This study explored American and Portuguese elementary teachers' preferences in planning for literacy instruction using the Language Arts Activity Grid (LAAG; Cunningham, Zibulsky, Stanovich, & Stanovich, 2009), on which teachers described their preferred instructional activities for a hypothetical 2-h language arts block. Portuguese teachers…

This exploratory study responds to the criticism that non-instructional faculty or "academic professionals" at American universities are the cause of "administrative bloat." The purpose of the study was to build from the work of Rhoades (1998) and Kane (2007) to examine whether academic professionals at an R-1 (very-high…

Positive personal characteristics such as happiness or wellbeing can motivate students to elevate their school performance in higher education. Orientation to happiness is a construct that combines three sources of happiness: pleasure, meaning, and engagement, all of which have been identified as a predictor of university students' engagement.…

Instructional practices are fundamentally influenced by teacher beliefs. Cultural and pedagogical belief differences in EFL teachers can fuel a lack of professional understanding among teachers with contrasting perspectives about effective teaching practices. The present study examined the alignment between the beliefs of Chinese English teachers…

In November 2019, the Smithsonian hosted the "Transatlantic Seminar for Museum Curators and Educators: Museums as Spaces for Social Discourse and Learning." The program brought together German and American museum professionals and was co-sponsored by the Leibniz Institution, the Smithsonian Institution, and Fulbright Germany. A keynote…

Metamotivational knowledge is a burgeoning area of study. It refers to people's knowledge about motivation, and it has been shown to contribute to motivation and behavioral outcomes. The current study bridges metamotivational knowledge with self-determination theory (SDT), one of the most prominent theories of academic motivation. SDT proposes…

The article integrates the seven papers of the two special issues with a special focus on discussing the differences in people's beliefs about creativity between the Chinese and American cultures: How it is conceived, evaluated, and nurtured. It uses three metaphors to capture major differences in these aspects, and highlights areas with profound…

This research examined national, regional, developmental, and gender differences in children's reported management of anger and sadness. Participants (8-15 years) were 103 Ghanaian children from a village setting, 142 Ghanaian children from a middle-class urban context, 106 Kenyan children from an impoverished urban context, and 170 children from…

This article discusses the impact of the Standards for Foreign Language Teaching in the 21st Century on language programs at American universities. Surveys were administered to American students and to faculty at a university in Spain asking questions about the five goal areas of the standards. Responses from these groups were analyzed and…

Cultural transmission is often viewed as a domain-general process. However, a growing literature suggests that learnability is influenced by content and context. The idea of a learnability landscape is introduced as a way of representing the effects of interacting factors on how easily information is acquired. Extending prior work (Barrett &…

The study described the psychometric properties of the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI) when used in Taiwanese normally developing children and illustrated the ethnic differences in determining capacity and independence in daily function between Taiwanese and American children. The Chinese version of the PEDI (PEDI-C) was…

Globalization and technology advancement are creating more biculturalism at workplaces and learning settings. However, little is known about acculturation experience and its influence on a person's cultural values and learning preference. The research reported in this study investigates the impact of acculturation experiences upon the relationship…

Study abroad can be a life-changing experience, but evidence of its effectiveness is mixed. We examine the experience of studying abroad at colleges in the US and China, which are the largest receiving and sending countries of international students respectively. Using data from two comparable national surveys that follow the same design, we…

In this article (part one of two) I will consider, using the dramatistic model pioneered by Kenneth Burke, the "scene" or historical cultural ground of each "highly developed' national/regional area (The EU, the USA, Hong Kong [SAR], and Singapore) in terms of their Higher Education (HE) systems. After these analyses, then I look to…

The purpose of this study was to compare attitudes and practices among general music teachers in Japan (n = 135) and the USA (n = 136) concerning the integration of music with other academic subjects. Teachers completed a researcher-designed questionnaire, and results revealed significant differences in both areas. Music teachers from the USA…