus, some new immigrant parents were reluctant
to identify themselves as immigrants. One new immigrant noted,
I don’t want my daughter’s teacher to know that her mother is from Vietnam. If she
knows, my daughter will be stigmatized and forced to join the after-school program to improve
her academic performance. Teachers tend to consider all new immigrants to be illiterate and
difficult to teach… Fortunately, there are workshops and TV programs on lived experiences of
the new immigrants. These help Taiwanese teachers to understand us (new immigrants) better and
decrease the prejudices. (Vietnamese A)
The immigrants mentioned that the negative attitude from Taiwanese family members
and the greater society of Taiwan might affect teachers’ perception on the NTC. Some
immigrants recalled a news item in 2010 about a junior high school teacher who had scolded
and sarcastically suggested the child return to Indonesia as an indication that discrimination is
still a significant issue. A participant critiqued,
Taiwanese people think we are poor. You know, my mother-in-law said, that they had purchased
me. Most Taiwanese people despise their foreign daughter-in-law. Most Taiwanese people don’t
take this attitude. Yet some teachers still do such as that one in the news who scolded and yelled at
the Taiwanese-Indonesian student to return to Indonesia. This is horrible! (Thai A)
This idea of “poverty” of Southeast Asia might be annoyed to new immigrants

from Brunei which is more prosperous than Taiwan as a new immigrant said,

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Brunei economy is better than Taiwan. The government subsidizes their citizens a lot, such as 1073
electricity and study. The government sends citizens to study abroad. The air conditioner is on
24 hours because of the subsidy of the government. Automobile gasoline is cheaper than Taiwan
because of subsidy. (Brunei A)
In Taiwanese public schools, students are expected to take turns performing some routine
cleaning and maintenance tasks. According to interviews, some teachers are discriminated
against NTC by assigning less-desirable tasks to NTC. For example, Vietnamese B said that,
for two years, her son was made solely responsible for cleaning toilets. When they received
unfair treatment, the new immigrant parents usually explained it to the NTC as a result of one of
their parents being a “foreign spouse” and that the NTC should tolerate such prejudices against
them. In spite, most immigrants recognized the sincerity of teachers who were concerned about
NTC a lot, especially after the Torch Project in 2013-15. A new immigrant stated,
My daughter’s teachers try to help us appropriately to maintain our dignity. All of the teachers know
me, including the principal. They are indeed nice (smile). The school is very good. (Cambodian A)
Importantly, the interviewees all agreed that the attitude toward the new immigrant were
improved gradually in recent 10 years because of the policy of promoting multiculturalist sense
at school, community, media and society in general. The Torch Project (2013-15) played a
critical role to recruit new immigrants as the language and cultural teachers at school. Many
multicultural festivals held by schools, local and central government were significant. The
media, such as “We Are Family” demonstrated the abilities and contribution of new immigrants
and enhanced the respect to the new immigrants too. Those who still have children studying at
primary school mentioned that current school teachers appreciated their children’s bilingual and
bicultural background. When the new immigrant languages were determined to be offered at
primary schools, the school teachers encouraged the NTC to cherish this special linguistic and
cultural capital. Most interviewees indicated that the quality of Taiwanese teachers and school
facilities were much better than those in their homelands. Most also expressed appreciation for
the efforts of some teachers to make their children feel welcomed as a new immigrant described
below:
My daughter’s teacher asked her to help the other students. This increased her self-confidence a
lot. I haven’t seen any discrimination against my daughter. She is happy at school. My son likes
his teacher, too. Their teachers treat them equally….My children’s junior high school teachers
visited us (her and her husband) once or two times a semester to ensure my children are doing fine.
Also, teachers help in my children’s career plan. (Indonesian A)
The new immigrants expressed appreciation for the efforts the Taiwanese teachers made
to improve their children’s academic performance. Nonetheless, the new immigrants were also
conscious that negative perceptions against the new immigrants and NTC persisted, especially
prior to 2007. Even so, they were glad that most Taiwanese school teachers gradually developed
positive impression on the NTC.
Language and Non-Verbal Communication Style
In terms of languages, Mandarin Chinese is the instructional language and might

communicate in local language(s), such as Holo and Hakka. The mother tongue of the new
immigrants was never used for communication at school. As a matter of fact, most Taiwanese
teachers did not encourage the NCT to learn about their mother’s mother tongue until the Torch
Project because the greater Taiwan society did not consider Southeast Asian languages as

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1074 important as English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese or Korean. Even worse, they might
mistake the official language of some countries such as that for the Philippines. Filipina A said,
“Tagalog is the official language in Philippines, NOT English. School should offer Tagalog as
the mother tongue too.”
Fortunately, since the autumn semester 2019, the new immigrants’ mother tongue should
be offered in primary school level, according to the 2019 Curriculum Guidelines of 12-year
Basic Education. As long as one NTC has desire to learn, the school has to employ the language
teacher as a new immigrant described:
The mother tongue education in Taiwan is getting better. Now, the Vietnamese language is
taught at school to help our (Vietnamese) children to learn about Vietnamese. This will help our
children to have more opportunities in future career, they will be able to communicate with their
Vietnamese grandparents, and this might help them in career. (Vietnamese B)
In terms of non-verbal communication, new immigrants usually conformed to the local

majority cultural values and practices, despite the potential for cross-cultural confusion and
misunderstanding. For example, in Vietnamese culture, teachers or parents punish children by
making them assume a posture called “khoanh tay” in which the child places both hands against
his or her own chest, but in Taiwan such a gesture could be misinterpreted as an indication of
resistance or arrogance. To avoid their children giving teachers a negative impression through
the use of this gesture, parents aware of the potential confusion avoided teaching it to their
children. Two new immigrants shared their thoughts:
The teachers haven’t been to Cambodia yet. How could they know about our communication
style? We live in Taiwan; we should follow Taiwanese style…It is too difficult for teachers.
(Cambodian A)
New immigrants are from different countries, how can a teacher know so much? I am from Ho Chi
Minh City. Sometimes I don’t even understand the Hanoi Vietnamese and their interaction style.
How could I expect Taiwanese teachers to know about the Vietnamese communication style? My
husband told me not to teach my kids otherwise teachers might be confused, such as “khoanh tay”
(having both hands on the chest while being punished) and lead teachers to regard my children as
rebellious. (Vietnamese C)
Therefore, new immigrant parents had no expectation that Taiwanese teachers would
learn foreign communication styles. They internalized the perception of “foreignness” and
justified the situation by citing the limited knowledge Taiwanese teachers had of their native
languages and communication styles.
However, some new immigrants suggested they felt that Southeast Asians are more
social and gregarious, and are more inclined to show friendship through teasing. Taiwanese
people, they noted, tended to be more independent and usually work alone. Still, they had no
expectation that their children’s teachers would change their teaching style to accommodate
their children especially when the style, e.g., “khoanh tay” is extremely confusing to Taiwanese
people.
Ethnic Diverse and Cultural Curriculum Partially Implemented
Participants informed that Southeast Asian languages had been taught in schools and
multicultural events had been held for several years. However, new immigrants were usually
the language and culture teachers because Taiwanese teachers lack the proficiency of Southeast
Asian languages. New immigrants observed that their cultures are largely ignored in school

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textbooks, but the Torch Project prompted several teachers to design supplementary materials 1075
to help their NTC students learn about the languages and cultures of their new immigrant
parents. As mentioned above, the 2019 Curriculum Guidelines of 12-year Basic Education adds
“new immigrant languages” as one of the must-offered languages at school, and multicultural
education becomes one particular educational issue, which needs to be integrated in the formal
curriculum beginning in autumn semester 2019 (MOEb, 2020). In addition, school food
festivals and government-sponsored “International Multicultural Day” events have provided
opportunities for NTC to learn about their immigrant mothers’ cultures. Parents also noted that
their children’s teachers had attended workshops related to multicultural education or Southeast
Asian societies and cultures, even though they had not observed the ethnic diverse or cultural
curriculum implemented by the school teachers. Nonetheless, given that their Taiwanese
husbands and family members showed little interest in learning about their native languages
and cultures, the new immigrant parents had limited expectations that school teachers would
take an active interest as two new immigrants stated,
Well, we are in Taiwan, and we just need to accept what is offered at school. However, it would
be great if my children could learn Burmese language and culture at school. Then, they will be
willing to learn from me at home. (Burmese, A)
I am Muslim. It is too mysterious to Taiwanese people. It is OK that Indonesia isn’t presented

in the textbook. Anyway, Taiwanese people regard Indonesia as poor and under-developed….
However, I am so glad that Ramadan (fasting month) has been celebrated in different cities in
recent years. In 2017, the Taipei City initiated to celebrate the Festival of Fast-breaking (Eid
al-Fitr) to demonstrate their friendliness to Muslims. Afterwards, many cities followed and held
celebration activities. Muslims had to hide their identity before. (Indonesian B)
Generally speaking, the school teachers seldom participated in the activities related to
the new immigrants, let alone designed new supplementary teaching materials to cater to their
needs. However, attending workshops related to the education of NTC was popular among
teachers. Some new immigrants speculated this was because Taiwan society tends to perceive
Southeast Asia as under-developed and poor, and this lack of perceived prestige discouraged
teachers from developing an interest in the particular needs of the NTC.
Culturally Congruent Teaching Determined by Teachers
New immigrants indicated they felt that “sameness is equity”, and the high status
of teachers in their home countries inclined them to treat Taiwanese school teachers
with considerable respect. They were afraid that teachers would find special requests
inappropriate or burdensome, and thus incline them to discriminate against their children.
They also regarded Taiwanese education as superior to that in their home countries.
Thus, the new immigrants in general were happy to have their children receive the same
education as “Taiwanese” children. This was their way of “fairness” between TC and
NTC. As a participant said,
My husband and I are happy that the teachers teach our children the same as Taiwanese Children.
It means they (teachers) are fair. We don’t want to make any request to the teachers. In my
homeland, if we do, my children might be punished or ignored by teachers. (Cambodian A)
However, those who had vision to see the benefits of their children becoming bilingual
and bicultural had different expectations as a new immigrant mentioned,

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1076 We hope our children’s teachers could teach them the same and differently. “Teaching them the
same” means to teach my children whatever the Taiwanese children have to learn. “Teaching
them differently” means to emphasize their “foreign” heritage from their mother side. By teaching
them so, my children will be superior to Taiwanese children because they have Taiwanese and
Vietnamese sides. (Vietnamese C)
Furthermore, most new immigrants instructed their children to defer to their teachers,
and avoided asking teachers to pay special attention to their children’s style of interaction,
though in interviews they indicated that they preferred a participative-interactive style, which
would increase the learning motivation and make their children energetic in class. Vietnamese
C mentioned, “It was a good method to avoid falling asleep in class. Ha!”
As for topic-centered or topic-associative orientation for the NTC, most parents
deferred to the teachers’ professional knowledge. If fact, few had considered questioning the
teachers’ decisions or methods, given their own lack of educational background. Some new
immigrants, however, critiqued the emphasis the Taiwanese education system places on drill
and memorization and the general lack of play time, along with the limited time left over for
family interaction as a participant commented,
It is important for children to learn well, but there must be methods wherein children can learn
well without so much homework. Oh, Lord, there’s so much homework. I want to have some time
to talk to my children each day. (Vietnamese B)
New immigrant parents observed that schools in Taiwan offered a greater variety of
assessment methods than were used in their home countries, and they appreciated that school
teachers acknowledged the various types of intelligences of their children in teaching or
grading. They appreciated the range and variety of assignments, including cultivating green
bean sprouts, helping with household chores, making their own portfolios, and so on. Some
children were assigned to interview parents about their life experiences, and such efforts to
involve parents in the children’s assignments were something of a novelty. As a new immigrant
mentioned,
The teacher makes different assignments, including helping parents clean the house. A part-
time teacher, who only teaches once a week, encourages my daughter to read books about my
home country and write papers about the books. The teacher then gives my daughter extra credit.
(Cambodian B)
To sum up, the new immigrants regarded Taiwanese education as generally being of
a higher quality than that in their homelands, including teaching methods and assessment
methods. However, they did not think Taiwanese teachers integrated their cultural heritage with
the school curriculum or paid attention to their children’s learning styles.
Discussion
The research findings indicated that most school teachers took a personal interest in their
NTC. The new immigrants sensed the government’s promotion of multicultural programs, in
particular the Torch Project, then move on to the 2019 Curriculum Guidelines of 12-year Basic
Education helped Taiwanese school teachers to gradually develop a better understanding of
their students’ needs, and reduced feelings of antipathy. The new immigrants, however, were
aware that discrimination would remain a fact of life in Taiwan, and certainly had a negative
effect on certain school teachers, occasionally leading to incidents such as that reported earlier
in which the teacher suggested a student return to Indonesia (Lin, 2010). Despite this, the new

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immigrants expressed genuine appreciation for the policies and programs designed to promote 1077
multicultural education, and saw these efforts as a means of developing a more welcoming
environment for new immigrants and their children. Most importantly, to avoid discrimination
and provide the most effective assistance to students, school teachers or organizations should
provide help based on the needs of individuals, rather than on the ethnic background of the
student’s parents (Chen, 2010).
The new immigrant parents had no expectation that Taiwanese school teachers would
be familiar with their verbal or non-verbal communication styles. This could be related to their
experiences in their homelands, where school teachers had no obligations to learn about the
students’ heritage. In Taiwan, because of the requirement of 2019 Curriculum Guidelines of
12-year Basic Education school teachers have been encouraged to learn about new immigrants’
languages and cultures. In terms of the non-verbal communication, Taiwanese school teachers
are still not ready to adjust their communication styles to accommodate classroom diversity,
possibly because most Taiwanese school teachers are Han-Taiwanese, members of the
Taiwanese mainstream culture.
Taiwanese school teachers are more inclined to develop multicultural curricula than
prior to 2013 because of the local perceptions of Southeast Asian countries as being under-
developed and mysterious, such as Islamic Indonesia and communist Vietnam. Notwithstanding,
new immigrant parents have no expectations that Taiwanese school teachers would design
supplemental multicultural learning materials for their children because doing so would require
certain cultural knowledge and experiences which they would not expect local teachers to
have. Teaching materials related to Southeast Asian cultures have only recently encouraged,
especially the economic development in Southeast Asian and the New Southbound Policy
initiated by Taiwan government in 2016 (MOE, 2020a). The development of a transformative
curriculum and social action curriculum, however, could take considerable time to implement.
Despite offering new immigrant languages at school, multicultural events, additive multicultural
materials, new immigrants feel their cultures are still largely invisible, and new immigrants feel
culturally empowered.
As for culturally congruent teaching, new immigrants indicated they wanted their
children to receive equal treatment with their peers in the classroom. This could originate
from their learning experiences in their homelands, wherein equal treatment symbolized
equity. Treating students the same, actually does not represent educational equity-- students
from different cultural backgrounds should be educated based on their individual cognitive
and cultural characteristics (Nieto, 2018). In addition, some new immigrant parents regarded
the cultural values and practices as well as educational quality of their homelands as being
inferior to that in Taiwan. Therefore, they were inclined to accept what were the practices of
Taiwanese school teachers without question. Prior to the initiation of the Torch Project in 2013-
15, the MOE and MOI offered a limited range of multicultural education programs for school
teachers, focusing on introducing aspects of society and culture in certain Southeast Asian
countries. Most of these programs consisted primarily of lectures, and few involved teachers
in curriculum design exercises or teaching demonstrations. Furthermore, the cultural values or
world views are not widely discussed in the Taiwanese classroom, and a more comprehensive
multicultural curriculum for NTC is still lacking (Chen & Lin, 2012; M. Liu & Lin, 2011).
As for teaching and assessment strategies, school teachers could motivate NTC to learn about
their “foreign” heritages by incorporating them into daily classroom teaching, homework
assignments and assessments. For example, the teachers could encourage students to learn
a phrase from the NTC’s parent’s language and write it down in their home-school liaison
notebooks (jiating lianluobu). The content of social studies classes consistently initiates from
the background of the individual students’ family members and communities. School teachers
could assign students to learn about the life stories, children’s games, and songs of their parents’

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1078 native cultures. Therefore, motivating mainstream school teachers to learn about the cultures of
marginalized students integrate such knowledge into their lessons is an urgent goal.
The NTC with cultural heritages could be actively developed as an advantage if their
families and schools are able to encourage exposure to their cultural heritages (Chen, 2012).
Lacking such efforts, however, the uniqueness of hybridity might lead to the development of
social and educational obstacles. This research indicates that the multiculture-oriented policy
raises the awareness of Taiwanese school teachers to the issues related to new immigrants
and their children, and has gradually improved their interaction with NTC in their classrooms.
The Torch Project is focused solely on primary schools. The positive impact of the project
has extended to 2019 Curriculum Guidelines of 12-year Basic Education incorporating
the new immigrant languages as a subject in language arts. Notwithstanding, the idea of
transformative curriculum proposed by J. Banks (2019) is still not demonstrated in 2019
Curriculum Guidelines of 12-year Basic Education. This shows Taiwan society and educators
are not ready for intergroup dialogues. During flexible curriculum, school teachers actually
could invite community members, parents and students from different linguistic and cultural
backgrounds to have intergroup dialogues to increase the mutual understanding as a way of
the transformative curriculum (J. Banks, 2019, Nagda, et. al. 2009). More importantly, school
teachers, students and parents could further respect and appreciate each other to work together
(Nieto, 2018). Empowering the children of new immigrants and improving their circumstances
requires policies which foster culturally responsive caring and effective communication, along
with multicultural curricula and instructional materials.
Limitations and Future Research
This study suffers from certain limitations. First, the study focused on the subjective
perception of new immigrant parents to culturally responsive teaching for their children, but did
not account for teachers’ opinions, and future research needs account for these voices. Second,
the interview subjects were largely immigrant women, but the opinion of their Taiwanese
husbands was not expressed. While the new immigrants are the disadvantaged group, it
is still essential to explore the perceptions of the children of Taiwanese fathers because, in
Taiwan society, they are usually the household decision-makers. In addition, the educational
expectations of the NTC’s Taiwanese grandparents should be accounted for in the discussion of
the new immigrants’ language and cultural transmission to the NTC. In rural areas, particularly
where extended families usually live under one roof, the grandparents have a critical influence
on the NTC’s education. Future investigations, therefore, must determine whether culturally
responsive teaching would meet the expectations of the NTC’s Taiwanese family.
References
Banks, C. A. M. (2019). Families and teachers working together for school improvement. In J. A. Banks
& C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (10th ed.) (pp. 421-
442). John Wiley & Sons.
Banks, J. A. (2019). Approaches to multicultural curriculum reform. In J. A. Banks & C. A. M. Banks
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Mei-ying Chen PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Education, National Chiayi University,
(Corresponding author) 85 Wen-long Village, Min-hsiung Hsiang, 62103 Chia-yi County, Taiwan.
E-mail: meiying2005_tw@yahoo.com.tw
Website: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mei_Ying_Chen2
Geneva Gay Professor, College of Education, University of Washington-Seattle, 20122 Skagit

Lane, Miller Hall Box 353600 Seattle, WA 98195-3600, USA.
E-mail: ggay@u.washington.edu
Website: https://education.uw.edu/people/faculty/ggay

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TEACHING PRACTICES: INTEGRATING 1081
POSITIVE THINKING IN PICTURE

BOOK CREATION FOR ECONOMICALLY
DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN
Chiu-Hua Huang
National Pingtung University, Taiwan
E-mail: huangchiuhua19@gmail.com
Fin-Land Cheng
National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
E-mail: chenfl@mail.npust.edu.tw
Ching-Yueh Teng
The Affiliated Preschool of Fong-Ciou Elementary School, Taiwan
E-mail: nataliedeng.nd@gmail.com
Abstract
The present study created picture books featuring elements of hope theory and conducted a practical
teaching program to explore the application of hopeful thinking picture books for economically
disadvantaged children, specifically, to understand the teachers’ teaching practices of picture book
creation. On the basis of hope theory, the current study employed economic disadvantage as the creative
background for designing picture books that incorporate elements of hopeful thinking and developed a
teaching plan based on the picture books. The results indicated that the picture books had a solid theoretical
foundation of hope, and were relevant to preschool children’s real experiences and development. Through
teachers’ storytelling and discussion of the story content, children could express ideas based on their own
experiences, set specific goals, and devised feasible methods for handling adversity to achieve goals.
Therefore, the picture books were considered suitable for classroom teaching. In addition, expert teachers
serving as coaches conducted classroom observations and teaching evaluations to explore how effectively
positive thinking was integrated into the picture books and teaching activities, and to assess the guidance
of children in using positive thinking strategies during story discussion. Through professional assessment,
feedback, and teacher self-reflection, hope theory can be effectively applied for picture book creation. The
picture book The Piggy’s Home created in this study can help teachers guide economically disadvantaged
children in thinking positively, and teachers can refine the guidance process.
Keywords: case study, economically disadvantaged children, hope theory, picture books, preschool
children
Introduction
Studies have conducted interventional educational programs for economically

disadvantaged children (Blevins-Knabe, 2016; Fontenot et al., 2019; Gonzales-Ball, & Bratton,
2019; Kluczniok, 2017; Lo et al., 2020; Shukri et al., 2019), but most have examined primarily
cognitive achievements, such as those in mathematics and language (Gialamas et al., 2020;
Maier et al., 2012; Pentimonti et al., 2017). Unfortunately, few studies have considered the
mental status of economically disadvantaged children, and studies employing interventional

Chiu-Hua HUANG, Fin-Land CHENG, Ching-Yueh TENG. Teaching practices: Integrating positive thinking in picture book creation
for economically disadvantaged children
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1082 education programs are particularly rare. However, the cognition and thinking habits of
economically disadvantaged children can affect many aspects of their future development.
Thus, researchers should also consider the negative thinking and mental status of such children
as well as the subsequent adverse effects on future achievements (Bradshaw, 2002; Heberle et
al., 2020).
Hope theory, developed by Snyder (2000), contends that hopeful thinking prevents
problems, increases advantages, and integrates strategic pathways with goal-oriented thinking.
Hope beliefs established before a problem occurs are reinforced in response to the challenges
the problem poses. This concept is consistent with the notion of precaution long advocated
by scholars (Snyder et al., 2003); that is, early educational intervention to promote hopeful
thinking prevents future problems.
Teaching materials often critically influence the success of educational interventions
(Penuel et al., 2012), quality of the interactions between teachers and students, and effectiveness
of children’s early learning (Bayhan et al., 2002). Some researchers have attempted to improve
the abilities of economically disadvantaged children through interventions that involve
designing various curriculum materials (Chatterji, 2006; Penuel et al., 2012). Picture books
have been demonstrated to effectively cultivate children’s thinking (Higham et al., 2010) and
improve their mental and emotional states (Farkas et al., 2018; Farkas et al., 2020). Phillips and
Sturm (2013) analyzed the illustrations and texts of 13 picture books for young children; they
discovered that a well-developed picture book can help teachers understand children’s learning
adaptation and satisfaction. Therefore, picture books have become teachers’ preferred materials
for educational interventions, especially those for first-grade or preschool children (Tompkins
et al., 2018). It is clear that a picture book with a theoretical basis is a good medium for of
educational interventions of young children.
This case study explored the creation of picture books featuring elements of hope theory
and conducted a practical teaching program to explore the application of hopeful thinking
picture books. In contrast to previous research, the current study was not limited to ready-made
picture books; instead, the positive thinking element of hope theory was incorporated in the
creation of a picture book with the aim of altering the negative thinking of children living in a
culture of poverty. The researchers encouraged teachers to reflect on and adjust their teaching
practices with the created picture books and to evaluate whether the books effectively presented
hopeful thinking. In particular, the research questions were as follows:
1. How effectively were hope theory and the characteristics of hopeful thinking integrated
into picture book creation?
2. How can picture books emphasizing positive thinking be used in teaching activities
for economically disadvantaged children, and how can children be provided the experience of
positive thinking?
Literature Review
Crucial Early Interventions for Economically Disadvantaged Children
Children living in a culture of poverty experience negative long-term consequences,

such as poor academic performance, that affect both individuals’ lives (Alexander et al., 1997;
Duncan & Magnuson, 2005; Esping-Andersen & Sarasa, 2002; Hauser-Cram et al., 2006; Parcel
& Dufur, 2001). In addition to lacking material resources, economically disadvantaged people
experience problems related to social networks and have limited educational and employment
opportunities (Vågerö & Illsley, 1995), resulting in social exclusion and perpetuating an
intergenerational cycle of poverty (McLoyd, 1998). Chafel and Neitzel (2005) discovered
that 8-year-old children perceived poverty to be alterable. However, as they age, children

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become more accepting of their economically disadvantaged social condition, tend to attribute 1083
poverty more to personal factors, and begin to consider it inevitable (Chafel & Neitzel, 2005;
Leahy, 1990). Therefore, from the perspective of prevention, positive development and early
intervention should be implemented to overcome intergenerational cycles of poverty.
Positive Psychology: Hope
Hope theory is a major theory within positive psychology proposed by Snyder (1994).
According to hope theory, hope involves setting goals to solve problems; pathways, or the
various methods employed to realize goals; and agency, or the drive to achieve goals through
self-efficacy. The clearer, important, and feasible an individual’s goal, the more hopeful is the
individual. Pathways allow individuals to develop multiple paths to achieve goals. Agency
refers to an individual’s willpower in the process of achieving goals. Hope theory enables
the definition of clear and meaningful goals and the development of strong motivations and
strategies for pursuing personal goals (Snyder et al., 2006). Hope is a positive and reasonable
expectation of the future, and such positive thinking not only motivates individuals to devote
effort toward overcoming obstacles in their environments but also improves their coping
abilities (Snyder et al., 2006). Snyder (2000) argued that cultivating hope prevents problems
and enhances personal advantages; therefore, positive cognition, thinking, and belief should
be established among economically disadvantaged children to help prevent and overcome
adversity. Furthermore, Snyder et al. (1997) stated that hope develops through observation,
imitation, and internalization in early childhood. Children observe and imitate the attitudes,
behaviors, and beliefs of important others; they subsequently identify with and internalize those
attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. According to Snyder (2005), applying hope theory is crucial
in teaching interventions. Through hope-based teaching interventions, children can learn to set
clear goals, find ways to overcome obstacles, and remain motivated.
Ciarrochi et al. (2007) conducted a longitudinal study and discovered that hope was
the variable most predictive of positive emotions and academic achievement. Waters (2011)
reviewed 12 school-based positive psychology interventions designed to foster student well-
being and academic performance. The author indicated that increasing the hope of economically
disadvantaged children is a crucial objective of early educational intervention programs.
Picture Book–Based Interventions for Economically Disadvantaged Children
Recent longitudinal studies have indicated that early educational interventions benefit
economically disadvantaged children’s development of intellectual and linguistic skills
(Chatterji, 2006; Penuel et al., 2012) and improves their motivation, confidence, and ability
to adapt at school (Reynolds et al., 2002). Curriculum materials crucially influence children’s
early learning and children were demonstrated to achieve superior learning outcomes when
teachers selected appropriate materials (Bayhan et al., 2002). Graham (1990) discovered
picture books to be the optimal teaching materials for inspiring young children’s thinking.
Educators rely on picture books as curriculum materials, and they are often used during the
preschool day (Leal, 1993; Martucci, 2016). Numerous studies have demonstrated that sharing
picture books is associated with increased mental- and emotional-state talk and children’s
socioemotional competence (Bergman Deitcher et al., 2020; Kristen et al., 2016; Tompkins
et al., 2018). Consequently, picture books have become the preferred instruction materials of
scholars investigating issues related to the psychology of economically disadvantaged children.
However, previous studies (e.g., Higham et al., 2010) employing picture books as curriculum
material have used primarily ready-made, published books. Thus, such studies are somewhat
limited and may be unable to fully integrate theoretical elements into a shared book reading

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1084 intervention. In addition, the context of ready-made storybooks may differ from children’s life
experiences and mental states, thereby limiting the effectiveness of shared storybook reading.
Storytelling for the Home Enrichment of Language and Literacy Skills (SHELLS)
interventions employs a narrative of daily family events as the content for developing a book,
which families can keep and continue to use. The basic steps of the book creation process are
encouraging the family to generate ideas for book topics through parent–child conversation,
illustrating the story, writing captions that incorporate words or sentences from the parent–child
narrative, organizing and creating the physical book, and observing the parent and child using
the book. Boyce et al. (2010) used SHELLS activities developed specifically for low-income
Spanish-speaking families to overcome the limitation of using only existing teaching materials.
Their results revealed that SHELLS increased children’s use of language in narratives and
promoted parents’ support of their children’s language and literacy skills. Therefore, the content
of a picture book or other teaching materials can considerably influence teaching interventions.
Most relevant studies have focused on improving economically disadvantaged
children’s cognitive and linguistic achievements, but studies involving positive psychology
are rare. Tompkins (2015) indicated that using storybooks in conjunction with discussion of
characters’ mental states helped economically disadvantaged children to develop false belief
understanding. Therefore, this study avoided the traditional limitation of using pre-existing
teaching materials by creating a unique picture book for teaching economically disadvantaged
children that incorporated the concept of hopeful thinking.
Role of Coaches
The primary limitation to preschools’ effectiveness is an inability to effectively integrate

new curriculum materials with the skills of current teachers (Davidson et al., 2009). Therefore,
scholars have emphasized the use of professional support systems to facilitate the integration of
effective materials and teaching skills (Klute, 2012; Penuel et al., 2012). Coaches are crucial for
improving teaching techniques (Klute, 2012). When teachers introduce new material into their
curricula, coaches employ professional development models to assess teaching and provide
feedback, enabling teachers to optimize their teaching effectiveness (Landry et al., 2009). In
addition to the appropriate picture book, the appropriate teaching strategy is crucial in teaching
interventions for economically disadvantaged children. The assistance and feedback of coaches
are informative and indispensable resources for teachers using picture books to guide young
children in the development of hopeful thinking strategies (Chafel & Neitzel, 2005). By having
coaches conduct nonparticipatory observation and teaching evaluation, researchers could adjust
the integration of positive thinking into the picture books as well as their application in teaching.
The coaches in this study were preschool teachers at the participating in this study school.
They were qualified preschool teachers with more than 3 years of teaching experience and
master’s degrees in preschool education. They supervised and assessed the teaching process
and provided suggestions and perspectives to help the teachers improve their skills and adjust
their integration of hope into the picture book.
General Background
This case study provided an in-depth description of the integration of positive thinking
in the creation of a picture book for economically disadvantaged children and teaching practice.
Two criteria were used in the study: (1) implemented in a natural context of preschool; (2) the
study is mainly exploratory in nature.

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Setting 1085
This research was conducted in a preschool located in a village in Neipu Township,

Pingtung County in Taiwan. According to statistics for 2020 provided by the Ministry of
Health and Welfare, Pingtung County has the second highest proportion of economically
disadvantaged households in Taiwan (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2020). Among the 33
townships in Pingtung Counting, Neipu Township has the second most households living in
poverty, accounting for 7.65% of such households in the county (Ministry of Health and Welfare,
2020). Therefore, this study adopted Pingtung as the research background and incorporated two
elements: positive thinking and poverty into picture book creation. And teachers use picture
books to actually teach in local preschool.
Research Participants
The research team comprised two teachers, three coaches, and one professional advisor,
and the research participants were 18 preschool children, comprising 8 girls and 10 boys. The
study was conducted after school at 4 pm. Parents decided whether their children participated.
The storytelling activities were mainly based on the picture book story, The Piggy’s Home,
which was developed in this study. No fees were charged for participation.
Data Collection
Consistent with case study methodology, the data collection relies on multiple data
sources to converge in order to provide a means to triangulate findings (Yin, 2014), including
audiotaped interviews with coaches and teachers, videotaped classroom observations, and
teaching technique checklist.
Observations and interviews:
A familiarization period was arranged before the coaches conducted nonparticipatory

observation and teaching evaluation, the purpose of which was to allow the children to become
used to the camera and the research team. Following the observations, the professional advisor
interviewed the two teaching teachers from the participating classes and three coaches,
developing a semi-structured interview protocol on insights gained from the observations and
document analysis to encourage the teachers to report on children’s response and their teaching
situation.
Teaching technique checklist:
Based on the teaching technique checklists that the coaches completed during observation,
the fit between the hope-based picture books and the teaching applications was analyzed. The
checklist items were used to assess the five following dimensions:
(1) Activity procedure: The teachers’ level of coordination during the activities as
well as the appropriateness of the teaching process.
(2) Instructional techniques: The questioning techniques employed by teachers
during the storytelling activities such as discussing the facial expressions of the
story characters as well as guiding the children to empathize with the protagonist
of the story and propose problem-solving goals, strategies, and ways to maintain
willpower.
(3) Children’s responses: The interactions between the children and teachers during

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1086 the storytelling activities, such as the children’s willingness to actively express
their ideas with encouragement from their teachers.
(4) Picture book creation: The pictures and characters in the picture book, which
provided positive thinking, and the background of the story, which was similar to
the life experiences of the children.
(5) Commercial publishing: Appropriateness of the book for commercial publication
and teaching application.
Creation of the Hope-Integrated Picture Book
Teachers may use wordless books to provide children the opportunity to practice thinking,
and asking children to describe the feelings and motives of characters in picture books promotes
teaching effectiveness (Jalongo et al., 2002). Therefore, we created the wordless picture book
The Piggy’s Home using poverty as the theme to communicate a positive and hopeful perspective
toward poverty and encourage young children to develop a positive attitude.
Because this was a wordless picture book, the teachers first designed a short story to
introduce the background. This story described the protagonist, Little Piggy, who lived in an
economically disadvantaged environment and faced many problems. Then, in accordance with
hope theory, the teachers encouraged and guided the children to look at the pictures, tell stories,
and help Little Piggy to propose methods for problem solving, such as setting goals, strategies
for completing goals, and approaches to inspire hope and maintain willpower. The application
of hope theory in picture book teaching is explained as follows:
Goals: The children first discussed, listed, and prioritized the goals of the protagonist.
The teacher assisted the children in focusing these goals. After the goals were established, the
teacher provided several methods to help the protagonist remain focused on the goal (e.g., write
down the goal on a card and post it on the wall).
Pathway thoughts: The teacher asked the children to suggest several possible ways
that the protagonist could achieve the established goals. The teacher could invite children to
demonstrate these methods through speaking and acting.
Agency thoughts: The teacher provided status questions. For example, when Little
Piggy began to doubt himself, the teacher invited the children to discuss Little Piggy’s possible
feelings and provide positive self-talk, such as “I want to change” or “I can choose,” to help
increase Little Piggy’s self-efficacy.
Producing Creations
1. Preparing to create the picture book

Researchers collected and read picture books and books on the theme of poverty.
2. Selecting creative material for the picture book
Acrylic paint was used for the initial illustration because (a) it has a smooth and
bright finish and a natural and even effect; (b) it ensures that the saturation is
constant and the effects are consistent; (c) it possesses the characteristics of both
watercolor and oil paints as well as water resistance; (d) it tolerates a high degree
of color overlay, enabling errors to be corrected during the illustration process.
3. Picture book design
Production methods: Muppets-style puppets of Little Piggy were hand painted and
sewn to present the story flexibly.
4. Character design
The story characters were primarily animals such as Little Piggy, making the story
enjoyable for children.

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5. Level of appropriateness 1087

Creating books with only pictures facilitate creativity and imagination and are suitable
for children of various ages.
Procedures
The procedures of this study comprised the following stages: planning, implementing
and observation, reflection and revision, and data analysis and reporting (Figure 1).
Figure 1
The Present Research Procedure
1. Preparation and planning stages

(1) Confirming the theme and theoretical basis
Elements of hope theory were used as the theme for the picture book design, and
characteristics specific to the culture of poverty in Pingtung County, Taiwan, were used to plan
the characters’ backstories. Intervention effects can be optimized by referencing children’s real
experiences (Boyce et al., 2010). To optimize the effectiveness of teaching with the created
picture books, we designed teaching plans for storytelling activities that incorporated hope and
implemented these activities in educational settings.

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1088 (2) Professional training

This study was conducted by research team, who had received theoretical and practical
training. During each step of the creation process, the research team confirmed that elements of
hope theory had been appropriately incorporated into the picture book. This ensured that hope
theory was fully integrated and practically applied.
2. Research implementation stages
(1) Practice and observation
Before conducting this study, the teachers contacted the participating preschool to
confirm the classes that would be involved in this study and coordinate the dates and times for
the teaching activities. The teachers arranged their schedules and work content on the basis of
the teaching times, including the allocation of teachers, teaching assistants, equipment, and
research tools. Each teaching session lasted up to 40 min, and the entire process was recorded on
video. The coaches were instructed to observe the teaching process and complete the checklist.
(2) Reflection and revision

As nonparticipants, the coaches observed the teachers’ teaching techniques and the
children’s responses and completed the teaching technique checklist. The teachers and the
advisor discussed and modified the teaching techniques to be employed in subsequent lessons
on the basis of the coaches’ evaluations and the children’s responses during classes, achieving
a cyclical revision process. Teachers could reflect on the intervention and make adjustments if
difficulties occurred. Therefore, we could revise and adjust the teaching methods throughout
the course of research.
3. Data analysis and report writing stages
Before discussing the data, analysis and report writing procedures with coaches, the
teachers and advisor conducted a comprehensive review and assessment of the data obtained
during the teaching process. The data analysis process comprised two stages. First, the coaches
evaluated the teaching technique checklist, with a response of excellent worth 5 points and poor
worth 1 point. A higher score indicated superior performance in that dimension. The professional
advisor analyzed the coaches’ feedback to help the teachers to improve their strategies for
integrating the picture book into teaching. Second, the texts of the transcribed teaching video
recordings, teaching journals, and teachers’ self-reflections were analyzed.
Research Results
Coaches’ Professional Evaluations
1. Analysis of coaches’ checklist results
Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the coaches’ evaluations of the teaching
techniques employed to teach the picture book The Piggy’s Home. The overall mean score for
all five dimensions was 4.76, with the instruction techniques dimension receiving the lowest
mean score of 3.50, indicating room for improvement. By contrast, the picture book creation
dimension achieved the highest mean of 4.93.

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Table 1 1089
Descriptive Statistics of the Checklist Evaluations of Techniques Employed to Teach “The
Piggy’s Home”
Dimension M SD Maximum Minimum

Activity procedure 4.93 0.15 5.00 4.67
Instruction techniques 4.50 0.64 5.00 3.50
Children’s responses 4.67 0.47 5.00 4.00
Picture book creation 4.90 0.15 5.00 4.67
Commercial publishing 4.80 0.45 5.00 4.00
Overall 4.76 0.20 4.94 4.47
2. Coaches feedback and recommendations
The coaches recommended that the teachers improve their discussion skills and that the
process be more closely related to the connotations of hope theory. For example, in the goal
setting stage, if the range of goals proposed by the children was too large, the teachers tried
to guide the children to focus on more specific goals. The coaches suggested that the teachers
help the children divide a large goal into several sub-goals to render them more concrete and
feasible. In addition, the picture book creation dimension was judged to be excellent. Examples
of the coaches’ feedback are provided below.
Coach A: “The themes were diverse and could stimulate significant interest and motivation to
participate among the children. Additionally, the teachers’ body language was lively. Using
Muppets-style puppets and the storyline, the teachers vividly presented the story in the picture
book. Judging by the children’s responses, I believe that participation in teaching activities
can lead to positive and optimistic thinking. But during the process of story discussion, it is
recommended that the teacher write down all the children’s ideas, a bit like an experience chart,
and then discuss with children how to make the ideas concrete.”
Coach B: “The story in the picture book was closely linked to the theme of hope. The teacher
orally expressed the background of this story, which aroused the children’s interest. After
explaining the story background and the difficulties faced by Little Piggy, the teacher encouraged
the children to think about the future development of the story as well as to set goals and propose
strategies. Children have the opportunity to experience and simulate how to find a solution to the
breakthrough dilemma. The teachers used diverse facial expressions and gestures to present the
story, effectively capturing the attention of all the children.”
Coach C: “It is a great picture book. The story is presented using large pictures, and the characters
and the plot are closely related to young children’s life experiences. However, suggest that when
the teacher discusses with the child, if the child’s ideas are too abstract, the teacher can give one
or two examples to demonstrate.”
Analysis of Hope-Based Picture Book and Reflections on Teaching Application
1. Effectiveness of incorporating hope theory and the culture of poverty into the picture
book creation
In this study, hope theory and the culture of poverty were incorporated into a picture
book “Piggy’s Home” to increase the hopefulness, positivity, and concreteness of young
children’s thought by teaching practice. During the creation process, the advisor and teachers

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1090 incorporated elements of hope theory into the plot, considered the characteristics and stages
of young children’s cognitive development, and ensured that the story was related to the life
experiences of the participating children. The results of this study demonstrated that a research
team with expertise in childcare, education, and art can develop a theoretically sound picture
book based on hope theory and the culture of poverty and effectively employ it in practical
teaching.
2. Hope-based picture books are effective teaching materials for positive thinking
teaching
The hope-based picture book developed in this study was incorporated into teaching
design. In addition to establishing a corresponding teaching plan, we used the coaches’
professional evaluations to increase teaching effectiveness. The clear theme and rich content of
the picture book attracted considerable interest from the children and enabled the teachers to
guide the children toward positive thinking. According to the analysis of videotaped classroom
observations revealed that the teacher 1 believes that the hope-based picture books can be a
teaching material for her to guide children to positive-think forward, and it can also effectively
arouse children’s active response. As she explained:
Teacher 1: “Today I discussed with the children how to solve the problem that Piggy does not have
enough money to hire workers to repair the leaking house. The usually quiet child Mindy raised
her hand and said: Piggy can start planning to save money and if you have money, you can ask
workers to repair it. Allen said: But it takes a long time to save money, and the house will flood.
Mindy also said: You still have to plan to save money because you will need to use it later……
At this time, I continued to respond and ask questions: Planning to save money is a good way, so
if we don’t have enough money to ask someone to repair it, how can Piggy help himself?
Mindy said: Piggy can ask neighbors for help or learn to repair it by himself, just like my grandpa
repairs a bicycle by himself, it is free." Ann said: You can also take a bucket to catch water.
3. Teachers’ self-reflection:
During the teaching activities, the research team conducted several reviews and
discussions and maintained detailed records as a reference for improving subsequent teaching.
Examples of the teachers’ reflections are provided as follows:
Teacher 1: “The background of the story closely resembles the children’s real-life experiences.
The children can put forward their own ideas during the discussion process and occasionally
use their own experience as examples. However, I hope to enable children to set specific goals
and keep expectations of achieving the goal. Sometimes I worry that the goals put forward by
children are too abstract, and I don’t know how to continue the discussion. The application of
teaching skills seems not so ideal. I think the application of theory must be strengthened.” “The
story teaching was conducted smoothly. However, the teachers did not accurately monitor the time
when executing the development activity ‘hope balloon’ and the comprehension activity ‘sharing’
from the teaching plan. Consequently, the children did not have sufficient time to share their ideas,
although they all actively participated.”
Teacher 2: “The story of the picture book is closely linked to young children’s life experience
and using animals as the characters and Muppets-style puppets to present the story successfully
captured the interest of the young children. In addition, during the teaching process, children
used their own experience to describe the emotions of the protagonist of the story. This is a good
start. They already are aware of the existence of feelings and accept the occurrence of negative
emotions. Unfortunately, I seldom discuss with young children how to regulate emotions so that
emotions will not affect the achievement of goals, which is the maintenance of willpower. Next
time, I think the teaching should incorporate this part."

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Discussion 1091
The aim of the present study was to create a picture book featuring the positive
thinking elements of hope theory, and to implement a practical teaching program exploring the
application of the picture book. This design overcame the limitations of previous studies, which
relied on commercially available picture books (e.g., Higham et al., 2010; Martucci, 2016). The
teachers deliberated regarding how to effectively incorporate the essential elements of hope
theory into the picture book, and they discussed literature collection, clarified the concepts of
hope theory, and prepared teaching plans. Finally, the picture book was successfully created.
In addition, after teaching with the picture book and discussing with the coaches, the teachers
expressed clear awareness of aspects of the teaching process that can be improved, such as
guiding children through teaching strategies to discuss the core concepts of hope theory. For
example, in the agency thought stage, when encountering setbacks or difficulties, individuals
should set clear goals (Snyder et al., 2006), but the process of achieving those goals inevitably
includes negative emotions, setbacks, and challenges. Therefore, teachers should discuss with
children how to maintain individual willpower in the process of achieving goals (Snyder, 2000).
This is also the core concept of hope theory. In addition, teacher reflections revealed that even
positive thinking can be used to guide classroom discussions through picture books, but this
notion is relatively unfamiliar to teachers. Therefore, discussing it with coaches will help with
teaching implementation.
Picture books are a commonly used teaching aid among preschool teachers. However,
related research has mainly focused on ready-made picture books. Therefore, teaching goals
must consider the context and scope of ready-made textbooks, resulting in limited teaching
effects. In addition, the stories of ready-made textbooks may be irrelevant to children. The
real-life experiences of the children may differ, or topics may be beyond the scope of the
children’s understanding, especially storybooks that cultivate children’s mental health or
positive thinking. Boyce et al. (2010) used narratives of daily family events in low-income
Spanish families as the content of their books and improved children’s literacy skills by using
these books. Unfortunately, their research did not explore issues related to children’s positive
thinking and social abilities. Previous studies have shown that picture books are an effective
medium for improving children’s positive thinking and emotions and can promote positive
social abilities (Bergman Deitcher et al., 2020; Kristen et al., 2016; Tompkins et al., 2018). The
current study provides an example of the creation of a picture book incorporating the positive
thinking element of hope theory. It also explores the use of picture books for teaching positive
thinking in young children.
Conclusions and Implications
Picture books are a useful teaching medium and are familiar to preschool teachers.
The creation of a picture book with a clear theoretical framework offers the opportunity to
significantly enhance its teaching effects. Moreover, this is a valuable opportunity for teachers
to develop professionally. Several conclusions were drawn from the results of this study.
First, a picture book based on positive thinking theory can be effectively applied in teaching.
Second, teachers can achieve teaching objectives more systematically under the guidance of
a clearly theoretically based picture book. Third, through the feedback of coaches, teachers
have the opportunity to improve their teaching strategies, such as using experience charts
in story discussions and expressing abstract thinking through body language. Fourth, when
the background of the story is similar to children’s real-life experience, and children are
encouraged to extract their own experience in the discussion, they will be more active in the
discussion. Moreover, children can propose possible problem-solving strategies and predict
various outcomes.

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1092 Future studies can employ group teaching to offer children more opportunities to express
their ideas about the stories presented by picture books. Such expression would enable teachers
to direct young children away from their negative manners of thinking and toward positive
thinking strategies, thereby achieving superior teaching outcomes. In addition, teachers can
extend single-session activities into a series of class-specific activities to conduct longitudinal
interventions. Because picture books such as the one in this study are wordless, teachers can
involve young children in plot creation. During this process, teachers can thoroughly understand
children’s perceptions and feelings regarding poverty. Furthermore, teachers can use the
discussion process to instruct young children to employ positive thinking in the creation of
stories and encourage them to learn to solve problems actively. More importantly, this process
minimizes teacher dominance of discussion, thereby providing education based on children’s
perspectives. Future studies can encourage children to become storytellers, and the leader of
the storytelling activity can create additional opportunities for children to actively absorb and
practice hopeful thinking.
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1095
Cite as: Huang, C.-H., Cheng, F.-L., & Teng, C.-Y. (2020). Teaching practices: Integrating
positive thinking in picture book creation for economically disadvantaged children. Problems
of Education in the 21st Century, 78(6A), 1081-1095. https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1081
Chiu-Hua Huang PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Early Childhood Education,

National Pingtung University, No.4-18, Minsheng Rd., Pingtung City,
Pingtung County 900, Taiwan.
E-mail: huangchiuhua19@gmail.com
Fin-Land Cheng Professor, Department of Early Childhood Education, National Pingtung

(Corresponding author) University of Science and Technology, 1 Shuefu Road, Neipu, Pingtung
912301, Taiwan.
E-mail: chenfl@mail.npust.edu.tw
Ching-Yueh Teng Pre-school Teacher, The Affiliated Preschool of Fong-Ciou Elementary

School, No. 77, Gaoping Ln., Xinyi Township, Nantou County 556, Taiwan.
E-mail: nataliedeng.nd@gmail.com

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1096
FOSTERING AUTONOMOUS LANGUAGE
LEARNERS AT A JAPANESE UNIVERSITY
Mayumi Kanazawa
Kibi International University, Japan
E-mail: mymkanaz@kiui.ac.jp
Abstract
Autonomous learning is one of the most important factors in the field of language learning. Leaning
a language demands a considerable amount of time and learners have to work inside and outside the
classroom to develop their language skills. The present study explored ways of promoting autonomous
learning skills in mixed-level of students of English at a Japanese university. The course syllabus, which
employed various methods was developed in order to increase students’ autonomous learning skills and
incorporate a self-study period during the semester. The students set their own goals, then planned,
developed and followed strategies to achieve them. Learners also kept a weekly learning-log, culminating
in a presentation and a written report about what they had done to achieve their goals, including self-
evaluation. The results showed that the students recognized some improvements in their English learning
skills, motivation and learning habits, including an increase in learning hours. In addition, the students
gained confidence in their English learning. Further practical improvements are suggested for supporting
students to become autonomous language learners.
Keywords: autonomous learners, language learning, learner autonomy, learner independence, self-
study
Introduction
The direction of English education at universities promoted by the Ministry of Education,

Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan states that it is extremely important to improve
ability in English, which is an international common language, as globalization progresses
(2014). In the current era of rapid globalization, students need to spend considerable time
learning the language, including studying outside the classroom. However, many university
students seem to lack study habits and is assumed that they do not sufficiently acquire abilities
to ‘prepare and review for classes’ or ‘do assignments’. The Institute for Labor Policy (2001)
compared weekly study hours (outside classroom) of university students in 9 European countries
(Norway, Italy, Austria, Spain, the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, France) and Japan.
The average of the nine European countries’ weekly study hours was 15.5 hours. The longest
duration was 23.6 hours and the shortest was 13.3 hours. Meanwhile, Japanese weekly study
hours amounted to 7.1 hours. It revealed that Japanese university students do not spend enough
time studying. Also, the National Institute for Educational Policy Research (2016) showed that
Japanese university students’ weekly average study time (outside classroom) was 7.9 hours.
English has played an important role in Asian countries for decades. It has become a
common language in the fields of trade, commerce, diplomacy, tourism, mass media, and
academic pursuit across the world. For Asian countries, English is now an indispensable resource
which they seek for themselves and their younger generations for successful participation in the
global economy. Japan is no exception. The Japanese government has set proposed changes in
English education, such as starting English class at elementary schools and set the new targets
to acquire the four skills in high schools. However, Japanese English proficiency level is low

Mayumi KANAZAWA. Fostering autonomous language learners at a Japanese university
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among Asian countries. According to a survey by EF English Proficiency Index (2019), which 1097
reports the rank of English proficiency every year, Japan was ranked 53rd out of 100 countries
and regions in 2019. Among East Asian countries, China, Taiwan and South Korea, rank
higher than Japan. Japan has continued to fall in rank since the survey started in 2011. There
are various possible explanations. Short study hours and low motivation in learning English
seem to be contributing factors.　However, given the limited contact time Japanese students
have in the university, a major factor is lack of autonomous learning. Traditionally, Japanese
students are considered to be passive and dependent on teachers (Dore & Seko, 1989). Teacher-
centered English classrooms have been common in Japan, where teaching is largely one-way
from a teacher to students. Students expect the teacher to tell them what to do and how to do
it. This suggests that students depend on their teachers and are, not actively responsible for
their learning. It could therefore be said that opportunities for students taking initiatives in the
classroom have not been provided, which has resulted in their current behavior. Also, from the
author’s observation, students do not actively seek ways to acquire the language despite being
surrounded by rich resources and a variety of means to learn English on their own. Even though
Language Learning Center or CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) systems are in
place, only the most motivated learners actually take up the offer and make use of them. The
author believes that language competence comes not only from doing assignments given by the
teachers but also from students working independently on their own needs. Nevertheless, it is
challenging for students to find the way to carry this out. In order to help students to develop
independent language learning habits outside the classroom, a classroom-based self-directed
learning program should be incorporated to transfer to students the responsibility for language
learning processes, such as setting goals, selecting materials and learning strategies, and
evaluating learning progress. Students need to be given the skills to be able to seek out materials
and resources to enable them to improve their recognition of what is relevant and what is not.
Also, they need some support to learn how to utilize these skills. If this lack of experience in
autonomous learning continues, their prospects look bleak. Therefore, the decision was taken
to incorporate autonomous learning in a taught syllabus which functions as a springboard for
students’ self-directed study.
Literature Review
There has been remarkable growth of interest in autonomy in language teaching and
learning (Benson, 2006). What is learner autonomy? Holec (1981, p.3) defined the term
‘learner autonomy’ as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning”, which has been widely
cited in the field. There are different perspectives of ‘autonomy’. Dickinson (1987) defined it
as “the situation in which the learner is totally responsible for all of the decisions concerned
with his learning and the implementation of those decisions.” Autonomy is not an individual
ability but a ‘situation’, and the ‘situation’ in which the learner is completely independent of
the organizations such as schools, teachers and prepared materials is called autonomy. Benson
and Voller (1997) noted that there are five categories of learner autonomy: (1) situations in
which learners study entirely on their own; (2) a set of skills which can be learned and applied
in self-directed learning; (3) an inborn capacity which is suppressed by institutional education;
(4) the exercise of learners’ responsibility for their own learning; and (5) the right of learners
to determine the direction of their own learning. Learner autonomy refers to “the capacity to
take control over one’s own learning,” and autonomous learning refers to “learning in which
learners demonstrate a capacity to control their learning.” Benson (2011, pp. 123-124). Holec
(1985) also stated that learner training should prepare students to direct their own learning
so that they may gradually move from dependence on a teacher to a degree of independence
or autonomy. Lee (1998) concurred, commenting that a certain degree of learner training is

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1098 necessary before students can truly become responsible learners. Meanwhile, Sinclair (1999, p.
310) defined autonomy as “being self-directed,” but suggested that learners’ capacity to make
informed decisions needs to be developed by teachers’ support. Thus, self-directed learning
has the potential to promote independence in learners so that they can continue their learning.
In autonomous learning, learners are expected to have the responsibilities of setting goals,
making plans to achieve their goals, implementing learning strategies, monitoring their learning
process, and evaluating their learning (Cotterall, 2000). According to Smith (2007), learner
autonomy is activated when “learners have the power and right to learn for themselves” (p. 2).
Thus, autonomous learners’ willingness and capacity to control their own learning are essential.
What can be done to foster learners’ autonomy? Fostering learner autonomy may be
defined in simple terms as helping learners to become more independent by training them
to use language learning strategies effectively in their language learning process. Cotterall
(2000) advocated that principles of learner autonomy should be integrated into the classroom-
based courses and, to this end, offered five principles for language courses. These principles
are designed to foster learner autonomy and support the transfer of responsibility for decision
making from teacher to learner (Cotterall, 2000):
1. The course reflects learner’s goals in its language, tasks, and strategies.
2. Course tasks are explicitly linked to a simplified model of the language process.
3. Course tasks either replicate real-world communicative tasks or provide
rehearsal for such tasks.
4. The course incorporates discussion and practice with strategies known to
facilitate task performance.
5. The course promotes reflection on learning.
Cotterall concluded that courses adopting these five principles helped learners understand
and manage their learning in a way that contributed to their performance in specific language
tasks. Also, learner motivation was enhanced. It suggests that the program incorporated in the
classroom-based activities is effective in fostering autonomous learning. However, there are
few reports of such integrated courses. Iimuro and Berger (2010) developed ‘Self-Study’ as
an assignment, with the aim of integrating autonomous learning aspects into the course. They
reported that the guided study implemented in the curriculum was successful in motivating
students to study consistently to achieve the language skills and study habits. However, they also
mentioned there was room for improvement in terms of providing various examples of study
methods and materials. Still, it is apparent that there are benefits to incorporating a systematizing
project as a course requirement. Therefore, the sufficient time for providing possible materials,
study methods, and demonstration of practice opportunities should be provided before learners
carry out their own ‘self-study’. Previous studies have suggested potential effects of autonomous
learning programs; however, the number of empirical studies on this topic is limited in Japan.
As put forward by Cotterall (2000), incorporating principles of learner autonomy is considered
vital. With this in mind, the classroom-based course was designed to integrate principles with
practice. In doing so, the course would function as a means of fostering autonomous learners
who would keep learning for their own language development.

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Research Questions 1099
This study explored whether autonomous learning was promoted by incorporating ‘self-
study’ into a classroom.
The research questions were as follows:
1. What are the effective teaching strategies for promoting autonomous learning?
2. What did students change after autonomous learning promotion in terms of learning
time, learning strategies, motivation, and learning behavior?
General Background
The study was conducted in 2019. In this classroom-based course, various kinds of
activities were provided by the teacher in an attempt to train students in language learning
strategies. The activities in the strategy training process included materials and exercises focusing
on teaching reading, listening, speaking, writing, and vocabulary building strategies. Also, two
kinds of ‘Logs’ were used for promoting engagement with English outside the classroom and
reflection on learning. This study used mixed methods research design, combining quantitative
and qualitative methodological approaches.
Sample
The students who enrolled in the ‘Learning Skills’ course were in their second year at
Kibi International University. The number of students in this course was 19 (male 7, female
12). All of the students were going to study abroad from the next semester in fulfillment of the
graduation requirement. They were required to acquire ample language skills to be successful
in studying abroad. Their TOEIC IP scores ranged from 320 to 745 with an average score of
468 at that time. The students whose English proficiency was relatively low had no experience
of using language-learning strategies. At the beginning, students were informed the data would
be used for research. The students were advised of the research project and were invited to ask
any questions. Students then consented to the anonymous data being included in the research
and in the resulting paper.
Instruments and Procedures
This study utilized the following three instruments. These instruments were designed to
prompt students to recognize their actions and make decisions about what to do to reach their
own goals. In addition, reflection on their learning in form of a presentation and report aimed to
help students increase their ability to be more independent.
1. Weekly Log - to record any increase in learning hours outside the classroom.
2. Learning Log (self-study in class) – to identify the materials and method suited to
learners’ needs.
3. Presentation and report – to demonstrate any findings related to students’
motivation and their learning habits.

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1100 The study was implemented in the ‘Learning Skills’ course in the spring semester 2019.
In the first eight classes of the semester, various English learning strategies were introduced
to meet the students’ needs in improving the four English skills. These included different
resources, such as news articles, English learning sites on the Internet and YouTube videos.
After each class, students were required to reflect and write notes on what they had learnt during
the session. In the subsequent class, the idea of autonomous learning and the rationale for
‘Self-study’ was incorporated in the course. Using a study plan sheet, the students set their own
goals and made learning plans including the materials to use for the next four weeks. During
the four-week period, half of each lesson (45 minutes) was allocated to self-study. The students
were expected to work towards their own goals and plans and be responsible for their own study
using the materials they had prepared. The students could consult the teacher if they needed
any help finding materials to use. At the end of each class, the students wrote what they had
actually done in the session and their comments in the Learning Log. These reflective notes were
submitted and returned with some comments from the teacher in the following week. Also, the
students were required to set the goal of study hours for the next week and keep a Weekly Log
in which they recorded starting and finishing times, total learning hours and the activities. The
teacher collected the Logs and provided feedback on the students’ work. In the last two weeks
of the semester, the students made presentations with PowerPoint, reporting on the month’s
work both inside and outside the classroom. In their presentation and written reports, students
were required to include the following: (1) goals; (2) materials and the methods to exploit; (3)
achieved or not (why, why not) and (4) next step towards learning English.
To sum up, these activities are regarded as a reflection on learning, as set out in Cotterall’s
fifth principle (Cotterall, 2000). They gave students opportunities to be aware of their learning
activities and behavior.
Data Analysis
Based on the research questions, the data were analyzed using a range of instruments.
The Weekly Log and the Learning Log were submitted in class. The weekly learning hours were
calculated by Excel to acknowledge the amount of time for learning English. In order to identify
the learning tools and learning strategies, a 5-point Likert scale was used and summarized in the
results. Key words and sentences related to motivation and learning attitudes in the students’
reports were collected for examination.
Research Results
Learning Hours Outside of Classroom Increased
Students’ weekly learning hours were recorded over four weeks, as Figure 1 indicates.
This data was collected from the Weekly Log submitted by students. The weekly average of
learning hours among 19 students was 13.07 hours. In their first year questionnaire, the students
answered that the average time they spent on learning was 7.5 hours. It is obvious that they
devoted more time to learning English in the second year than in the first.

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Figure 1 1101
Weekly Average Learning Hours
Students’ total individual hours are calculated for the four-week period and shown in
Figure 2. According to the Logs, 13 out of 19 students spent over 40 hours learning outside the
classroom, which was the initial minimum goal for the quantity of learning hours. One of the
students achieved over 100 hours. The average total number of learning hours of the 19 students
was 46.7 hours. The number of hours in the second week was considerably higher compared to
that for the other weeks, which suggests that students were more motivated after the first week,
due to figuring out how to shape their learning.
Figure 2
Individual Total Learning Hours (4 weeks)
Students’ Learning Strategies and Own Evaluation
In the ‘Learning Log’ during the ‘self-study’ weeks, the participants answered
questions about their own English learning activities during the class. The results of 5-point
Likert scale are summarized in Table 1 (5: Entirely, 1: Not at all). As Table 1 shows, none of
the student chose 3 (Somewhat) to 1 (Not at all). This indicates that all of the students were
positive about what they did. They thought that the materials they selected were useful and
met their needs. In addition, they enjoyed the way they used the materials and had desire to
continue that.

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1102 Table 1
Self-evaluation on Own English Learning in the Classes (%)
　 5 4 3 2 1
　 (Entirely) (Largely) (Somewhat) (Not really) (Not at all)
I enjoyed it 53 47 0 0 0
I want to continue 74 26 0 0 0
It is useful 74 26 0 0 0
It matches me 63 27 0 0 0
In the students’ presentation and report, a variety of learning tools and learning strategies
were identified. The most used resources as learning tools were YouTube and the English
learning site, ‘Quizlet’. Regarding YouTube, students preferred songs, TED talks, animations
and movies as language learning instruments, mainly focusing on listening improvement.
They also adjusted the speed of speech to strengthen listening skills. Quizlet was widely used
among students because it was recommended by teachers during the semester to build up their
vocabulary. It was possible to learn and increase vocabulary in a variety of ways, including
making their own flash cards. Students who wanted to improve their speaking skills used
two different methods to practice speaking. One was to have time to talk to native English
teachers and exchange students in English as much as possible; the other method was talking
by themselves for five minutes and recording it. Users of both methods mentioned that they
enjoyed the activities and recognized improvement in their speaking skills. For writing practice,
writing a journal or a diary was a common approach, as was writing a summary of an article.
In their presentation and written reports, students described in detail the methods they utilized.
Evaluating Teaching Strategies
In this study, several teaching strategies were implemented. Utilizing two kinds of
‘Logs’ was one of the effective strategies to promote students to drive learning behavior and
develop language learning awareness. Keeping a record of setting learning target times and
daily learning in the ‘Weekly Log’ made students realize their involvement in the program. In
particular, setting a learning target time played an important role in increasing learning hours
outside the classroom. The ‘Learning Log’, which was used in class, helped students examine
whether the plan was actually implemented. Moreover, it made them recognize whether the
plan, including materials and strategies, suited their own proficiency level and preference,
and examine whether it met their expectations. Some students reported that they modified
subsequent plans and changed learning activities to meet their targets. They claimed that it
was a great achievement for them to reach their goals. Another effective teaching strategy
was dividing a class hour in half in order to introduce learning strategies with practice time
and implement students’ own ‘self-study’ time in a supported setting. Following the strategy
practice, students were able to use the newly learned strategies in their own learning plan, which
in turn led to greater awareness of learning strategies. These teaching strategies helped students
to notice and monitor their own learning, and subsequently, reflect on their study patterns and
accomplishments.

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Findings in Students’ Habits, Motivation and Behavior 1103
In the student presentations and reports, the majority of comments were positive. Among
these positive comments, three trends emerged; recognition of improvement in English skills,
discovery of new learning strategies, and increase in motivation. Students who commented on
their improvement in their English skills reported the following (the comments were written in
Japanese by the students and translated into English):
● My listening skill was improved by listening at 1.5 times speed.

● I realized my English had improved.
● I was able to talk about Japanese culture after a lot of practice
● I had both better reading and writing skills
The majority of the students commented that they engaged with a greater variety of
learning methods and learning strategies by trying out different resources and activities, which
they had never attempted before.
● I was able to find suitable learning strategies to me. It was a big success.
● I did something new I have never tried such as speed reading and describing
photos.
● It was a good opportunity for me to learn various learning methods and learning
strategies.
Comments below are associated with motivation.
● I became more positive about learning English.

● Motivation to study was increased.
● I noticed the consistency of learning is very important for improving English.
● Setting goals and recognizing successful learning outcomes motivated me.
● I want to try more different learning strategies.
● I was not good at planning and keeping to it, but I enjoyed it and I want to set
new goals.
● I want to make more efforts to improve listening skills.
From these comments, it is noticeable there were many observations by students

regarding motivation and habits. One participant wrote in her report, “I watched a short video
clip at 1.5 times speed for listening practice. In the first week, I could not understand it at all,
but by the third week, I was able to understand almost everything. I was very happy. I haven’t
enjoyed watching a video clip in English like this before. I learned the importance of learning
continuously.” This response demonstrates the effect of continuation. There were no negative
comments mentioned about the program or what they were supposed to do, such as “I can’t
continue”, or “Too much workload”. However, there still seemed to be a sign which indicated
the students’ demotivation in the Learning Log. For instance, 3 out of 19 students did not submit
the Log for two weeks and another 2 out of 19 failed to submit for one week. They might have
simply forgotten to keep the records; alternatively, they might have been unable to submit
because they had not done anything to write about during those weeks. To discover and help
overcome the potential obstacles, teachers should consider setting individual counselling time
or sharing information among peers. In addition, an anonymous feedback survey would be
helpful, as this could reveal the students’ real intentions and their honest views of the program.

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1104 Discussion
Setting goals before implementing the program was essential as this process can improve
students’ learning and motivation (Zimmerman, 1990). However, setting goals was a difficult
task for the students. They had to complete the study plan before engaging in the ‘self-study’
period. Their initial goals were not specific at all. They thought their hopes were their goals
to reach, such as being able to speak English fluently or understand native English speakers’
English perfectly. Therefore, it took time for them to decide the goals and make plans. There
should have been some materials to make it easier for them. However, setting goals for learning
hours each week made the participants strive to achieve the hours set, so that learning hours
considerably increased. The result indicates that it is beneficial for students to include setting
a goal for learning hours in the Learning Log. The students who spent significantly more time
outside the class defined clear goals and they were well prepared to take control of their own
learning.
Next, the result showed that the students found the suitable learning strategies for
themselves to reach their goals. Students’ high degree of satisfaction with self-evaluation for
their own learning activities revealed that independent selection of resources and materials
was crucial for raising learner autonomy. The first eight sessions introduced and demonstrated
learning resources and materials. Also, students exploited and practiced both cognitive learning
strategies and metacognitive learning strategies so that they could carry out their own learning
smoothly. After the four-week ‘self-study’ period, a variety of work was produced by the
students. Some were activities done in the first eight classes; others were from the students’
original ideas including writing a100-word diary entry every day, making an original vocabulary
book and recording their own speaking. Students preferred films, songs and English learning
applications on the mobile phones as leading autonomous language learning instruments.
Moreover, there was an unexpected, interesting finding. In the beginning of the ‘self-study’
period, the students took time to start their own learning even though they had already made
their own plans. Some spent time just searching the Internet but doing nothing. It was a little odd
to see that most students seemed to be uncomfortable doing their own study. At the beginning of
the research, the assumption was that the students would be pleased to be able to do something
they had decided with their own choice of materials during the class. They were allowed to do
anything they wanted to do. However, since they had been accustomed to a structured learning
environment, which means being provided materials and instruction by teachers, they were not
sure that what they intended to do was right. They still expected the teacher to take most of the
responsibility and make most of the decisions about their learning in the classroom context.
This might be a reason why the students cannot behave as autonomous learners. Also, it could
indicate that doing different things from others in the same class may have influenced their
behavior. It appears to be one of the characteristics of Japanese students.
Finally, some changes were observed in the students’ motivation and their learning
habits. Two main trends were found from their presentation and the written reports. One was
the recognition of improvement in English skills; the other was an increase in motivation. The
perception of development in their language skills motivated students towards further learning
and greater confidence. Inspection of their Logs showed that 6 out of 19 students wrote them
in Japanese in the beginning, but 13 out of 19 students had been writing them in English by the
last session. It is obvious that their desire to express their thoughts had developed, which is a
sign of confidence in writing in English. Some students were determined to set the new goals
for the next plans, such as studying abroad and speaking to exchange students on campus.
Furthermore, one of the students reported that he had gained not only a large amount of
information from the news, which was used for writing summaries, but also come to develop an
interest in various events occurring all over the world. This comment suggests that autonomy

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plays an important role in students’ learning. In addition, the majority of the students realized 1105
the usefulness of making learning plans on their own and importance of continuous study. The
sense of achievement and experience of success are important in motivating the students to
continue studying. By providing an opportunity for students to experience their development
besides examinations, it is certain that autonomous learning is valuable for their future studies.
Incorporating ‘self-study’ in the course syllabus was successful. It was beneficial for the
students to gain experience of utilizing various learning strategies and find suitable ones for
them. The students noticed numerous phenomena they had never been aware of before. Thus,
this type of autonomous learning syllabus consequently raises students’ learning motivation
and arouses interests. However, there is some room for further improvement. First, more
attentive support for setting specific goals was needed as it was not easy for the students to
set specific goals. Second, extra time should have been available to check progress of the
plans. This could have taken the form of an individual tutorial with the teacher or sharing
information and progress among the students. Unfortunately, time constraints did not allow for
these measures; however, it would be beneficial if future research and courses set aside time for
support activities. Limitations of this study are the small number of participants and the lack
of data related to participants’ autonomous language learning before implementing the course.
From their reports and presentations, there were no negative comments about the course, or
what they had done. However, their true intention was difficult to gauge; for instance, politeness
to the teacher might have inhibited frankness and negative response. Also, as the study did not
track learning after the course, it was not possible to see students become autonomous learners.
Therefore, it is important for teachers to support students in acquiring a study habit and building
the mindset of an autonomous learner. Only then can students learn how to study even beyond
completion of the course.
Generally speaking, participants in this study had positive attitudes toward learning
English. They had not had experience of utilizing learning strategies or knowledge of
autonomous learning before they engaged in the program. Through acquiring knowledge and
practice, it is possible for students to select materials and methods on their own and learn
to take actions by themselves. Autonomous learners are not naturally born. However, with
some support and guidance from teachers and with learners’ persistent effort, this study clearly
indicates we can foster autonomous language learners who are able to use learning strategies
effectively and monitor and evaluate their language learning process.
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Mayumi Kanazawa MSc, Lecturer, Kibi International University, Okuda-Nishimachi 5-5, Kita-ku,
Okayama, Japan.
E-mail: mymkanaz@kiui.ac.jp
Website: http://kiui.jp

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AFFECTIVE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING 1107
TO SOUTHEAST ASIAN AND EAST

ASIAN EIGHTH GRADERS’ SCIENCE
ACHIEVEMENT IN TIMSS 2015
Yoon Fah Lay
University of Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia
E-mail: layyf@ums.edu.my
Murugan Rajoo
Sultan Idris Education University, Malaysia
E-mail: murugan@recsam.edu.my
Abstract
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is an international comparative study
that has been implemented by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achieve-
ment (IEA) since 1995. This proposed study is aimed to identify the affective factors contributing to
eighth graders' science achievement in TIMSS among Southeast Asian and East Asian countries. The
freely-downloadable secondary data were analyzed using IEA's International Database (IDB) Analyzer
(version 4.0) for TIMSS, a plug-in for SPSS. TIMSS uses an imputation methodology, involving plausi-
ble values, to report student performance. This study found that students' views on engaging teaching
in science (BSBGESL) were negatively and significantly contributed to eighth-grade students' science
achievement in Thailand, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, and Hong Kong SAR. Students Like Learning Sci-
ence (BSBGSLS) were positively and significantly contributed to eighth-grade students' science achieve-
ment in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong SAR, and Chinese Taipei. Students Confident in Sci-
ence (BSBGSCS) were positively and significantly contributed to eighth-grade students' science achieve-
ment in Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore. Students Value Science
(BSBGSVS) was positively and significantly contributed to eighth-grade students' science achievement in
Japan, Korea, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and Malaysia. Based on the research findings, policy
recommendations were made to the Malaysian Ministry of Education to boost Malaysian eighth graders'
science performance in the forthcoming TIMSS studies.
Keywords: TIMSS, comparative study, affective factors, science achievement
Introduction

Science extends explicitly to all aspects of the human life and culture, from protecting
and enhancing human health to recognizing and addressing local, national, and global environ-
mental issues. Students require early stage of learning science education and cognitive skills. It
is essential not only to be a considerate person when involved in communication with society
on important social challenges in science, but also to be able to make contributions across a
wide variety of fields in science, medicine, and technology. The study of science in the primary
and early secondary grades thereby establishes a vital framework for the potential employment
and life achievement of the students.
On the other hand, students need to develop mathematical understanding to manage
successfully in school and society. Mathematics is the foundation for further learning in several

Yoon Fah LAY, Murugan RAJOO. Affective factors contributing to Southeast Asian and East Asian eighth graders’ science
achievement in TIMSS 2015
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1108 school subjects, most notably the sciences and mathematics problem solving builds logical
reasoning skills that can be applied in many situations. For students' everyday life, today and
in the future, mathematics is pervasive, from managing money to a range of other tasks. The
world is becoming increasingly "quantified," and all students need to have good knowledge of
mathematical and technological thinking to live a fruitful life. Students need mathematics to be
effective future citizens as this will help them to understand daily news and be well informed
of world events, which are often described through increase and decrease of statistical data.
Considering students' future careers, mathematics is important to some degrees in most occu-
pations. It is required at a high level in many fields which need higher level training such as
engineers, scientists, accountants, doctors, etc.
Quality education in science fosters scientific literacy. Research across a range of coun-
tries has demonstrated a positive correlation between high literacy in science and the level of
basic education achieved (Pardo & Calvo, 2004; Shukla et al., 2005). Formal education will
provide the students with basic science literacy for workplace readiness. Technology education
in schools, however, can hardly meet the general public's needs to boost its scientific literacy.
Informal and non-formal education in sciences are also key components of continuous learning.
Besides, the number of research awareness also plays a critical role in securing support
from the public for continued developments in scientific fields. Community-based scientific
education through science institutes, where all members of the community have the chance
to learn in an informal and engaging environment about science and discoveries. Attempts to
improve universal science literacy are an important factor in securing support from the public
for continued developments in scientific fields.
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
The International Association for the Assessment of Educational Achievement (hereafter

abbreviated as IEA) pioneered international comparative evaluation of educational achieve-
ments in the 1960s as an attempt to get a deeper understanding of the impact of educational
policies and procedures across various school systems. Trends in International Mathematics
and Science Study (hereafter abbreviated as TIMSS), one of the international comparative as-
sessments, is directed by IEA's TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center at Boston College.
TIMSS seeks to help the participating countries make better decisions on how to im-
prove mathematics and science by teaching and learning. Since 1995, TIMSS is a regular stu-
dent assessment program in grades four and eight which has been administered every four
years. TIMSS provides participating countries with a wealth of information about trends in
the science and mathematics knowledge and skills of their respective students. At the heart of
TIMSS is a wide-ranging state-of-the-art assessment of how well students master the essential
science and mathematics content, concepts, and procedures that countries expect them to learn
as they progress through primary and lower secondary school.
Problem Statement
Science education, which transcends the pervasive divide between natural sciences and
social sciences, is potentially unique in its ability to promote the awareness and participation
of new generations and to address the social, economic, and environmental aspects of global
challenges. Therefore, addressing diversity and equity-related priorities of science education is
of vital significance in the light of the global picture of a rapidly evolving world.
Malaysia joined TIMSS studies since 1999 at the eighth-grade level. Malaysia with a
mean score of 492 was ranked 22nd place in 1999 among 38 participating countries, 21st place
in 2003 among 46 participating countries with a mean score of 510, 21st place in 2007 among

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59 participating countries with a mean score of 471, 32nd place in 2011 among 63 participating 1109
countries with a mean score of 426, and 24th place in 2015 among 63 participating countries
with a mean score of 471 (Table 1).
The results of the latest TIMSS 2015 phase indicate that in the fourth and eighth grades,
Singapore, Korea, and Japan are the best ranked nations in education. Table 1 shows the TIMSS
science scores for Southeast Asian and East Asian Eighth Grade Students (EGS) from 1995 to
2015.
Table 1
TIMSS (Grade 8) science scores for Southeast Asian and East Asian countries (1995 – 2015)
TIMSS Science Scores of Grade 8 Students

Malaysia
Singapore
Thailand
Japan
Korea
SAR
Hong Kong,
Chinese Taipei
Average
No. of
Participating
Year
Countries
1995 45 - 580 - 554 546 510 - N.A.

1999 38 492 568 482 550 549 530 569 488
2003 46 510 578 - 552 558 556 571 474
2007 59 471 567 471 554 553 530 561 500
2011 63 426 590 451 558 560 535 564 500
2015 63 471 597 456 571 556 546 569 500
Literature Review
Students' Engagement in Science Lessons and Science Achievement
Commitment or engagement is typically perceived to have behavioral, affective, and

cognitive aspects (Fredricks et al., 2016). By attending school and engaging in school activities,
students display interpersonal engagement, affectively by the feelings of joy and dedication
to their schooling, and intellectually by engaging in learning. However, students’ engagement
research believed that a cumulative indicator of total attendance is a greater indicator of student
outcomes than a single factor (Archambault, Janosz, Fallu, & Pagani, 2009). The participation
of students in every assignment has greater academic achievement (Archambault et al., 2009;
Lawson & Masyn, 2015; Wang & Eccles, 2013). Although this existing research has provided
substantial evidence that engagement is important for student academic success, the variables
affecting engagement are less well known.
Students' Attitudes toward Science and Science Achievement
TIMSS assessments routinely present a very strong evidence showing that students
who display more positive attitudes toward science have considerably higher average science
achievement, and TIMSS results are consistent with previous assessments. However, there were
some exceptional cases, for example, in TIMSS 2015, it was found that 38% of Qatari students
"very much like science," but their performance was significantly lower than Japanese and
Korean students who showed 15% and 10%, respectively. Every successive TIMSS assessment
has shown a positive association between student attitudes towards science and their success in

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1110 science. There is a comprehensive study documenting that the more optimistic the attitudes of
students towards mathematics and science, the higher the average achievement in mathematics
and science (e.g., Lay et al., 2015; Lay et al., 2016; Lay et al., 2014; Ng & Kim, 2012; Ng et al.,
2012; Ng, Lay et al., 2012; Reinikainen, 2007; TIMSS BC, 1999). To illustrate, a meta-analysis
of students' attitudes towards education, it was found that attitudes towards mathematics or sci-
ence were linked to mathematics and science achievement through 288 studies (Hattie, 2009)).
However, it is noteworthy that the relationship between positive attitudes and high science
achievement can go both ways, in which there were mutual influences between attitudes and
achievement. For example, students who enjoy learning science are likely to be good at science
or vice-versa.
On the other side of the coin, a considerable amount of study into the attitudes of students
towards learning has examined the multifaceted motivation phenomenon (e.g., Ng, 2012; Ng
et al., 2013; Valijarvi, 2013; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). For example, students find the subject
enjoyable and their interest on the topic may have an effect on the willingness of the students to
learn. Concerning this, students' motivation can be affected by their self-confidence in learning
the subject as revealed from literature by Ng et al. (2012) as well as Valijarvi (2013).
Students Like Learning Science and Science Achievement
Quality educators have indeed been described as those who love what they teach, who
equate real life with subjects taught in the classroom, and who educate in a structured way.
Children have indeed noted the use of globally competitive teaching approaches and the partic-
ipation of students in constructive learning has a significant effect on their attitude to science at
school (Osborne & Collins, 2001). Learners with positive behavior or attitudes to science are
starting to have a more favorable outlook towards school-learned subjects and science class as
a whole (Atwater et al., 1995). Science is described by many students as a noble discipline on
an individual basis, and "smarter" is seen by students who excel in science.
Previous research, nevertheless, shows that there is a substantial decrease in interest in
classroom instruction, starting at junior high and becoming much greater at secondary school
(Sorge, 2006; Reiss, 2004). Furthermore, Osborne et al. (2003) reported that, considering the
general understanding of the importance of experimental research, students are more concerned
with science as a connected transmission for progress than as an orientation to the outcome of
the mission.
Around the same time, learners did not think that research was intriguing, and they of-
ten discovered that, in their opinion, some science subjects were irrelevant. One of the other
factors which could be responsible for the inability of students to study science was the lack of
motivation and focus. And though, students need to support themselves in a student-teacher so-
cial atmosphere and even a student-student partnership where students have stronger academic
results has to be encouraged and preserved in their desires and values.
Students Value Science and Science Achievement
Intrinsic motivation refers to doing an activity because it is interesting or enjoyable. And

though, learners need to support oneself in a student-teacher social atmosphere and even a stu-
dent-student partnership where students have stronger academic results has to be encouraged
and preserved in their desires and values.
Some phenomena have been noted, amid a small number of studies undertaken on the
attitudes of primary school children towards science (Yager & Penick, 1986, Murphy & Beggs,
2001, Pell & Jarvis, 2001). These include the teacher's position and significance, appreciation
of science as necessary, impression of science class as optimistic, "fun" experience (Murphy &

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Beggs, 2001), in the behaviors of the pupils, a specific gender disparity (Jarman, 1993, Reiss, 1111
2004) and a common keen interest in performing experiments (Reiss, 2004).
In addition, analyses of the degree of comfort of students with their science classes
have found that the enjoyment of students resulting from science classes and their passion for
learning science was influenced by their teaching process (Brok et al., 2005). It has been seen
the exception of adult students, students view science as incredibly important and critical, even
as an object in itself (Neathery, 1997). In terms of excitement, a significant number of primary
school children talked about science, though its functional value is by no means ignored: about
90% of elementary school students believed that science would help them in their future ca-
reers, and more than 70% of them identified science as fascinating and useful in everyday life
(Yager & Penick, 1986).
Students Confident in Science and Science Achievement
Motivation for studying means making the feeling that you have been going to succeed. A
simple self-concept helps students to interact and display engagement, effort, and concentration
with the teaching. The Student Trust in Science Scale measures the self-esteem or self-concept
of students in their ability to grasp evaluation of science. Self-efficacy, known as confidence
in one's capacity to successfully accomplish a particular task, was among the most powerful
motivational determinants of how well a person performs in practically every undertaking.
An individual's self is now a clear predictor of his or her dedication, determination, and plan,
as well as learning and success. Past researchers have said that the consciousness of students
regarding their skill in science has a consistent and critical influence on the production of their
behavior towards science classes and science in general (Haladyna et al., 1982; George, 2000).
A high degree of self-efficacy against another task correlates to a greater desire to excel
and makes the task more meaningful and satisfying (Schunk, 1991). Teachers' actions may
provide students with verbal and nonverbal feedback of their success, so they use to develop
their self-efficacy. Though that is valid for high school students, it was observed that elementary
students had a reasonably clear and consistent sense of self-efficacy in science that did not rely
on external influences, such as their personal progress in school or academic success in other
disciplines (Pell & Jarvis, 2001).
If an individual has faith, he or she seems to engage in lessons more easily, to work bet-
ter, and to try faster (Schunk & Miller, 2002). Thus, it should go without saying that learners try
to develop and accomplish as both a result of higher confidence levels.
Research Objectives
This study embarks on the following objectives:
i) To identify affective factors [Students' Views on Engaging Teaching in Science

(BSBGESL) lessons, Students Like Learning Science (BSBGSLS), Students
Confident in Science (BSBGSCS), Students Value Science (BSBGSVS)]
contributing to Grade 8 students' science achievement in TIMSS among Southeast
Asian and East Asian countries;
ii) To make policy recommendations to the Ministry of Education to boost Malaysian
Grade 8 students' science performance in the forthcoming TIMSS assessments.

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1112 Research Methodology
General Background
Data for the study were drawn from the TIMSS 2015 database (http://timssandpirls.
bc.edu/timss2015/international-database/). TIMSS employs a two-stage stratified sampling ap-
proach. First, schools were selected based on the probability proportional to the school’s size.
The classrooms within the selected schools are randomly chosen afterward. Due to the TIMSS
sampling scheme, the surveyed samples can represent the whole population in the participating
countries. More information regarding data and sampling procedures of TIMSS can be found in
the technical reports by Martin et al. (2016).
Science Achievement
The science achievement scale of TIMSS 2015 was focused on science subjects like
information (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science) and cognitive (Knowing, Implement-
ing, Reasoning) domains. To report student results, TIMSS uses a synthetic data approach,
which requires plausible values. Realistic values are natural factors from either the set of rat-
ings, consists of a process proposed by Mislevy and Sheehan (1987, 1989) and based on Rubin's
principle of imputation (1987) (i.e., random draws from the marginal posterior of the latent dis-
tribution used as a measure of science achievement). A plug-in for SPSS, the IEA International
Database (IDB) Analyzer for TIMSS, had been used to aggregate the five plausible values and
to generate their weighted average and to address standard errors.
Students' Views on Engaging Teaching in Science (SVETS) Lessons Scale
In TIMSS 2015 eighth grade science assessment, with ten remarks on the SVETS scale,
students were graded according to their levels of agreement. "In science classes, students who
observed "Extremely Stimulating Instruction" had a rating of at least 10.2, which correlates to
their "agreeing a number" with five of the ten comments and, on average, "agreeing a little"
with some of the other five. Students who encountered "Less than Engaging" instruction had a
ranking of no more than 8.1, which correlates, on average, to their "disagree a little" with five
of the ten assertions and "agree a little" with the remaining five. "Engaging Teaching" was wit-
nessed by all other learners in science classes. [Malaysia, .931; Singapore, .935; Thailand, .922;
Japan, .927; Korea, .940; Hong Kong SAR, .958; Chinese Taipei, 931]. The Cronbach Alpha
coefficients for the SVETS scale were consistently high.
Students Like Learning Science (SLLS) Scale
Learners were graded on the SLLS scale according to their intention to comply with nine
claims in the TIMSS 2015 eighth grade science examination. "Students who had a score of at
least 10.7 on the scale of "Very Much Enjoy Studying Science," which relates to their "agreeing
a number" for five of the nine assertions and, on average, "agreeing a little" with the remaining
four. Students who "Do Not Like Learning Science" had a grade of no more than 8.3, referring,
on average, to their "disagree a little" with five of the nine assertions and "agree a little" with
the remaining four. "Like Learning Science" by all those learners. [Malaysia, .900; Singapore,
.924; Thailand, .871; Japan, .919; Korea, .929; Hong Kong SAR, .926; Chinese Taipei, 929].
The Cronbach Alpha coefficients for the SLLS scale were incredibly strong.

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Students Confident in Science (SCS) Scale 1113
Learners were graded on the SCS scale due to high degree of consensus with eight claims
in the TIMSS 2015 eighth grade science assessment. Students "Very Confident in Science"
would have a ranking of at least 11.5, which correlates with four of the eight claims and "agree-
ing a little" with the other four, on average, to their "agreeing a lot". Learners who had been
"Not Confident in Science" had a grade of no more than 9.2, which correlates, on average, to
their "disagree a little" with four of the eight claims and "agree a little" with the remaining four.
"Confident in Science" were all the other teachers. [Malaysia, .716; Singapore, .908; Thailand,
.750; Japan, .894; Korea, .927; Hong Kong SAR, .882; Chinese Taipei, 929]. The Cronbach
reliability coefficient for the SCS scale was consistently strong.
Students Value Science (SVS) Scale
Students were graded on the SVS scale according to their degree of compliance with
nine claims in the TIMSS 2015 eighth grade science assessment. Students who now have a
rating of at least 10.7 on the measure of "Strongly Value Science," which translates to their
"agreeing a lot" for five of the ninth claims and "agreeing a little" with all the other four, on
average. Learners who used to have a ranking of "Do Not Value Science" much lower than 8.4,
leading on average to their "disagreeing a little" with fifth of the ninth claims and "agreeing a
little" with the remaining group, "Value Science" by all other teachers. [Malaysia, .894; Singa-
pore, .906; Thailand, .915; Japan, .895; Korea, .919; Hong Kong SAR, .937; Chinese Taipei,
924]. The Cronbach ’s alpha coefficient for the SVS scale was consistently high.
Research Results
Based on the average scale scores, as shown in Table 2 and Table 3, Malaysian (M =
10.21) and Thai (M = 10.20) eighth-grade students were the most engaged with teaching in
science lessons. This is followed by Singaporean (M = 9.78), Hong Kong (M = 9.65), Chinese
Taipei (M = 8.96), Japanese (M = 8.41), and Korean (M = 8.36) students.
In terms of students like learning science, Malaysian (M = 10.85), Thai (M = 10.34),
and Singaporean (M = 10.29) eighth-grade students liked science learning the most. This is
followed by Hong Kong (M = 9.87), Chinese Taipei (M = 9.16), Japan (M = 8.99), and Korea
(M = 8.59) students.
In terms of students' confident in science, Singaporean (M = 9.66), Hong Kong (M =
9.44), and Thai (M = 9.32) eighth-grade students were the most confident in science. This is
followed by Malaysian (M = 8.66), Korean (M = 8.66), Chinese Taipei (M = 8.63), and Japanese
(M = 8.56) students.
In terms of student value science, Thai (M = 10.75), Malaysian (M = 10.37), and Singa-
porean (M = 10.24) eighth-grade students valued science the most. This is followed by Chinese
Taipei (M = 9.57), Hong Kong (M = 9.44), Korean (M = 8.96), and Japanese (M = 8.64) stu-
dents.

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1114 Table 2
Descriptive statistics (weighted) with average scale scores for Southeast Asian students'
views on engaging teaching in science lessons, students like learning science, students
confident in science, and students value science
Southeast Asian Countries

Statement
Statement Malaysia Singapore Thailand
Code
M SD M SD M SD
Students' Views on Engaging Teaching in Science Lessons
BSBS22A I know what my teacher expects me to do 3.33 .679 3.24 .668 3.08 .759
BSBS22B My teacher is easy to understand 3.37 .702 3.16 .785 3.35 .711
BSBS22C I am interested in what my teacher says 3.38 .698 3.15 .797 3.35 .711
BSBS22D My teacher gives me interesting things to do 3.32 .729 3.10 .803 3.31 .738
BSBS22E My teacher has clear answers to my questions 3.45 .682 3.22 .753 3.31 .745
BSBS22F My teacher is good at explaining the science 3.50 .652 3.29 .742 3.42 .708
BSBS22G My teacher lets me show what I have learned 3.25 .724 3.07 .771 3.25 .745
My teacher does a variety of things to help us
BSBS22H 3.56 .636 3.19 .754 3.44 .702
learn
My teacher tells me how to do better when I
BSBS22I 3.51 .657 3.20 .741 3.42 .703
make a mistake
BSBS22J My teacher listens to what I have to say 3.29 .743 3.16 .755 3.29 .748
Average scale score 10.21 (.05) 9.78 (.04) 10.20 (.04)
Students Like Learning Science
BSBS21A I enjoy learning science 3.54 .642 3.25 .800 3.38 .698
BSBS21B* I wish I did not have to study science 3.48 .739 2.98 .964 3.07 .981
BSBS21C* Science is boring 3.40 .767 3.04 .909 2.92 .978
BSBS21D I learn many interesting things in science 3.62 .611 3.46 .700 3.54 .642
BSBS21E I like science 3.48 .690 3.18 .846 3.25 .744
BSBS21F I look forward to learning science in school 3.19 .792 3.06 .870 2.97 .817
Science teaches me how things in the world
BSBS21G 3.66 .577 3.41 .685 3.47 .673
work
BSBS21H I like to conduct science experiments 3.50 .682 3.37 .801 3.46 .724
BSBS21I Science is one of my favorite subjects 3.36 .771 3.00 .965 3.20 .812
Students Confident in Science
BSBS23A I usually do well in science 2.18 1.205 2.86 .854 2.99 .700
Science is more difficult for me than for many
BSBS23B* 2.31 1.182 2.75 .891 2.33 .895
of my classmates
BSBS23C* Science is not one of my strengths 2.36 1.185 2.62 .985 2.40 .937
BSBS23D I learn things quickly in science 2.06 1.111 2.80 .838 2.85 .764
I am good at working out difficult science
BSBS23E 2.37 1.242 2.57 .867 2.74 .789
problems
BSBS23F My teacher tells me I am good at science 2.54 1.236 2.43 .870 2.48 .857

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BSBS23G* Science is harder for me than any other subject 2.20 1.152 2.82 .924 2.39 .929 1115
BSBS23H* Science makes me confused 2.21 1.164 2.68 .945 2.46 .958
Students Value Science

I think learning science will help me in my
BSBS24A 3.46 .658 3.37 .699 3.59 .602
daily life
BSBS24B I need science to learn other school subjects 3.31 .781 2.95 .845 3.32 .724
I need to do well in science to get into the
BSBS24C 3.32 .695 3.27 .778 3.46 .687
university of my choice
I need to do well in science to get the job I
BSBS24D 3.30 .715 3.12 .862 3.43 .713
want
BSBS24E I would like a job that involves using science 3.12 .849 2.80 .978 3.14 .848
It is important to learn about science to get
BSBS24F 3.36 .647 3.34 .718 3.46 .690
ahead in the world
Learning science will give me more job
BSBS24G 3.33 .699 3.31 .749 3.43 .694
opportunities when I am an adult
My parents think that it is important that I do
BSBS24H 3.31 .710 3.36 .720 3.37 .719
well in science
BSBS24I It is important to do well in science 3.35 .667 3.50 .648 3.47 .685
Note: 1 = Disagree A Lot, 4 = Agree A Lot; * negatively-worded items; standard errors appear in parentheses.
Table 3
Descriptive statistics (weighted) with average scale scores for East Asian students' views
on engaging teaching in science lessons, students like learning science, students confident
in science, and students value science
East Asian Countries

Statement Hong Kong, Chinese
Statement Japan Korea
Code SAR Taipei
M SD M SD M SD M SD
Students' Views on Engaging Teaching in Science Lessons
BSBS22A I know what my teacher expects me to do 2.12 .779 2.37 .803 3.17 .774 3.10 .793
BSBS22B My teacher is easy to understand 2.80 .853 2.61 .844 3.09 .836 2.78 .889
BSBS22C I am interested in what my teacher says 2.66 .917 2.59 .870 3.04 .891 2.75 .927
My teacher gives me interesting things
BSBS22D 2.40 .860 2.38 .825 3.11 .846 2.55 .892
to do
My teacher has clear answers to my
BSBS22E 2.832 .847 2.80 .820 3.11 .836 2.93 .882
questions
My teacher is good at explaining the
BSBS22F 2.86 .850 2.90 .799 3.16 .835 3.00 .889
science
My teacher lets me show what I have
BSBS22G 2.34 .833 2.35 .820 2.99 .851 2.57 .869
learned

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1116 My teacher does a variety of things to

BSBS22H 2.89 .801 2.63 .820 3.17 .806 3.02 .849
help us learn
My teacher tells me how to do better
BSBS22I 2.80 .819 2.57 .825 3.13 .817 3.04 .836
when I make a mistake
BSBS22J My teacher listens to what I have to say 2.63 .853 2.74 .822 3.10 .838 2.84 .911
Average Scale Score 8.41 (.05) 8.36 (.05) 9.65 (.08) 8.96 (.05)
BSBS21A I enjoy learning science 2.79 .875 2.48 .864 3.05 .880 2.69 .900
BSBS21B* I wish I did not have to study science 2.75 .901 2.40 .899 2.84 .961 2.69 .962
BSBS21C* Science is boring 2.83 .841 2.50 .856 2.88 .939 2.78 .911
BSBS21D I learn many interesting things in science 2.84 .851 2.84 .840 3.23 .814 3.01 .834
BSBS21E I like science 2.65 .930 2.44 .890 3.04 .889 2.67 .922
I look forward to learning science in
BSBS21F 2.50 .913 2.15 .814 2.93 .911 2.51 .911
school
Science teaches me how things in the
BSBS21G 2.53 .873 2.86 .815 3.31 .755 3.10 .790
world work
BSBS21H I like to conduct science experiments 3.12 .880 2.94 .881 3.36 .809 3.19 .831
BSBS21I Science is one of my favorite subjects 2.52 .965 2.33 .913 2.90 .966 2.45 .953
Average scale score 8.99 (.05) 8.59 (.04) 9.87 (.06) 9.16 (.04)

BSBS23A I usually do well in science 2.13 .785 2.28 .828 3.81 .841 2.47 .866
Science is more difficult for me than for
BSBS23B* 2.59 .874 2.60 .835 2.68 .919 2.49 .945
many of my classmates
BSBS23C* Science is not one of my strengths 2.39 .940 2.35 .846 2.54 .955 2.32 .976
BSBS23D I learn things quickly in science 2.23 .759 2.31 .776 2.72 .864 2.30 .841
I am good at working out difficult science
BSBS23E 1.92 .779 2.12 .757 2.51 .878 2.15 .837
problems
BSBS23F My teacher tells me I am good at science 1.86 .709 2.12 .758 2.27 .874 2.12 .820
Science is harder for me than any other
BSBS23G* 2.59 .910 2.46 .885 2.69 .937 2.39 .978
subject
BSBS23H* Science makes me confused 2.75 .942 2.29 .862 2.79 .942 2.45 .981
Average Scale Score 8.56 (.04) 8.66 (.04) 9.44 (.06) 8.63 (.04)
I think learning science will help me in my
BSBS24A 2.69 .868 2.87 .833 3.25 .776 2.99 .853
daily life
I need science to learn other school
BSBS24B 2.31 .827 2.62 .836 2.85 .909 2.37 .874
subjects
I need to do well in science to get into the
BSBS24C 2.70 .936 2.78 .866 2.94 .907 2.50 .954
university of my choice
I need to do well in science to get the job
BSBS24D 2.58 .947 2.69 .899 2.80 .936 2.33 .912
I want
I would like a job that involves using
BSBS24E 2.06 .891 2.16 .892 2.64 .984 2.16 .894
science

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It is important to learn about science to 1117

BSBS24F 2.47 .877 2.84 .883 2.86 .931 2.44 .906
get ahead in the world
Learning science will give me more job
BSBS24G 2.57 .882 2.83 .866 2.85 .917 2.50 .922
opportunities when I am an adult
My parents think that it is important that I
BSBS24H 2.45 .911 2.59 .850 2.71 .924 2.64 .927
do well in science
BSBS24I It is important to do well in science 3.18 .809 2.88 .838 2.98 .857 2.81 .917
Average Scale Score 8.64 (.03) 8.96 (04) 9.44 (.05) 9.57 (.01)
Note: 1 = Disagree A Lot, 4 = Agree A Lot; * negatively-worded items; standard errors appear in parentheses.
Tables 4 to 7 show the percentage of Southeast Asian and East Asian students according
to their views on engaging teaching in science lessons, students like learning science, students
confident in science, and students value science with their respective average science achieve-
ment.
Table 4
Students' views on engaging teaching in science lessons
Very Engaging Less than Engaging

Engaging Teaching
Teaching Teaching Average
Country
N Average Average Average Scale Score
% % %
Achievement Achievement Achievement
10.21
Malaysia 9581 48.69 489.30 (3.55) 42.25 467.01 (4.83) 9.07 407.69 (10.41)
(.05)
9.78
Singapore 6086 35.04 606.47 (4.06) 51.78 594.96 (3.28) 13.19 577.77 (5.23)
(.04)
10.20
Thailand 6451 49.51 460.83 (4.14) 42.25 451.59 (4.78) 8.24 450.94 (8.16)
(.04)
8.41
Japan 4738 11.20 592.13 (3.64) 45.93 580.87 (2.21) 42.87 554.80 (2.35)
(.05)
8.36
Korea 5297 10.06 604.05 (4.96) 46.64 566.63 (2.32) 43.40 532.62 (2.82)
(.05)
Hong Kong, 9.65
4133 34.24 557.22 (3.91) 48.31 545.26 (4.40) 17.45 525.90 (7.20)
SAR (.08)
Chinese 8.96
5698 20.74 591.45 (3.35) 48.33 573.43 (2.57) 30.92 548.75 (3.11)
Taipei (.05)
9.37
Average 29.93 557.35 (1.50) 46.50 539.96 (1.38) 23.58 514.07 (2.38)
(.02)
Note: Standard errors in parentheses

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1118 Table 5
Very Much Like Like Do Not Like

Learning Science Learning Science Learning Science Average Scale
Country N Average Average Average Score
% % %
Malaysia 9615 51.48 498.45 (3.17) 41.52 453.59 (5.03) 7.00 389.27 (10.34) 10.85 (.06)
Singapore 6084 38.01 622.25 (3.84) 47.47 588.30 (3.26) 14.52 558.06 (4.49) 10.29 (.04)
Thailand 6421 37.19 477.48 (4.45) 54.67 445.10 (4.32) 8.14 433.72 (6.79) 10.34 (.05)
8.99
Japan 4739 15.45 605.72 (2.91) 47.57 579.43 (1.93) 36.98 545.55 (2.51)
(.05)
8.59
Korea 5301 10.14 621.70 (5.07) 41.26 571.73 (2.53) 48.60 528.23 (2.34)
(.04)
Hong Kong, 9.87
4126 29.83 573.54 (3.80) 51.36 542.49 (4.16) 18.81 511.68 (5.23)
SAR (.06)
Chinese 9.16
5699 17.97 619.65 (3.38) 46.46 574.47 (2.40) 35.56 537.57 (2.50)
Taipei (.04)
9.73
Average 28.58 574.11 (1.46) 47.19 536.44 (1.34) 24.23 500.58 (2.11)
(.02)
Table 6
Very Confident Confident Not Confident

in Science in Science in Science Average
Country N Average Average Average Scale Score
% % %
8.66
Malaysia 9503 5.57 511.99 (5.26) 25.25 455.34 (4.80) 69.18 476.78 (4.22)
(.03)
9.66
Singapore 6083 16.93 633.02 (4.74) 39.53 608.30 (3.46) 43.54 572.10 (3.50)
(.04)
9.32
Thailand 5297 6.82 512.75 (6.34) 36.57 467.35 (4.58) 56.61 442.09 (4.18)
(.04)
8.56
Japan 4738 5.32 637.21 (4.82) 26.23 605.80 (2.43) 68.45 552.51 (2.06)
(.04)
8.66
Korea 5297 7.29 641.89 (4.49) 23.20 599.27 (3.02) 69.51 532.04 (1.87)
(.04)
Hong Kong, 9.44
4119 13.23 592.30 (4.42) 37.87 559.78 (3.76) 48.91 522.84 (4.79)
SAR (.06)
8.63
Chinese Taipei 5695 9.19 645.73 (3.44) 24.74 605.63 (2.92) 66.07 545.49 (2.08)
(.04)
8.99
Average 9.19 596.41 (1.84) 30.48 557.35 (1.38) 60.32 520.55 (1.30)
(.02)

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Table 7 1119
Strongly Do Not
Value Science Average
Value Science Value Science
Scale
Country N Average Average Average
% % % Score
Malaysia 9455 37.90 482.65 (3.36) 53.52 481.45 (4.30) 8.58 386.58 (8.88) 10.37 (.04)
Singapore 6077 37.37 621.01 (3.38) 53.07 588.51 (3.37) 9.56 547.81 (4.67) 10.24 (.03)
Thailand 6446 49.35 472.22 (4.61) 44.81 442.48 (4.25) 5.85 426.86 (7.15) 10.75 (.04)
Japan 4739 8.90 604.73 (3.61) 44.19 586.24 (2.03) 46.91 550.21 (2.32) 8.64 (.03)
Korea 5301 13.11 604.69 (4.21) 51.34 566.25 (1.88) 35.55 522.32 (2.48) 8.96 (04)
Hong Kong, SAR 4130 23.53 565.13 (5.01) 45.80 548.55 (4.17) 30.67 527.84 (4.34) 9.44 (.05)
Chinese Taipei 5697 10.78 616.27 (4.52) 37.84 588.57 (2.55) 51.38 545.80 (2.12) 8.56 (.03)
Average 25.85 566.67 (1.57) 47.22 543.15 (1.27) 26.93 501.06 (1.95) 9.57 (.01)
Correlation and simultaneous multiple regression analyses were conducted separately

for each of the education systems in Southeast Asian and East Asian countries to determine if
BSBGESL, BSBGSLS, BSBGSCS, and BSBGSVS were predictors of EGS’ science achieve-
ment (see Table 8 and Table 9).
The results in Table 8 indicated that BSBGESL , BSBGSLS, BSBGSCS, and BSBGSVS
were positively and significantly associated with students’ science achievement in Malaysia
(r = .20-.35), Singapore (r = .08-.27), Thailand (r = .07-.22), Japan (r = .21-.37), Korea (r =
.32-.45), Hong Kong SAR (r = .16-.32), and Chinese Taipei (r = .21-.38). However, Malaysian
EGS’ confidence in science was negatively associated with their science achievement (r = .16).
On the other hand, there were positive and significant correlations among BSBGESL ,
BSBGSLS, SCS, and BSBGSVS in Singapore (r = .48-71), Thailand (r = .35-.66), Japan (r =
.38-.64), Korea (r = .49-.73), Hong Kong SAR (r = .45-.69), and Chinese Taipei (r = .46-.72),
except Malaysia. Malaysian eighth-grade BSBGESL, BSBGSLS, and BSBGSVS were nega-
tively associated with their confidence in science.
Table 8
Correlations between Students' Views on Engaging Teaching in Science Lessons, Students
Like Learning Science, Students Confident in Science, Students Value Science with Science
Achievement
Malaysia
BSBGESL BSBGSLS BSBGSCS BSBGSVS Science
r s.e. r s.e. r s.e. r s.e.
BSBGESL .70* .01 -.14* .02 .41* .03 .23* .03
BSBGSLS -.25* .01 .37* .02 .35* .03
BSBGSCS -.01 .01 -.16* .02
BSBGSVS .20* .03
Science

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1120 Singapore
BSBGESL .63* .01 .50* .01 .50* .01 .08* .02
BSBGSLS .71* .01 .62* .01 .27* .02
BSBGSCS .48* .01 .24* .02
BSBGSVS .25* .02
Science
Thailand
BSBGESL .66* .01 .41* .01 .61* .01 .07* .03
BSBGSLS .58* .01 .57* .01 .22* .02
BSBGSCS .35* .01 .17* .02
BSBGSVS .21* .02
Science
Japan
BSBGESL .62* .01 .38* .01 .48* .02 .21* .02
BSBGSLS .64* .01 .53* .01 .31* .02
BSBGSCS .38* .01 .37* .01
BSBGSVS .32* .02
Science
Korea
BSBGESL .70* .01 .54* .02 .58* .02 .32* .02
BSBGSLS .73* .01 .64* .01 .40* .02
BSBGSCS .49* .01 .45* .01
BSBGSVS .38* .01
Science
Hong Kong, SAR
BSBGESL .64* .01 .47* .02 .55* .02 .16* .03
BSBGSLS .69* .01 .60* .01 .32* .02
BSBGSCS .45* .01 .31* .02
BSBGSVS .21* .03
Science

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Chinese Taipei 1121

BSBGESL .62* .01 .46* .01 .54* .01 .21* .02
BSBGSLS .72* .01 .65* .01 .38* .02
BSBGSCS .55* .01 .38* .01
BSBGSVS .35* .02
Science
Note: *p < .05; BSBGESL = Students’ Views on Engaging Teaching in Science Lessons; BSBGSLS = Students
Like Learning Science; BSBGSCS = Students Confident in Science; BSBGSVS = Students Value Science;
Science = Science Achievement
Based on Table 9, BSBGESL were negatively and significantly contributed to eighth-

grade students' science achievement in Thailand (β = -11.07), Singapore (β = -9.19), Chinese
Taipei (β = -4.20), and Hong Kong SAR (β = -3.71).
BSBGSLS was positively and significantly contributed to eighth-grade students' science
achievement in Malaysia (β = 16.12), Singapore (β = 9.76), Thailand (β = 9.44), Hong Kong
SAR (β = 8.57), and Chinese Taipei (β = 7.98).
BSBGSCS was positively and significantly contributed to EGS’ science achievement in
Korea (β = 11.89), Japan (β = 11.47), Chinese Taipei (β = 7.34), Hong Kong (β = 5.70), Thai-
land (β = 5.14), and Singapore (β = 3.95). However, Malaysian eighth-grade students' confi-
dence in science was negatively associated with their science achievement (β = -4.33)
BSBGSVS was positively and significantly contributed to EGS science achievement in
Japan (β = 10.66), Korea (β = 9.46), Thailand (β = 9.09), Chinese Taipei (β = 7.95), Singapore
(β = 7.95), and Malaysia (β = 5.47)
On the other hand, female eighth graders in Thailand (β = -15.36), Japan (β = -12.67),
Chinese Taipei (β = -10.35), Malaysia (β = -6.10), Singapore (β = -5.95) and Korea (β = -5.02)
(except Hong Kong SAR) outperformed their counterparts in science achievement in TIMSS
2015.
Table 9
Students' Views on Engaging Teaching in Science Lessons, Students Like Learning Science,
Students Confident in Science, and Students Value Science in Predicting Students' Science
Achievement
Hong Kong, Chinese

Malaysia Singapore Thailand Japan Korea
SAR Taipei
β (s.e.) β (s.e.) β (s.e.) β (s.e.) β (s.e.) β (s.e.) β (s.e.)
Constant 308.52* 469.79* 333.23* 382.19* 353.85* 427.12* 407.94*
BSBG01_D2 -6.10* -5.95* -15.36* -12.67* -5.02* 2.21 -10.35*
BSBGESL -2.55 -9.19* -11.07* -.41 -.23 -3.71* -4.20*
BSBGSLS 16.12* 9.76* 9.44* .91 2.17 8.57* 7.98*
BSBGSCS -4.33* 3.95* 5.14* 11.47* 11.89* 5.70* 7.34*
BSBGSVS 5.47* 7.95* 9.09* 10.66* 9.46* 1.62 7.95*
Adjusted R 2
.13 (.02) .11 (.01) .09 (.01) .18 (.01) .24 (.01) .12 (.01) .19 (.01)
Note: *p < .05; BSBGESL = Students’ Views on Engaging Teaching in Science Lessons; BSBGSLS = Students
Like Learning Science; BSBGSCS = Students Confident in Science; BSBGSVS = Students Value Science

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1122 Discussion
This study found that Southeast Asian and East Asian EGS’ views on engaging teach-
ing in science lessons, students like learning science, students confident in science, and stu-
dents value science are positively and significantly correlated with their science achievement
in TIMSS. This finding corroborates with previous findings which highlighted that students'
active engagement in academic tasks will result in greater academic achievement (Lawson &
Masyn, 2015; Wang & Eccles, 2013). Previous literatures have also generated clear evidence
that engagement is extremely important for students ' academic performance. Osborne and Col-
lins (2001) had highlighted that the use of diversified methods of teaching and engaging pupils
in active learning positively affects children’s approach to science at school.
Rationally, previous studies have also shown that students' academic self-conception of
their potential in science continually and crucially influences the level of their attitude towards
science lessons and science in general (Haladyna et al., 1982; George, 2000).
Similarly, western researchers revealed that a significant number of primary school chil-
dren are curious about science. Still, its real value is by no means overlooked: about 90% of
the students believed that science would help the students for their future career, and more than
70% identified science as interesting and useful in their everyday lives (Yager & Penick, 1986).
Conclusions
This study found that students' views on engaging teaching in science were negatively
and significantly contributed to eighth-grade students' science achievement in Thailand, Singa-
pore, Chinese Taipei, and Hong Kong SAR. On the other hand, Students Like Learning Science
was positively and significantly contributed to eighth-grade students' science achievement in
Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong SAR, and Chinese Taipei. Students Confident in
Science was positively and significantly contributed to eighth-grade students' science achieve-
ment in Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore. Students Value
Science was positively and significantly contributed to eighth-grade students' science achieve-
ment in Japan, Korea, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and Malaysia. Based on the re-
search findings, it is advocated that Malaysian Ministry of Education should put more emphasis
on students’ affective attributes in learning science (i.e., students like learning science, students
confident in science, and students value science) in an effort to boost Malaysian eighth graders’
science achievement in the forthcoming TIMSS assessments.
Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge UMS Special Fund Research Grant Scheme (SDK0242-
2020) awarded by University Malaysia Sabah.
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1125
Cite as: Lay, Y. F., & Rajoo, M. (2020). Affective factors contributing to Southeast Asian and
East Asian eighth graders’ science achievement in TIMSS 2015. Problems of Education in
the 21st Century, 78(6A), 1107-1125. https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1107
Yoon Fah Lay Professor (Science Education), Faculty of Psychology and Education,
(Corresponding author) University of Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah,
Malaysia.
E-mail: layyf@ums.edu.my; layyoonfah@yahoo.com.my
Murugan Rajoo Specialist (Mathematics Education), Faculty of Science and Mathematics

Sultan Idris Education University, Perak, Malaysia.
E-mail: murugan@recsam.edu.my

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Vol. 78, No. 6A, 2020
1126
A COLLABORATIVE EXCHANGE TO
IMPROVE EARLY CHILDHOOD
EDUCATION OUTCOMES
Yumiko Takagi, Paul Batten
Kagawa University, Japan
E-mail: yumiko.takagi@kagawa-u.ac.jp, paul.batten@kagawa-u.ac.jp
Karen Rattenborg
Colorado State University, USA
E-mail: karen.rattenborg@colostate.edu
Abstract
International collaborative research has great value in helping each of the participant’s view their
respective situations from novel and various perspectives. When people involved in the same work
tackle problems from different perspectives, new awareness arises, and innovative solutions are created.
Kagawa University and Colorado State University have conducted excellent research exchanges in the
field of early childhood education based on their international exchange agreements.
As the trend in Japan towards nuclear families continues in tandem with Japan’s aging society and low
childbirth rate, a number of parents and guardians are becoming increasingly isolated and unsure of
how to raise their children. The process of introducing a new childcare support system based on Japan’s
national policies and the problems Japanese regional prefectural governments face in early childhood
education were clarified through exchanges between Kagawa University and Colorado State University.
By sharing information and giving an overview concerning efforts and successful cases in Japan and the
U.S., mutual clues were found for problem analysis and problem solving.
This research analyzed the factors for constructive interaction and provided clues for the problems
highlighted by the results. It enabled several researchers in Kagawa who have experience in this field,
overseas as well as locally, and those at the prefectural level involved as leaders in professional guidance
in this field of childcare, to understand the current situation and trends for childcare in the U.S. This has
the potential to lead to improvements in the quality of childcare and the training of teachers in Japan.
It also put forward a direction and recommendations for development in international collaborative
research.
Keywords: collaborative exchange, childcare, early childhood education, international collaboration
Introduction
International collaborative research is extremely valuable as it can lead to useful

suggestions and better solutions by grasping problems from multiple perspectives from the
unique approach of researchers and various perspectives. The volume of research papers, which
is the output of research activities around the world, is consistently increasing. According
to the U.S. National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTP, 2018), the number
of internationally co-authored papers has increased since the 1980s (as of 2016, the ratio of
domestic papers was 73.1% and that of internationally co-authored papers was 26.9%), and it is
considered that knowledge production activities are being carried out across national borders.
In other words, research activities themselves are changing from single-country activities to
joint activities involving multiple countries.

Yumiko TAKAGI, Paul BATTEN, Karen RATTENBORG. A collaborative exchange to improve early childhood education outcomes
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Major countries participating in the international cerebral circulation emphasize the 1127
promotion of international joint research and the establishment of an international research
network for their own researchers and focus on the international development of science and
technology. Budgets for international collaborative research are increasing in most/many
countries. In 2016 (publishing year, PY), the international co-authorship rate was 66.3% in the
United Kingdom, 62.8% in France, 59.7% in Germany, 43.5% in the United States, and 33.4%
in Japan. Japan’s international co-authorship rate increased by about 28 points compared to
the first half of the 1980s, but still tends to be lower than in other developed countries. It is
necessary to activate science and technology activities in order to realize innovation.
Unfortunately, Japan has a background of low international mobility of human resources
and knowledge and the rate of increase in the number of internationally co-authored papers
in Japan is lower than in other major countries. It is stated that the five years of the Sixth
Science and Technology Basic Plan (2021 to 2025, PY) will maintain and strengthen Japan’s
international competitiveness through the strategic international expansion of science and
technology. From the perspective of improving research capabilities, it is necessary for the
6th Science and Technology Basic Plan to clearly position strategic international expansion
as one of the pillars of the overall basic plan and to set individual items. Furthermore, the
Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (henceforth, MEXT)
has indicated that the idea and content need to be detail (MEXT, 2019).
In promoting science and technology education and research, it is important to have a
global perspective on the analysis of international trends and to secure a perspective that will
work strategically while conducting international expansion. In other words, further promotion
of international joint research will play an important role in the development of science and
technology education and research.
Against this background, examples of international exchange research and activities at
higher education institutions that led to model cases and/or good practice of academic research
and regional contributions are of value, and suggest effective international strategies for higher
education institutions based on national policies. The purpose is to clarify that the formation of
international networks and international joint research teams will be promoted, and to clarify
the significance of promoting international joint research by higher education institutions.
Early childhood education in Japan has reached various turning points institutionally
over the last five years. In the midst of changes in social conditions such as urbanization, the
increase of nuclear families, the declining birthrate, and the information society, it has been
pointed out that the number of parents who worry about raising their children and feel isolated
is increasing. Today’s early childhood education programs address the issues of parents who
are worried about how to become involved with their children and those who are experiencing
a sense of isolation in the midst of changing social conditions. Therefore, in kindergartens,
childcare support is required so that parents’ anxieties and stresses about childcare can be
lessened and they can regain their joy and purpose of life and realize better outcomes for their
children (MEXT, 2008).
Research objectives and questions on the issue of early childhood education are
reviewed. The process of introducing new childcare support systems in Japan based on its
national policies and the problems Japanese regional prefectural governments face in early
childhood education are clarified. Also, the international strategy of Kagawa University and
the current situation of international exchanges at its Faculty of Education are introduced.
The importance of building an international strategy as a university is clarified. In particular,
collaboration on early childhood education and the results of a Fulbright Specialist Program are
introduced. Factors for constructive interaction between two universities are analyzed and these
give clues to achieving solutions to the problems highlighted. In conclusion, such collaborative
international research points forward to a direction and recommendations for developments in
this field.

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1128 Research Purpose and Questions
The purpose of the research is to clarify that the systematic promotion of international
strategies at higher education institutions promoted the formation of international networks
and international collaborative research teams, and at the same time, contributed to higher
education. It clarified the importance of promoting international joint research by higher
education institutions by exemplifying an example of solving regional problems of early
childhood education. The following three questions explored that purpose.
1) What are the effective ways to promote sustainable international research?

2) How to develop diverse perspectives in early childhood education through collaborative
research?
3) What can be suggested from the cases brought about by cooperative international
exchange?
This research project used a Participatory Action Research method to elucidate

information aiming to resolve problems in early childhood education in Kagawa prefecture in
Japan and the state of Colorado in the United States. Action research is defined as a disciplined
process of inquiry conducted by and for those taking the action. In order to find effective ways
to promote sustainable international joint research and foster diverse perspectives in early
childhood education, this research integrated qualitative methods, such as analysis of policies
promoted by the MEXT. In addition, interviews based on a problem-solving system were
conducted in a cycle of problem-finding, analysis, and presentation of solutions. In the process
of interviewing the persons in charge of early childhood education at the Kagawa prefecture
governmental level, documentation, memos, and data were retrieved and then analyzed.
Problems in Early Childhood Education in Japan
Early childhood education in Japan has reached various turning points institutionally. In
2015, the Cabinet Office implemented a new system for supporting children and childcare. Since
then, the government has been working to improve the quantity and quality of early childhood
education, childcare, and childcare support, such as enhancing the arrangements for receiving
childcare at home and in the community and improving the treatment of childcare workers.
In October 2019, free early childhood education and childcare began. In its supplementary
provisions, the Childcare Support Law takes into consideration the status of enforcement of the
law, and if deemed necessary, considers it, and takes necessary measures based on the results
(Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, Dec 2019).
Behind the enactment of the Childcare Support Law in 2015, it was thought that early
childhood education in Japan had many issues (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, April
2015). These issues included Japan’s fertility rate and birthrate that has declined dramatically
due to an increase in the number of unmarried people, the later age at which people marry, and
the decline in the fecundity of married couples. The total fertility rate in 2011 was 1.39 children
per woman. In addition, due to the possible unstable social environment surrounding children in
the future and the current situation where it is difficult to balance family commitments with work,
people’s traditional expectations for marriage, child-rearing, and childcare are changing. The
quality and quantity of childcare support is insufficient, especially when compared with other
countries. For example, family-related social GDP spending is only 1.04% in Japan, whereas
it is 3.00% in France, and 3.35% in both the UK and Sweden. There is a sense of isolation in

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parenting due to financial burdens and lack of support through childcare. In Japan, women 1129
in their 30s leave their jobs, due to factors such as a lack of childcare facilities, waiting lists
because of a lack of human resources, and a lack of activities for children after school, which
results in the so-called M-Curve phenomenon in which the female labor force participation rate
of that age group decreases. In response to this situation, the government proposed providing
high-quality early education through the comprehensive provision of childcare, including
increasing and securing the amount of childcare available, improving the quality of education
and childcare, eliminating waiting lists, and supporting childcare in the community.
In 2018, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology highlighted
efforts to improve the specialization of childcare for kindergarten teachers, acknowledging that
support for activities other than the curriculum, such as childcare and childcare support, is
increasing. Now that the steady implementation of the new kindergarten education guidelines
is required, the specialization of childcare for kindergarten teachers is being improved and
strategies to support this improvement must be identified. Further, with many young teachers
leaving their jobs, it is important to identify the kinds of measures needed to train and secure
highly-qualified kindergarten teachers with abundant experience in the specialization.
Further, there is an emphasis on developing and improving the operation of
kindergartens, leading to an in interest in the kinds of measures that can be considered in order
to ensure the uniqueness of each kindergarten, improving and developing the operation of each
kindergarten and guaranteeing and improving the national education level.
This leads to the importance of efforts to build and utilize a promotion system for
local public organizations to improve the quality of early childhood education in the region.
The question is then asked, what kind of promotion system can local public organizations
build and how can they be used to improve the quality of early childhood education in regions
that transcend national, public and private categories and facility types? Further, it must be
considered how to incorporate those who have expertise in early childhood education to provide
guidance and advice in this endeavor. Finally, it is important to consider measures that are
necessary to support families and local stakeholders as they deepen their understanding of early
childhood education. That is, what are the strategies needed to widely disseminate the value of
early childhood education to homes and communities (MEXT, 14 June 2018).
Exploring Diverse Perspectives of Early Childhood Education through

Collaborative Exchange
The Japanese Government’s Strategies for International Exchanges and those

of Kagawa University
In Japan, globalization is progressing in many aspects of society. Japanese universities

are also promoting internationalization of their educational content and environments, aiming at
developing global leaders who have both global and local perspectives and who will be able to
play an active role on the world stage. The human resources developed in this way will also be
responsible for revitalizing local communities. In other words, it is required to promote effective
efforts based on the characteristics and policies of the universities, the fields of education and
research, and the diversity of students. In order to carry out internationalization and create an
educational environment for universities that can compete with the rest of the world, in 2008
the Japanese government aims to double the number of Japanese students studying abroad
from 60,000 to 120,000. It was also decided to aim to increase the number of foreign students
coming to Japan to 300,000. English was introduced as a subject at elementary school for the
purpose of further enhancing education corresponding to globalization from the elementary to
the secondary education stage (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, 2019, MEXT, 21 May

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1130 2019). As a result, in 2018 the goal of having 300,000 foreign students studying in Japan was
achieved. In addition, the number of Japanese students going abroad which had been sluggish
for a number of years, has been on an upward trend over the past five years (pre Covid-19).
Since 2004, the National University Corporation Law has obliged universities to
formulate a medium-term plan and an annual plan based on the six-year medium-term target
set by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Currently, the third
medium-term target period (2016-2021) is underway. Kagawa University has set one of its
goals in education as creating “professionals with a rich humanity and high morals, a wide basic
knowledge and high level of professionalism and ability to investigate issues and those who can
make contribution internationally.” With this in mind, the university has promoted academic
and cultural exchange links with overseas institutions and aims to create as active links as
possible (from the University Constitution Charter of 26 March 2007).
Even in the Faculty of Education of Kagawa University, “international contribution”
is always taken up as one of the important matters when advancing undergraduate education,
graduate school education and research activities. The university’s “4 & 1 Program” was a goal
set in 2013 with the aim of promoting the globalization of Kagawa University. The goal was
that in FY 2021, 400 international students would be accepted to study at the university and
students that are dispatched (Lim, 2014). The aim was to have 100 Kagawa University students
study abroad for 3 months or more. This 4 & 1 Program is also listed as a priority item for
Kagawa University in its 3rd Medium-Term Goals and Medium-Term Plan (National University
Corporation Law, 2003, Enforcement date; 2020). The 4 & 1 Program aims to increase the
dispatch and acceptance of international students, and includes launching overseas dispatch
support projects, employment of global human resources in regional companies, cooperation
with regional companies, cooperation with regional events and international projects. It has
achieved good results.
The Faculty of Education’s International Exchanges with the

Early Childhood Center, CSU
As of June 2020, Kagawa University had concluded academic exchange agreements

with 99 overseas institutions of higher education. At Kagawa University, each international
exchange agreement has a department in charge of effective exchange responsibilities. Under
the chairmanship of the Faculty of Education, Kagawa University and Colorado State University
(CSU) in the United States of America concluded an Academic Exchange Agreement on October
8, 2002, centering on researcher exchange. Since then, the university has invited researchers
from the university every year to promote exchange activities and joint research with the school
attached to the university.
The joint research between Kagawa University and Colorado State University has a
wealth of experience in various fields. Among these, exchanges with the CSU Early Childhood
Center (ECC) began in 2010 and continue to the present.
The ECC is a laboratory school within the Department of Human Development and
Family Studies, with three roles of education, research, and service. The ECC is licensed by
the State of Colorado Department of Human Services and is accredited by National Association
for the Education of Young Children. The ECC provides high quality programming for infants,
toddlers, and preschoolers; trains CSU students for careers in the field of early childhood;
and promotes research about children, families and early childhood education. The programs
implemented at the ECC ensure that the program provides children and their educators with the
best learning experience by meeting national quality standards.
The ECC is a school inspired by Reggio Emilia, offering a play-based, constructivist
approach to educating young children. This Reggio approach (Biroli et al., 2018) strives

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to develop a learning community that works on co-building knowledge in the context of 1131
collaboration between parents, children and teachers.
In 2010, exchange between the two universities began with a courtesy visit to the
ECC by the person in charge of the exchange. After that, an exchange program for long-term
international students from Kagawa University to attend classes offered at the ECC started (2
students) started. Since March 2011, there has also been a short-term study abroad program
(held once a year) supported by the JASSO support program. Many Kagawa University faculties
and staff, including four deans, have visited CSU. In Japan, a week-long research exchange was
held with the director of the attached kindergarten to learn the Reggio approach, which has not
been implemented often in Japan.
Exploring Early Childhood Education through Collaborative Exchange
One method for promoting international joint research led by higher education institutions
are measures that connect organized international strategies to international educational
activities that are also effective in promoting interdisciplinary research, such as SDGs. In May
2019, as part of the faculty’s exchanges with Colorado State University, a Fulbright Special
Program application was jointly submitted by the United States and Japan. It was accepted, and
a two-week program was able to be implemented.
The objectives of the proposed joint research included the delivery of a seminar for early
childhood teachers and specialist staff at prefectural childhood education centers, a lecture at
the graduate and undergraduate level at Kagawa University, assistance in developing Kagawa
University teacher training curricula, and consultation on faculty development.
In order to help with reform at Kagawa University’s graduate courses, Kagawa
University invited the Fulbright Specialist to hold seminars for faculty members and staff of the
Faculty of Education and at the Kagawa University Graduate School of Education in order to
create a novel and effective curriculum for the Early Childhood Education Course specializing
in teaching, and give advice on effective course creation based on educational comparisons
between Japan and the United States. In addition, Kagawa University invited the Fulbright
Specialist to provide lectures to Kagawa University undergraduate students and graduate
students from a professional point of view.
In the joint program, the Fulbright Specialist visited kindergartens, was able to observe
instructional methods implemented by early childhood education teachers in Kagawa prefecture,
and exchanged opinions and information with specialists in the field at the prefectural office
level. These exchanges and collaborations provided ideas that have the potential to lead to
improvements in the issues facing early childhood education in the prefecture.
In addition, the Fulbright Specialist provided a lecture to Kagawa University undergraduate
students about the three-fold mission of the ECC, the importance of school readiness in the
U.S., and the perspectives of parents and teachers around expectations for school readiness at
kindergarten entry. This lecture focused on her work in Colorado in early childhood education
and this provided our students with a deeper insight into the field and its related issues.
The collaboration and exchange of information between the Specialist and researchers
at Kagawa University on the various early childhood education styles in the U.S. has promoted
ideas for areas for improvement or development here in Kagawa. As well, the Specialist took
back to the U.S. many ideas about new ways to implement curricula and strategies in early care
and education.
The most important outcome that was achieved because of this project is the establishment
of relationships that will promote further collaboration between Kagawa University, the
Specialist, and Colorado State University.

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1132 When the Fulbright Specialist lectured at the undergraduate level at Kagawa University,
student feedback was very positive, and many students stated that they were impressed by CSU,
ECC, and the Specialist’s research practices. This lecture also increased student awareness of
early childhood education in the U.S. and the opportunities for exchanges in the U.S. Many of
the students in the class are interested in teaching kindergarten and elementary school.
The Fulbright Specialist also exchanged ideas on a range of topics with the Kagawa
prefectural Board of Education and prefectural child supervisors. As with Japan in general, in
Kagawa prefecture the trend towards nuclear families continues and, together with an aging
society and low childbirth rate, has caused a number of parents and guardians to become isolated
and feel unsure of how to raise their children. There is also the stress of achieving a good balance
between work and life. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
here in Japan (MEXT) has four logic models on the accredited children centers system, the
promotion project for child rearing in kindergarten, the promotion project for day care and
the promotion project for after school classroom for children, and has analyzed the project’s
effectiveness and issues. The Specialist shared successful parent education/parent support
strategies implemented in the U.S. with representatives from the prefectural government office.
Specifically, she shared about the successful implementation of The Incredible Years (Webster-
Stratton & Reid, 2010) in her community. The Incredible Years is a series of inter-related,
evidence-based programming for parents, children, and teachers which has been rigorously
researched for more than 30 years.
Logic Models in Colorado - BE READY
Similar to Japan’s four logic models, in Colorado the BE READY school readiness
campaign is a collaborative effort that came together for the purpose of ensuring that all children
in the community enter school ready to succeed (BE READY, 2020). The vision of BE READY
is that “All children in Larimer County will be successful in school.” The mission of BE READY
has 4 dimensions that are important for childhood success: Ready Children, Ready Families,
Ready Schools and Ready Community programs. The BE READY Campaign distributes
messages about school readiness in each of these three areas: Language and Learning, Feelings
and Behavior, and Health and Activity and the website (https://bereadylarimercounty.org/) has
detailed information and resources for these multiple dimensions.
Kindergarten in the U.S. is for children who are 5 years old and is considered the
beginning of formal schooling. In addition to helping families learn about school readiness,
another goal of BE READY is to align expectations for school readiness across all members of
the community. In Colorado, state standards exist that guide expectations for children’s learning
(Colorado Department of Education, 2020). These standards help teachers know what to teach
children and guide teachers about what children need for kindergarten.
BE READY partners discussed ways to better support kindergarten transition and wanted
to know exactly what the expectations were, so 800 surveys were administered to preschool
teachers, kindergarten teachers, and parents of preschoolers. The survey asked parents and
teachers what was more important: Academic skills or social skills when a child was entering
kindergarten? It was surprising to find that both kindergarten teachers and parents of children
who were entering kindergarten were more likely to identify both academic and social skills
as being of equal value (ranging from 75%-85%) (Schimke, 2017). Ultimately, the research
revealed that parents and teachers both had a strong commitment to children’s success, but there
was a lot of variability in response within and across groups: parents and teachers answered
very differently about what constituted optimal school readiness.
Based upon the survey results, the BE READY Campaign developed a guide to help
better support the transition to kindergarten. This guide is now distributed throughout Larimer

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County and was supported through the collaboration with all three public school districts (BE 1133
READY, 2020; Schimke, 2017).
The Fulbright Specialist met with experts in Kagawa dealing with similar issues as those
dealt with in the BE READY Campaign and was able to communicate her experiences in setting
up a child-centered system. These discussions included explaining the Early Childhood Center
at Colorado State University and its three-fold mission of teaching, research, and service;
providing information about the differences between kindergartens in the U.S. and Japan;
as well as the importance of the transition to kindergarten in the U.S. Data was introduced
concerning U.S. parent and teachers’ views of expectations for social and academic skills
upon kindergarten entry. The BE READY kindergarten readiness guide, that the Specialist was
instrumental in developing, was also introduced and discussed. Although there are differences
in the programs, and immediate change is not possible, it was inspiring to discuss the long-term
benefits of these efforts. Both parties expressed intent to continue this exchange of information.
A New Way to Promote International Exchange
Research cooperation is essential in solving contemporary problems. In particular,

international collaborative research benefits both researchers and related organizations, and
enhances the quality of research. For example, if a researcher from a new university less
than 50 years old and a researcher from a famous university more than 100 years old publish
internationally co-authored papers, the papers published by researchers from both universities
will benefit. The increase in citations per paper (CPP) by 0.73-4.12 indicates that both institutions
benefit from international co-authorship (Khor, 2016).
Ordinary international collaborative research is often derived from exchanges between
researchers in the same research field, such as between former colleagues, mentors, students,
and postdoctoral graduates (Murakami, 2016).
International joint research that arises from such relations tends to be mostly research
that makes use of similar expertise. When solving strategic problems unique to a university or
problem-solving issues found in communities, it is possible to encounter problems with limited
human resources and funds, and encounter problems between existing specialties. These are
often numerous, and there are limits as to what can be done with an approach based solely on
international joint research from such exchanges between similar outlooks.
Kagawa University has developed an international strategy based on international
exchanges which lead to the acquisition of external funds, such as Fulbright scholarships and
JASSO, and in the form of university links aimed at solving strategic problems in both partners’
respective regions.
The sharing of information on early childhood education in Kagawa prefecture and
successful cases in the U.S. provided mutual clues for problem analysis and solutions, and an
increased understanding of the current situations and trends for childcare in both countries, with
the potential to lead to improvements in the quality of childcare and the training of teachers in
Japan. Data collected in the U.S. was presented at Kagawa University comparing U.S. parent
and teacher expectations for social and academic skills upon kindergarten entry. This data led
to the development of a kindergarten readiness guide that was also discussed at Kagawa. From
a developmental/educational perspective, an interesting outcome of the Fulbright Program was
evidenced at the ECC at CSU. While away, the Specialist stayed in close contact with the
ECC children via email, sending photos and information from her travels and experiences in
Japan. Their teacher compiled a book that encouraged the children to think about how Japan
and the United States are similar and different. During her time in Japan the children sent the
Fulbright Specialist multiple emails with comments and questions about her experiences. Upon
the Specialist’s return to the United States, she met with the class and went over the information
she had shared with them and was able to continue the dialogue about life in Japan.

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1134 It is important for those who build an international strategy to reach it, and it is of great
significance to disclose the method. In addition, it is one of sustainable and noble ways of
international exchange that should be promoted, as universities propose clues to solve the
problems that the local government has when making a regional contribution as a strategy.
It is clear that, as a measure for advancing sustainable international research, universities

and faculties can promote exchange between researchers who may not have similar research
fields, as in this case. In the context of this project, one can see that the problems facing early
childhood education in Japan and the U.S. are universal. The Fulbright Specialist’s knowledge
helped develop early childhood education in Kagawa and her research in Kagawa also helped
her develop insights into her field of research and specialization. The sharing of information
on early childhood education between specialists in Kagawa prefecture and Colorado provided
mutual clues for problem analysis and solutions between two participants that had no previous
contact.
The systematic promotion of international strategies at higher education institutions can
promote the formation of networks and collaborative research teams between different countries.
At the same time, it can contribute to higher education. For those who formulate international
strategies, it is necessary to consider promoting exchanges that include collaboration between
researchers, as well as contact with local experts and lectures to local students. It can also
provide great insights into problems faced by various regions.
The factor which proved essential in the constructive interaction of this program was the
on-going sustainable links between the two institutions which expanded from initial exchange
programs to collaborative research. Further results can be expected and should be developed
based on the progress achieved so far. Subsequent policy decisions and ongoing research should
be undertaken to build and provide further outcomes with these points in mind.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by The Fulbright Specialist Program (FSP-P002521).
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1136
Cite as: Takagi, Y., Batten, P., & Rattenborg, K. (2020). A collaborative exchange to improve
early childhood education outcomes. Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 78(6A),
1126-1136. https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1126
Yumiko Takagi PhD, Professor, Faculty of Education, Kagawa University, 1-1 Saiwai-cho,
(Corresponding author) Takamatsu, Kagawa, 760-8522, Japan.
E-mail: takagi.yumiko@kagawa-u.ac.jp
Website: http://www.kards.kagawa-u.ac.jp/profile/
en.595680abef25296f60392a0d922b9077.html
Paul Batten MA, Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Kagawa University, 1-1
Saiwai-cho, Takamatsu, Kagawa, 760-8522, Japan.
E-mail: paul.batten@kagawa-u.ac.jp
Website: http://www.kards.kagawa-u.ac.jp/profile/
en.cfdcb5d6df2d641460392a0d922b9077.html
Karen Rattenborg PhD, Assistant Professor and Executive Director, Colorado State University,
Campus Delivery 1570, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1570, USA.
E-mail: Karen.Rattenborg@colostate.edu
Website: https://www.chhs.colostate.edu/ecc

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Keywords
Please provide 3 to 5 keywords in alphabetical order. Note that a keyword does not have to be
made of only one word. At least one of these should indicate the topic area and one should indicate
the methodology of the research.

PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Vol. 78, No. 6A, 2020
1138 The structure of the manuscript (recommended)

The body of the text of the manuscript must generally have the following parts:
• abstract + keywords;
• introduction (it can be divided into some subchapters if needed);
• methodology of research (it is recommended to divide /rubricate);
• results of research;
• discussion;
• conclusions and/or implications;
• acknowledgements (if any);
• references (in APA style, 7th Ed);
• appendix (if any).
P.S. The structure can be different if the paper is only theoretical qualitative research.
The length of the manuscript
The manuscript should be not shorter than 6 pages (including references, tables and figures).
Manuscripts should be typed on A4, in Times New Roman 12-point font size, single-spaced, 2.5 cm
with all the margins, word-document (Word 6.0 or later) format.
Acronyms
Acronyms should be defined the first time they appear.
Tables and figures
Tables and figures should be valuable, relevant, and visually attractive. Tables (made in Word or
another software) and figures must be referred to in the text and numbered in the order of their
appearance. Each table and figure should have a complete, descriptive title; and each table column
an appropriate heading. The texts in tables and figures should be 11-point (in some cases 10) and
their width should be 12 cm at maximum. The figures should be in format .jpg (unless done in Word
or Excel); resolution 1200 dpi. Figures, tables (black and white colour, without ground-colour) and
captions should be inserted within the manuscript at their appropriate locations. All the graphics
(figures) must be editable. The font size should be Times New Roman for all figures and tables.
Figures should be carefully explained in the text and cited in numerical order.
It is the author’s responsibility to obtain permission to reproduce illustrations, tables, etc. from
other publications.
Discussion
Focus the discussion to the two important questions: What is already known about your topic?
What your research adds? It is recommended that the aim and major findings of the research
should be reminded. And then the similarities and differences of the findings with previous research
studies should be exemplified in detail.
Conclusions
This part is not a summary. Bring out the significance of your research. Show how you’ve brought
closure to the research problem, and point out remaining gaps in knowledge by suggesting issues
for further research. The main research outcome should be clearly seen.

PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Vol. 78, No. 6A, 2020
References 1139
The title „References“ must be used. APA style for writing references in the text and in the reference
list must be used. References in the text should be presented in parentheses (Knox, 1988; Martin,
1995). If necessary, the page can be indicated: (Martin, 1995, p. 48). The list of references should
be presented after the text.
The author should make sure that there is a strict one-to-one correspondence between the names
and years in the text and those on the list. All the references should be listed in alphabeti¬cal order
by author’s name.
For the sake of accuracy, references should always be as updated as possible, also in the interest of
the readers and researchers on the topic the paper is dealing with.
Notes
Note 1: Manuscripts in which references are not in the APAstyle will be returned without review.
Note 2: References to online sources should include the type of medium (such as “serial online”
or “monograph online”), the date of that specific reference (if applicable), the uniform resource
locator (URL), and the date that the source was accessed. A source accessed online should al-ways
be referenced accordingly, even if it is also published in printed form.
Note 3: All papers must meet the criteria of originality and scientific quality. Obviously, they must
also comply with style and format requirements. The paper will not be subject to further review,
if the manuscript is NOT WITHIN THE SCOPE and/or there is POOR USAGE OF LANGUAGE (all
manuscripts must be written in clear and grammatical English).
Note 4: Submitted papers will be assessed based on their novelty, technical quality, potential
impact, and clarity of writing.
Note 5: All papers are checked by CrossCheck system.
Editorial Board
Updated: July 2018
Website: http://www.scientiasocialis.lt/pec/

PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Vol. 78, No. 6A, 2020
1140 GAMTAMOKSLINIS UGDYMAS

NATURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION
ISSN 1648-939X /Print/, ISSN 2669-1140 /Online/
Dear colleagues,
GAMTAMOKSLINIS UGDYMAS / NATURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION – is a periodical, peer
reviewed, scientific-methodical journal, issued by the SMC „Scientia Educologica“
in cooperation with Scientia Socialis Ltd. It is an international journal, wherein the
scientific and methodical/applied articles published in Lithuanian, English and Russian
languages. This journal is intended for the teachers of general education schools, the
lecturers of higher educational institutions and all, who are interested in the problems
of natural science education.
The GU/NSE journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general
criteria of scientific and methodical (practical/applied) papers.
GAMTAMOKSLINIS UGDYMAS / NATURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION
ISSN 1648-939X /Print/, ISSN 2669-1140 /Online/
http://gu.puslapiai.lt/GUwww/indeks.htm
http://gu.puslapiai.lt/GUwww/Indeksavimas.htm
http://oaji.net/journal-detail.html?number=514
Fast Publication This journal is abstracted / listed / indexed / cited in:

Peer Reviewed COPERNICUS INDEX , LIST OF SCIENCE EDUCATION JOURNALS, JOURNALS OF
Open Access INTEREST TO CHEMICAL EDUCATORS, SKYLIGHT, OAJI, WebQualis (QUALIS/
CAPES), MIAR, EuroPub, QOAM, ESJI, Crossref.
Applied research/practical/methodical work. This type of submission is best suited for
practical/didactical work and reports, as well as position papers raising original and
provocative theoretical or practical discourses and questions (small-scale research,
applied research, didactical/methodical papers, case studies, best educational practices
etc.). Each submission is carefully reviewed by two independent reviewers and ranked
based on: quality of preparation, relevance to the educational community, didactical
quality, originality, and importance of the contribution.
Instruction for authors and other details are available on the journal`s website at:
http://gu.puslapiai.lt/GUwww/Bendra_informacija.htm
GU/NSE is an Open Access journal accessible for free on the Internet. Papers must be
submitted on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere and are
not currently under consideration by another publisher. Optimal paper`s size: 8/12
pages. Partial article processing charges are: 5-8 EUR per one A4 page.
For contacts, questions and papers submission: gu@gu.puslapiai.lt
Sincerely yours, Editorial Board

PROBLEMS
OF EDUCATION
IN THE 21st CENTURY
Vol. 78, No. 6A, 2020
ŠVIETIMAS: POLITIKA, VADYBA, KOKYBĖ 1141
EDUCATION POLICY, MANAGEMENT AND QUALITY

ISSN 2029-1922 /PRINT/, ISSN 2669-1159 /ONLINE/
Dear colleagues,
EDUCATION POLICY, MANAGEMENT AND QUALITY – is a periodical, peer reviewed,

scientific-methodical journal, issued by the SMC „Scientia Educologica“ in cooperation
with Scientia Socialis Ltd. It is an international journal, wherein the scientific and
methodical/applied articles published in Lithuanian, English and Russian languages.
The EPMQ journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general
criteria of scientific and methodical (practical/applied) papers.
“EDUCATION POLICY, MANAGEMENT AND QUALITY”
ISSN 2029-1922 /Print/, ISSN 2669-1159 /Online/
http://gu.puslapiai.lt/SVIETIMAS_PVK_en.htm
http://gu.puslapiai.lt/SVIETIMAS_PVK_indeksavimas_eng.htm
http://oaji.net/journal-detail.html?number=513
Fast Publication This journal is indexed / abstracted / listed / cited / in:

Peer Reviewed INDEX COPERNICUS, OAJI, MIAR, ESJI, Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, QUALIS/
Open Access CAPES, Academic Resource Index, EuroPub, WCOSJ, QOAM, Crossref.
This type of submission is best suited for practical/didactical work and reports, as well
as position papers raising original and provocative theoretical or practical discourses
and questions (small-scale research, applied research, didactical/methodical papers,
case studies, best educational practices etc.). Each submission is carefully reviewed
by two independent reviewers and ranked based on: quality of preparation, relevance
to the educational community, didactical quality, originality, and importance of the
contribution.
Instruction for authors and other details are available on the journal`s website at:
http://gu.puslapiai.lt/Informacija-autoriams_Info-authors.pdf
EPMQ is an Open Access journal accessible for free on the Internet. Papers must be
submitted on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere and
are not currently under consideration by another publisher. Optimal paper`s size: 8/12
pages. Partial article processing charges are: 5-8 EUR per one A4 page.
For contacts, questions and papers submission: svietimas.politika@gmail.com
Sincerely yours, Editorial Board

Problems of Education in the 21st Century,
Vol. 78, No. 6A, 2020
Compiler Vincentas Lamanauskas

Designer Jurgina Jankauskienė
Paste-up artist Loreta Šimutytė-Balčiūnienė
English language proofreader Ilona Ratkevičienė
30 December 2020. Publishing in Quires 5.25. Edition 80.
Publisher Scientia Socialis Ltd. in cooperation with SMC „Scientia Educologica“

Donelaicio Street 29, Siauliai, Lithuania
E-mail: scientia@scientiasocialis.lt
Phone: +370 687 95668

Printing „Šiaulių spaustuvė“ Ltd.

9A P. Lukšio Street
LT-76207 Šiauliai, Lithuania
Phone: +370 41 500 333.
Fax: +370 41 500 336
E-mail: info@dailu.lt

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Problems of Education in the 21st Century, Vol. 78, No.

Address: Scientia Socialis, Ltd.

EDITORIAL FOR THEMATIC ISSUE ON “EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES IN EAST ASIA”

CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING FOR THE CHILDREN OF NEW IMMIGRANTS

TEACHING PRACTICES: INTEGRATING POSITIVE THINKING IN PICTURE BOOK

FOSTERING AUTONOMOUS LANGUAGE LEARNERS AT A JAPANESE UNIVERSITY

AFFECTIVE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO SOUTHEAST ASIAN AND EAST

A COLLABORATIVE EXCHANGE TO IMPROVE EARLY CHILDHOOD

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS ............................................................................. 1137

NATURAL SCIENCE EDUCATION / GAMTAMOKSLINIS UGDYMAS ............................... 1140

EDUCATION POLICY, MANAGEMENT AND QUALITY /

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

Globalization and education reform is becoming an important topic across the

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1062 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1062

Received: October 25, 2020 Accepted: December 28, 2020

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1062 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE TEACHING FOR 1065

THE CHILDREN OF NEW IMMIGRANTS

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Culturally responsive teaching (also referred to as culturally relevant/compatible

Contextualized and Culturally-based Caring

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065

1068 Teacher-student Communication

The second requirement for culturally responsive teaching is teacher-student

Culturally Congruent Teaching and Learning

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

Selection of Research Participants

To provide a comprehensive perspective of the immigrant experience, the maximum

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065

Profiles of Research Participants

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065

1072 Research Results

Caring of Taiwanese School Teacher towards NTC

This idea of “poverty” of Southeast Asia might be annoyed to new immigrants

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

Language and Non-Verbal Communication Style

In terms of languages, Mandarin Chinese is the instructional language and might

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065

In terms of non-verbal communication, new immigrants usually conformed to the local

Ethnic Diverse and Cultural Curriculum Partially Implemented

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

I am Muslim. It is too mysterious to Taiwanese people. It is OK that Indonesia isn’t presented

Culturally Congruent Teaching Determined by Teachers

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065

Limitations and Future Research

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online) https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065

Received: October 18, 2020 Accepted: December 25, 2020

Geneva Gay Professor, College of Education, University of Washington-Seattle, 20122 Skagit

https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.1065 ISSN 1822-7864 (Print) ISSN 2538-7111 (Online)

TEACHING PRACTICES: INTEGRATING 1081

POSITIVE THINKING IN PICTURE

　 (Entirely) (Largely) (Somewhat) (Not really) (Not at all)