Journals
Latest Articles
Mobile-Assisted English Learning among Medical Students with Varying English Proficiency
This study examined medical students' usage and acceptance of mobile-assisted English learning (MAEL) in a Chinese context. 184 medical students with varying levels of English proficiency, from beginner to advanced, at a university in China participated in the study. A quantitative method was used in the study. A questionnaire on the acceptance of mobile learning was used to understand students' perceptions of mobile-assisted English studies. Descriptive analysis and one-way ANOVA were employed to examine differences among three groups of medical students with varying levels of English competence. The results suggested that medical students' acceptance of mobile-assisted English learning was positively associated with their English proficiency. Medical students with advanced English proficiency achieved the highest scores. There were significant differences among the three groups of medical students with varying English proficiency in perceived usefulness, perceived easiness, perceived playfulness, perceived facilitating conditions, subjective norm, voluntariness, and image. Students' ages, possession of mobile devices, and perceptions of and obstacles to mobile-assisted English learning were also observed. Although medical students generally accepted mobile-assisted English learning, they reported several challenges. The findings of this study help understand the perceptions and challenges of mobile-assisted English learning among medical students with varying English levels, and promote the use of mobile-assisted English learning for English improvement and professional development.
Professional Identity and Talent Development in Tourism Management under New Liberal Arts and GIUR Collaboration
Against the backdrop of the rise of the "New Liberal Arts" and the collaborative integration of government, industry, academia, and research institutions, this study examines pressing issues such as the weak professional identity among tourism management students and the disconnect between talent development models and actual industry needs. The theoretical framework adopted in this study encompasses institutional support, perceptions of classroom atmosphere, professional identity, and professional adaptability, and analyzes the underlying mechanisms linking these constructs. Between December 2024 and September 2025, the research team conducted an online survey, collecting a total of 645 valid responses. The researchers used SPSS 26.0 and Smart PLS 4.0 software to perform reliability and validity tests, path analysis, and hypothesis testing. The results indicate that all dimensions of institutional support and perceived classroom atmosphere are significantly and positively associated with professional identity, with academic support and teacher-student relationships exhibiting relatively stronger predictive associations. Furthermore, a significant positive association exists between professional identity and career adaptability; while some dimensions exert indirect associations through professional identity as a mediating variable, others demonstrate a direct positive association with career adaptability. Drawing on the concept of the "New Liberal Arts" and the integration of government, industry, academia, and research institutions, this study makes a significant contribution to the theoretical literature on current tourism management students. It provides empirical evidence and practical insights for institutional development, the refinement of existing support systems, the creation of a positive classroom atmosphere, and the enhancement of students' professional identity and adaptability.
Visualizing Culture-Specific Terms: Multimodal Paratexts in the French Translation of Things Fall Apart
Culture-specific terms in literary translation pose challenges because their meanings extend beyond language into material form, ritual practice, sound, gesture, and symbolic associations. In translated texts, explanatory footnotes are often concise and verbal, risking semantic reduction when culturally dense concepts are compressed into linear prose. While scholarship has examined culture-specific terms and paratextual mediation, less attention has been paid to how multimodal semiotic resources might supplement verbal explanation where perceptual and iconographic dimensions are central. This study investigates the French translation of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, focusing on five Igbo culture-specific terms: egwugwu, ekwe, udu, ogene, and ikenga. Drawing on social semiotics, multimodality and paratextual theory, it explores whether concise footnotes adequately mediate culturally embedded meanings and considers the interpretive potential of multimodal supplementation. Methodologically, the research combines qualitative paratextual analysis with targeted visual complements designed to redistribute explanatory load across verbal and visual modes. Findings show that French footnotes often shift interpretation toward broad functional categories, reducing distinctions tied to materiality, ritual significance, and symbolic form. The textual analysis is supplemented by an exploratory reader-response exercise involving eight French-speaking Master's students in translation. Preliminary responses indicate that verbal-only footnotes frequently encouraged broad categorical approximations, whereas visual complements supported more differentiated descriptions. Given the limited number of participants, these observations are treated as indicative rather than generalisable and constitute the exploratory phase of an ongoing reader-response study. It argues that paratexts actively shape the framing of cultural difference in translation. By foregrounding modal asymmetry as a source of opacity, the study positions multimodal paratextual design as a context-sensitive strategy for mediating culturally dense texts.
Using Classroom Surveys to Align Grading Practices and Self-Directed Learning in the Age of AI
The rapid saturation of research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the classroom reflects concerns with the even more rapidly developing AI in many aspects of society. Framing the parameters of AI literacy can serve as an important context within which educators can guide students toward critical engagement with AI tools in order to develop their self-directed learning. Before this can happen, however, an aspect to consider in order to harness the potential of AI tools includes the necessity of aligning grading practices with self-directed learning. This article explores how such an alignment may foster a learning environment that shifts the use of AI away from merely generating substitutive text and toward actually harnessing its potential as a tool for helping authentic learning to happen. Drawing on relevant research and two survey responses from secondary students, this article aims to establish a context in which reflective classroom surveys can help teachers implement process-based grading structures to empower students in their growth as authentic learners instead of defaulting to passive users of AI. In such a context, the secondary classroom would remove the barriers created by hierarchical grading practices, evolve with emergent technology, train students to interact meaningfully and ethically with it, and ultimately prepare them for the ongoing challenges of using AI in the humanities and society, overall.
The Impact of Socio-Cultural Practices on Girls' Learning Experiences: A Case of Public Secondary Schools in Kisarawe District, Tanzania
Socio-cultural practices continue to significantly influence girls' learning experiences, often shaping their academic performance in both positive and negative ways. Traditional practices, language challenges, and social interaction dynamics play a key role in the educational outcomes of female students. This study investigates the impact of socio-cultural practices on girls' learning experiences, focusing on factors such as motivation, encouragement, socialization, self-disclosure, feedback, and positive criticism. A mixed-method approach was employed, combining both qualitative and quantitative research designs. The quantitative phase involved collecting data through a five-point Likert scale to assess students' academic performance, followed by qualitative data collection using interviews to explore the deeper influences of socio-cultural practices. The study utilized a cross-sectional design, collecting data from a sample of 236 students, 86 teachers, 6 school heads, and 24 parents from public secondary schools in Kisarawe district. The findings indicate that socio-cultural factors such as motivation, encouragement, and socialization significantly affect girls' academic success. Additionally, the study highlights the role of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) in fostering collaborative learning environments. These results suggest that educational policies should consider the socio-cultural context in which girls learn, promoting supportive interactions and addressing cultural barriers to enhance their academic performance.
Exploring the Challenges for Adult Learners Seeking Professional Progression without a Level 2 Maths Qualification
This study was conducted within the adult English and mathematics department of a further education (FE) college. Traditionally, the majority of adult learners enrolling on mathematics courses at the research site come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. In recent years, however, an emerging trend has been observed: increasing numbers of individuals in professional careers are seeking to undertake mathematics assessments in order to progress further in their chosen fields. Many professions now require not only higher-level qualifications but also a recognised Level 2 mathematics qualification. The research investigates how professionals have managed to progress academically and professionally, often achieving higher-level qualifications, without having first secured a Level 2 (or equivalent) qualification in mathematics. Drawing on a review of relevant literature and data from participant questionnaires, the study explores the barriers these individuals faced in attaining mathematics qualifications during their schooling, as well as throughout their academic and professional journeys. Findings highlight inconsistencies regarding the level of mathematics required for entry to or completion of postgraduate degree programmes, including teacher training. The study recommends the adoption of a more robust and standardised approach to mathematics entry requirements for graduate and postgraduate programmes. Furthermore, it advocates for fostering a culture of high expectations in relation to mathematics skills, particularly for those pursuing professional careers. The article also discusses practical strategies for achieving this, including ways to ensure that recommendations from Ofsted (2021) are effectively implemented by education leaders.
From Saying to Showing: Action, the Economy of Silence, and the Limits of Development Discourse
Contemporary discourses on inclusive and just development emphasise ambitions of empowerment and capacity-building without producing genuine socio-economic transformation. This article develops the concept of the Economy of Silence to explain why the smallest and most constrained actors are often those who generate social change most effectively in comparison with institutions that are dominant at the discursive level. Drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s distinction between “saying” and “showing” in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the article argues that meaningful language must remain anchored in facts. When discourse becomes detached from material transformation, it generates what this article calls discursive inflation: the circulation of language without corresponding changes in reality. In a context of economic scarcity, material and institutional constraints require a certain discipline on the part of the actors who are most exposed to the consequences and do not have discursive power. Exposing their actions to consequences aligns intention, practice, and outcome. Action therefore functions as a materially intelligible form of communication that remains accountable to consequences. Amartya Sen's capabilities approach suggests that development consists of valuing the expansion of freedoms and opportunities available to individuals to achieve functioning using available resources, and not just by making mere declarative commitments. The article concludes that silence, often understood as exclusion, sidelining from institutional discourse or renunciation, emerges rather as the structural condition in which ethical, economic and political meaning converges in facts rather than in discourse.
Reviving Traditional Institutional Systems as a Strategy for Women’s Empowerment, Mental Health, and Cultural Continuity
This article examines the revival of Tsuki, the traditional women-centred dormitory institution of the Ao-Naga community, as a culturally grounded framework for women’s empowerment, psychosocial well-being, and cultural continuity. Historically, Tsuki functioned as an Indigenous pedagogical and relational institution through which young women were socialized into communal ethics, moral discipline, intergenerational responsibility, and collective identity. The decline of Tsuki under colonial administration, missionary expansion, formal education, and modernization disrupted Indigenous systems of mentorship, communal learning, and women-centred institutional authority. The study adopts a qualitative, theoretically informed Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach drawing on oral histories, narrative interviews, collective storytelling, participatory discussions, and community reflections involving former Tsukirs, elders, women and men who witnessed the institution, and descendants of former inmates. Rather than presenting generalized empirical claims, the article interprets participant narratives to examine the continuing social, psychological, and cultural relevance of Tsuki within contemporary Ao-Naga society. Drawing on Indigenous feminism, decolonial theory, and educational and community psychology, the article argues that reviving Tsuki represents a process of institutional decolonization, epistemic recovery, and adaptive cultural reconstruction. The findings indicate that participants viewed Tsuki as a structured environment of mentorship, psychosocial support, peer solidarity, identity formation, and intergenerational learning that historically strengthened women’s agency, communal belonging, and emotional resilience. The article concludes that reviving Tsuki should not be understood as nostalgic preservationism, but as a contemporary strategy for negotiating cultural continuity, gender transformation, psychosocial wellbeing, and Indigenous knowledge systems within rapidly changing social contexts.
Announcements
Announcement: Change in Publication Frequency
The Editorial Office of Cultural Arts Research and Development (ISSN: 2436-8539) is pleased to announce that, starting from 2026, the journal will change its publication frequency from biannual to quarterly. The journal will be published four times per year, in March, June, September, and December. This change aims to ensure more timely dissemination of research while maintaining the journal’s academic standards and peer-review process. Editorial Office Cultural Arts Research and Development
Announcement: Change in Publication Frequency
The Editorial Office of New Countryside (ISSN: 2758-1403) is pleased to announce that, starting from 2026, the journal will change its publication frequency from biannual to quarterly (January, April, July, October) This adjustment reflects the journal’s steady development and aims to better serve the academic community by ensuring more timely publication while maintaining rigorous peer-review standards. All editorial policies and review procedures will remain unchanged. Editorial Office New Countryside (ISSN: 2758-1403)
Announcement on Change of Publication Frequency
The Editorial Office of Philosophy and Realistic Reflection (ISSN 2759-7172) is pleased to announce that, effective from 2026, the journal will change its publication frequency from biannual to quarterly (March, June, September, December). Beginning in 2026, Philosophy and Realistic Reflection will publish four issues per year, reflecting the journal’s continued development, the steady growth in high-quality submissions, and our commitment to providing a more timely platform for scholarly communication. All editorial policies, peer review procedures, and publication ethics will remain unchanged. The Editorial Team remains committed to upholding the journal’s academic quality and integrity. We sincerely thank our authors, reviewers, editorial board members, and readers for their continued support. Editorial Office Philosophy and Realistic Reflection
Congratulations! Food and Drug Safety Is Now Indexed in CAS
We are pleased to announce that Food and Drug Safety has been officially indexed in the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), one of the world’s most authoritative and comprehensive databases in chemistry and related sciences. CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society (ACS), is widely recognized for its rigorous selection standards and global academic influence. Inclusion in CAS signifies the journal’s scientific quality, editorial rigor, and relevance to the international research community. This milestone marks an important step in the journal’s development and further enhances the visibility, discoverability, and academic impact of published articles in the fields of food science, food safety, toxicology, nutrition, pharmaceuticals, and related interdisciplinary areas. We sincerely thank our authors, reviewers, editorial board members, and readers for their continued support and contributions. Food and Drug Safety will remain committed to publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed research and to advancing scientific exchange in food and drug safety research worldwide. We warmly welcome researchers and scholars to submit their latest work and join us in shaping the future of food and drug safety science.
Congratulations to New Environmentally-Friendly Materials Indexed in CAS!
We are pleased to announce that the academic journal New Environmentally-Friendly Materials has been officially indexed in CAS. This achievement represents a significant milestone in the journal’s development and reflects CAS’s recognition of the journal’s academic quality, editorial standards, peer-review rigor, and scholarly contribution to the field of environmentally friendly and sustainable materials. Since its launch, New Environmentally-Friendly Materials has been committed to: Upholding a rigorous and transparent peer-review process Adhering to high standards of academic ethics and publishing best practices Providing an open-access platform for the dissemination of high-quality research The inclusion in CAS will further enhance the journal’s visibility, accessibility, and academic impact, offering authors a more authoritative platform to disseminate their research to the global scholarly community. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to all authors, reviewers, editorial board members, and readers for their continued support and valuable contributions. Building on this achievement, the journal will continue to improve its publishing standards and promote high-quality academic exchange in the field of environmentally friendly materials and sustainable material science. We warmly welcome researchers worldwide to submit their latest work to New Environmentally-Friendly Materials.
Editor-in-Chief Communication Meeting Successfully Held!
We are pleased to announce that the Editor-in-Chief Exchange Meeting for Urban Planning and Construction was successfully concluded via Zoom on September 10. The editorial office and the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Salman Shooshtarian, conducted in-depth discussions on key issues concerning the journal's development. The main highlights of the meeting are as follows: A review of the journal's performance indicators Exploration of emerging research areas to encourage the submission of high-quality manuscripts Planning for themed special issues and academic cooperation with universities Initiatives to improve the journal's impact We sincerely appreciate the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Salman Shooshtarian, for his valuable insights and ongoing support in advancing the mission of Urban Planning and Construction. For more information about the journal or inquiries regarding submission, please contact the editorial office at upc@bilpub.com.