Given the importance of student engagement for educational success, it is essential to explore how teachers can stimulate student engagement in online learning environment. However, relatively little research drawing from self-determination theory has examined the links between teaching motivations and student engagement. To this end, this study…

Research Findings: This study aimed to explore parental satisfaction with Puhui early childhood education (ECE) service in China using evidence from a national validation study. The Parent Satisfaction with the Puhui Early Childhood Education Service Scale (PES) was developed and validated with 4,134 Chinese parents, who were sampled using a…

The Academic Encouragement Scale (AES) evaluates academic encouragement received from someone whom the student respects. This study reported the psychometric properties of the AES among 1602 Chinese adolescents. The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported a two-factor structure of the AES (i.e., challenge-focused encouragement…

Background: This study aims to empirically answer the question of whether the role of sub-reading skills changes depending on the test format (e.g., multiple-choice vs. open-ended reading questions). The test format effect also addresses the issue of test validity--whether the reading test properly elicits construct-relevant reading skills or…

This study explored the structural relationships among secondary school students' conceptions, self-regulation, and strategies of learning science in mainland China. Three questionnaires, namely conceptions of learning science (COLS), self-regulation of learning science (SROLS), and strategies of learning science (SLS) were developed for…

Assessing student learning outcomes has become a global trend in higher education. In this paper, we report on the validation of the Chinese HEIghten® Critical Thinking assessment with a nationally representative sample of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science students from 35 institutions in China. Key findings suggest that there was a test…

Language test preparation has often been studied within the consequential validity framework in relation to ethics, equity, fairness, and washback of assessment. The use of independent and integrated speaking tasks in the "TOEFL iBT"® test represents a significant development and innovation in assessing speaking ability in academic…

The paper analyzes the variables that can influence the validity of the reading part in the standardized test of CET (College English Test). They refer to the test methods and test content. As for the test method, the widely used are multiple-choice questions and short answer questions which can influence the test takers' performance and therefore…

This paper examines the stability and validity of a student evaluations of teaching (SET) instrument used by the administration at a university in the PR China. The SET scores for two semesters of courses taught by 435 teachers were collected. Total 388 teachers (170 males and 218 females) were also invited to fill out the 60-item NEO Five-Factor…

The primary aim of this research is to investigate the predictive power of occupational stress for teaching style among university faculty members. A sample of 144 faculty members from a large university in the People's Republic of China rated themselves on three ability scales and responded to the Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory and to four…

This document contains three papers from a symposium on increasing job satisfaction that was conducted as part of a conference on human resource development (HRD). "A Systematic Model of Job Design by Examining the Organizational Factors Affecting Satisfaction" (Zhichao Cheng, Danyang Yang, Fenglou Liu) reports on a project in which…