ECNU Review of Education

This study examines the limitations of the dominant Anglo-American Research University model in addressing contemporary global challenges. By revisiting Confucius’ legacy, it explores his dual imaginaries of the ideal individual (Junzi) and social order (Tianxia) to propose a new framework for higher education.

The study utilizes The Analects as its primary source to analyze Confucius’ educational philosophy. The “Confucius pragmatic paradigm” was adopted to interpret The Analects, which highlights the situational and participatory nature of Confucius’ dialogs, treating utterances as speech acts where the speaker's intentions are as crucial as the literal meaning.

This study underscores the relational, contextual, and internally driven nature of Confucius’ thought, emphasizing the organic integration of individual self-cultivation with the construction of a well-ordered society. It argues that Confucian ideals offer valuable insights for transforming higher education to better address global fragmentation and the evolving landscape influenced by AI-driven transformations.

By engaging with Confucian thought, this study challenges prevailing neo-imperial ideologies in higher education and argues that each higher education model is underpinned by distinct imagined ideals of personhood and societal organization. It suggests a Confucian-inspired model that is more responsive to contemporary global needs.

This study aims to clarify the construct of literature review (LR) writing skills and examine its impact on research proposal (RP) writing performance among postgraduate students in Hong Kong SAR, China.

A total of 286 postgraduate students completed an LR writing task and an RP writing task within a Chinese academic writing course. Twelve skill variables were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to define the LR writing skill construct. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was employed to categorize students into skill-based profiles and evaluate their influence on RP writing performance.

The EFA identified four key factors underlying LR writing skills: Citation and Synthesis, Research Question Elicitation, Language Expression and Organization, and Contextual Awareness. The LPA classified students into two groups: students with low LR writing skills and students with moderate-to-high LR writing skills. Students in the moderate-to-high skill group performed significantly better in RP writing than their low-skill counterparts.

This study provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the construct of LR writing skills and highlights its practical implications for academic writing instruction. By identifying skill-based student profiles and their relationship with RP writing performance, the findings offer insights for designing targeted pedagogical interventions to enhance LR and overall academic writing skills.

This study explored the best practices in elementary school principals’ instructional leadership roles in Bangladesh.

A mixed-method approach was employed for the study, which comprised a survey and interviews. The Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) was employed for the quantitative and qualitative phase of open-ended interviews.

Based on the PIMRS, clear differences emerged between the practices of highly engaged principals and those of lower-ranked ones. Those who rated highly valued their ability to improve classroom teaching and learning, and valued their ability to track student growth. Principals who rated highly also perceived that fostering good working relationships and collaboration among school leaders and teachers was essential.

This research provides valuable insight into the instructional leadership roles of principals in Bangladeshi elementary schools in rural and urban areas. It provides a deeper understanding of how instructional leadership is valued and enacted. The study also provides recommendations to enhance instructional leadership practice in elementary schools in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this study is to show how a holistic approach to teacher learning can narrow the gap between practice, theory, and person. The facilitator-guided core reflection employed in the approach may serve as a powerful tool for teacher professional development.

The study integrates a modified version of Korthagen's onion model and Chinese cultural resources as the theoretical framework to examine how a narrative action research workshop in China attempted to assist teachers in holistic learning. Qualitative research methods are used to collect and analyze data focusing on one class teacher's case.

The findings illustrate that the core reflection helped the teacher recognize and rectify the incongruencies between multi-layers of her learning, such as doing, knowing, feeling, and aspiring. The mechanisms that the facilitator used to help the teacher learn include (1) prompting the teacher to realize her mismatched practices by asking soul-searching questions, (2) introducing theories to explain why and how her practices were inconsistent, (3) evoking her core qualities of empathy and compassion emblematic of Chinese culture through core reflection.

The value of this study lies in illustrating some typical cultural characteristics of Chinese teachers’ holistic learning. This finding as well as the conceptual framework of this study may provide references for teacher education not only in China but also in other parts of the world.

Education in the age of AI faces an epistemic paradox: It can increasingly observe learning through data and analytics, yet it still struggles to understand learning as a process of meaning. While modern systems exhibit a degree of technical reflexivity, their feedback remains largely procedural and detached from interpretation.

This article proposes the Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP)–Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship Education (ICEE) Learning System as a bridge from educational philosophy to design practice and computational modeling—a distributed architecture that enables education to learn about its own learning. Integrating the Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) principle with the philosophy of ICEE, the model redefines education as a reflexive and self-evolving system capable of transforming technical feedback into epistemic understanding.

The study develops this integration across five levels: (a) diagnosing the limits of current educational reflexivity, (b) articulating human–machine co-learning as systemic reflection, (c) operationalizing reflexivity through the Task Chain and Crystal System, (d) formalizing these dynamics within a PDP architecture, and (e) situating them within Panarchy theory to explain how education evolves as a complex adaptive system.

By translating educational philosophy into computational and design logic, the PDP–ICEE Learning System offers a new epistemic form of education—one capable of learning from learning, integrating reflection, design, and evolution within a single self-observing framework.

Drawing on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), this sequential mixed-method study explored L2 learners’ challenges in seeking corrective feedback in an AI-assisted educational environment.

The data was collected from 45 university students in a Computer Science program who were encouraged to seek corrective feedback from ChatGPT for their argumentative writing report. Self-reflection data were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed.

Findings suggested that 45.9% of the AI-generated feedback was rejected by students, with a higher rejection rate observed for content-focused feedback (58.7%) compared to form-focused feedback (41.3%). AI-generated content-focused feedback was rejected due to misalignments between expected and received feedback, anticipated high workload to respond, mismatch between feedback from AI and external references, and impeding conditions for students to engage with the feedback. Meanwhile, the rejection of form-focused feedback was largely associated with the high level of expected effort.

This study is one of the few existing studies on the L2 learners’ challenges in seeking corrective feedback from generative AI systems. Notably, the study differentiates between form-focused and content-focused feedback and identifies the distinct challenges and learning opportunities that impact students’ rejection of AI feedback.

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered technologies, particularly ChatGPT, have sparked significant interest in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education. This review aims to explore the landscape of ChatGPT's application in EFL writing.

Given the nascence of this field, the study conducts a scoping review by analyzing 16 empirical studies published before December 2023 to investigate the role of ChatGPT in EFL writing.

The review explores the current and potential uses of ChatGPT in EFL writing, highlighting its dual role as both a writing assistant and an assessment tool. On one hand, ChatGPT is widely acknowledged for providing real-time feedback that enhances writing quality and efficiency. On the other hand, challenges and concerns remain prevalent.

The findings reveal key gaps in the literature, such as the need for more interdisciplinary research, the adaptation of AI models to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of EFL learners, and the integration of multimodal AI tools. The review emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and information literacy training for educators and students while addressing ethical considerations. These insights offer a roadmap for future research and the practical implementation of AI in language education, providing valuable guidance for different stakeholders.

This study examined the evolving synergies between education and healthcare systems (SEHS) in China's policy, based on the perspective of the theory of policy tools, to identify the existing policy defects and propose suggestions.

A three-dimensional analytical framework was constructed following the literature review. Sixty-four official policies on SEHS issued during the period of 1949–2023 were analyzed. We subsequently undertook text coding, quantification, and content analysis of the policies.

China's SEHS policy has gone through four periods: germination, exploration, development, and improvement. The medical education management organization has changed according to the policy evolution. The Ministry of Education and the National Health Commission are the core subjects of the SEHS policy, and both prefer to use environmental and supply-side policy tools. Although China's SEHS policy achieved certain results, some issues have not yet been addressed, and there remains an imbalance in the structure of policy tools, insufficient collaboration among policy subjects, and poor articulation among the stages of medical education.

Strengthening the continuity and balance of SEHS policies, establishing an effective SEHS working mechanism, and improving the articulation of the policies of the three stages of medical education are recommended to promote SEHS programs.

Climate communication and education (CCE) is increasingly recognized as critical for catalyzing action to address climate change. Indicators can help mobilize climate action by informing and motivating policy change. This article outlines the development of 15 global CCE indicators, created collaboratively through a global partnership project.

The processes for engaging a range of partners and stakeholders in indicator development and the benefits of investing in quality indicators are described. The steps taken to identify, evaluate, and select potential data sources are laid out, as are details of the approach taken to transform these data sources into policy-relevant indicators.

The article discusses the development of indicators from existing and newly created data sources. It emphasizes how collaborations with partners and other stakeholders are key to increasing the quality, variety, and use of CCE indicators.

The collaborative indicator development approach described herein demonstrates how partnerships can generate robust and reliable data for monitoring and target-setting on global priorities, and can encourage indicator uptake. The resulting suite of CCE indicators enables policymakers, researchers, and organizations to monitor national, regional, and global progress on CCE; identify gaps and priorities going forward; and advocate for increased financial investment for CCE, thereby accelerating climate action.

The need for scientific evidence in the field of education has accelerated the production of systematic reviews (SRs), but this effect is much less evident for umbrella reviews. This creates the opportunity to implement systematic processes capable of addressing the challenges raised by umbrella reviews in the field of education. The objective is to produce a methodological guide for carrying out umbrella reviews based on a case study, which is the use of digital diaries in education.

We carried out an umbrella review of SRs of digital diaries in education, setting out, for each phase, a brief theoretical foundation, the difficulties and possible solutions, and the case study being used as the example.

In relation to planning and conducting an umbrella review of SRs, we set out the methodological challenges involved in the formulation of the research question, the overlapping of primary studies, and the evaluation of methodological quality.

In education, there are very few methodological guides on umbrella reviews. This article is an effort to provide a step-by-step guide and an example of its application for use when novice researchers conduct overviews.

This article critically examines the enduring problems and emerging possibilities of educational research in light of rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI). It seeks to understand why educational research has struggled to influence practice and policy meaningfully and explores how AI necessitates a fundamental rethinking of research purposes, methods, and epistemologies.

The article adopts a conceptual and critical review approach, drawing on historical, philosophical, and methodological literature. It identifies and analyzes seven major problems in traditional educational research, including flaws in peer review, quantification bias, methodological fragmentation, overgeneralization, neglect of individual learner diversity, limited educational imagination, and narrow outcome measures. It then explores how AI technologies challenge and reshape core assumptions about knowledge production and educational inquiry.

Traditional educational research is constrained by outdated paradigms that emphasize generalizability, stability, and typicality at the expense of contextual sensitivity, individual variability, and imaginative possibilities. The rapid evolution of AI further undermines assumptions of stable treatments, linear causality, and human-centered cognition. AI opens new opportunities for participatory, iterative, and systems-oriented research, while also raising ethical and epistemological concerns that demand critical reflection.

This article offers a timely and provocative analysis of the limitations of traditional educational research and articulates a vision for its rebirth in the age of AI. It contributes to the growing discourse on paradigm shifts in education by integrating critiques of research orthodoxy with emerging insights into AI-enabled learning. The article calls for methodological pluralism, ethical vigilance, and epistemological innovation, positioning researchers to better respond to the complex and evolving landscape of education in a post-AI world.

This article examines how education systems should redefine what and how students learn in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). It critiques the persistence of universalist frameworks that prescribe a single profile of the “ideal graduate” and argues for a double-helix logic of curriculum that balances universality with personalization.

The article synthesizes insights from multiple disciplines and draws on cases from multiple countries. It integrates multiple conceptual frameworks to evaluate the limitations of one-size-fits-all approaches and illustrate a more dynamic and integrated framework.

Analysis reveals that prevailing reforms continue to reinforce uniformity. Instead, what we need is a curriculum logic that ensures that all students acquire societal and ethical foundations while enabling them to pursue personalizable strengths, passions, and real-world applications.

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on curriculum design by reframing the tension between universality and personalization as a synergistic relationship. It highlights how the double-helix logic of curriculum can prepare learners not only to adapt to rapid technological and societal change but also to shape inclusive, innovative, and humane futures. By emphasizing both collective foundations and individual flourishing, the framework provides a structural vision of curriculum transformation for the AI era.

This study addresses the gap in research on how Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools support L2 learners in critical reading and writing. Specifically, it examines which dimensions of critical reading and writing, based on Wallace and Wray’s framework, receive the most student engagement during revision.

This study utilized lag sequential analysis and thematic analysis to evaluate the engagement of 22 postgraduate students as they revised self-written critical reading reports using GenAI tools, focusing on ten dimensions of critical reading and writing.

Students demonstrated heightened engagement in the revision of four dimensions: research aims and investigation, research contributions, quality of evidence, and adaptation of theoretical frameworks. This process involved interactions with the chatbot, GenAI-generated critical reading reports, and digital papers. Factors influencing this selective engagement included reading and revision purposes, external demands from supervisors, career plans as pre-service teachers, and literal misunderstandings of the content.

This study adds to the literature by revealing the selective use of GenAI tools in academic settings, highlighting the crucial role of student agency in the complex decision-making processes involved in critical thinking.

In light of the usefulness theoretical framework, this research seeks to explore the affordances and challenges of integrating a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tool named ERNIE Bot into the writing feedback process.

A qualitative design was adopted for this study. Twelve students were purposively chosen as the focal participants. Data came from multiple sources. Semi-structured interviews were used as the primary source, triangulated with other data sources including writing drafts, reviews from peers, and the chatlogs with ERNIE Bot. The data were inductively and deductively analyzed.

The study highlighted the technological, educational, and social benefits of GenAI feedback, including its timeliness and personalization (technological), its roles as both an essay editor and a responsive tutor (educational), and its ability to provide a supportive environment and an engaging process (social). Three categories of challenges were revealed, namely lack of AI literacy among students, potential risk of worsening writing ability, and inability to catch emotion and to be perceptive.

Enlightened by the usefulness theoretical framework, the study discovered the technological, educational, and social affordances as well as the limitations of GenAI feedback, which provides insights for the application of GenAI in L2 writing instruction.

This study investigates the impact of large language models (LLMs), for example, ChatGPT, in inclusive education.

We develop a ChatGPT-assisted writing system, namely CHATTING, to support students with dyslexia in learning to write. Then, we investigate the impact of CHATTING on students’ writing performance (vocabulary size) and their engagement in learning. The study involved 101 students who were divided into an experimental group (learn with CHATTING) and a control group (learn in traditional classes). The effectiveness of CHATTING in assisting students’ learning is evaluated by measuring students’ learning engagement with open-ended interviews.

The results indicate that, with the assistance of CHATTING, students with dyslexia demonstrate positive improvement in behavioral, emotional engagement, and intrinsic motivation, but a minor improvement in cognitive engagement. The study also discusses several opportunities, challenges, and insights for utilizing ChatGPT-assisted learning to enhance students’ learning motivation and provide personalized support for students with dyslexia.

This work contributes to inclusive education by developing and evaluating the effectiveness of CHATTING, a ChatGPT-assisted writing system specifically designed for students with dyslexia. The limitations of using generative models in supporting students’ learning in writing are also highlighted.

This study explores the urgent need for a distinct “Chinese approach” to the innovation and development of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in China.

By analyzing the strategic importance of localizing STEM education in China, this study advances a systematic framework for constructing a “Chinese approach” to innovative STEM development.

The Chinese-style approach proposed by this study retains the core tenets of STEM while systemically emphasizing the educational functions of engineering-based, practice-oriented, and integrative learning, as well as education empowered by digital intelligence. It also reflects traditional Chinese values and local characteristics. Grounded in the implementation of the new curriculum, we recommend integrating artificial intelligence technologies across the full scope of school education, incorporating relevant elements into the national curriculum, highlighting distinctiveness through the development of local and school-based STEM curricula, and expanding educational opportunities via extracurricular clubs and off-campus institutions.

By combining the global principles of STEM with Chinese cultural traditions and systemic design, this study outlines a pathway for advancing innovative STEM education with Chinese characteristics.

Academic programs that combine experiential learning with international education and community engagement are widely practiced in higher education. International (or global) service learning is an example. The study explores student outcomes and factors of international service-learning programs, drawing from students’ perspectives.

This qualitative study is based on in-depth interviews with undergraduate students (N = 18) who participated in international service-learning programs involving multiple disciplines and project locations in a public university in Hong Kong SAR, China.

Four types of student outcomes are discussed: interpersonal, personal, civic, and academic. Interaction with host communities, intersubjective reflection, and meaningful service were identified as key factors in international service-learning's impact on students. Teamwork with peers and teachers’ influence are matters less discussed in literature, which emerged in the study as important factors for students.

The results of the study corroborate other studies and help shed light on gray areas. The study not only investigates outcomes but also factors that influence outcomes. Implications of the study and student suggestions for more effective international service-learning programs are set forth.

This paper mainly focuses on the scenario underpinned by the possibilities of integration of Indigenous science and school science curriculum in Nepal.

This study utilized a literature review in the field of national and international educational policies of indigeneity, Western science practice, curricular policy, and reformative approach to the science curriculum. It used a PRISMA flow diagram for the inclusion and exclusion of literature. Finally, 57 documents were included for this conceptual study.

Different knowledge practices by Indigenous and cultural peoples before scientific discoveries were made, were eco-friendly and empirically handed down through generations via cultural transmission. However, the hegemonic and imperative Western knowledge system denies the life-world knowledge of cultural peoples. The Nepali science curriculum largely emphasizes Western scientific practices, portraying them as modern and superior, while Indigenous knowledge is often overlooked or dismissed as dogmatic. Revisiting the curriculum to integrate Indigenous science is crucial for fostering inclusivity and recognizing its value.

Cultural assimilation and acculturation are prioritized in science teaching rather than enculturation due to political and policy-level obstruction. Dialogue with different stakeholders and political commitment is a prerequisite for present science teaching and curriculum reforming.

In this paper, I examine how micro-credentials (MCs) might help address persistent challenges in teacher professional development. I argue that the impact of MC on teacher practice depends both on individual engagement and system-level strategies, policies, and cultural contexts.

The discussion is framed around cases of three teachers. These are intended to illustrate contrasting approaches to and outcomes of professional learning opportunities. These cases are then connected to a broader analysis of implementation strategies that draws on existing research, policy documents, and reform frameworks.

MCs have the potential to enhance teacher agency, personalized learning, and relevance when supported by systems and structures designed to value professional judgment and provide time for collaboration. Without systemic change, supportive policies, and cultural change, MCs risk being reduced to yet another compliance activity. Implementation will also vary across centralized and decentralized systems. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence may further shape how MCs are designed, assessed, and sustained, creating both opportunities and risks.

By integrating a view of teacher-level experiences with system-level strategies and policies, and by extending the analysis to global contexts and technological possibilities, the paper offers a framework for understanding how MCs can support teachers to assume greater control of their professional learning.

This article reexamines Fukuyama's “End of History” thesis, arguing that artificial intelligence (AI) has reopened ideological competition and created an unprecedented “legitimacy gap” between exponentially advancing technology and linearly evolving governance. Bridging this gap has become pivotal to addressing many of the global crises we confront today.

The study employs a problem–analysis–solution structure: identifying the legitimacy gap via a “Technology–Governance Dual Curve” model, analyzing three singular transformations and three structural gaps, and proposing solutions through the dual return of humanities/social sciences and education as new-quality infrastructure for human–machine symbiotic societies.

The analysis identifies three AI-driven transformations: ideological resurgence, the reshaping of national capacity through compute, data, and intelligence as “political surplus,” and the recasting of individuals from the “last man” to the “predicted man.” Drawing on Latour's actor-network theory, the article proposes building trust networks through dual educational reconfiguration—cultivating AI literacy alongside civic literacy, enabling citizens to both collaborate with and govern intelligent systems.

The article repositions education as the decisive mechanism for resolving the technology legitimacy crisis. Beyond novel frameworks such as “silicon-based economics” and “algorithmic constitutionalism,” it argues that dual-track educational reconfiguration is the only scalable pathway to rebuild trust networks for human–machine symbiotic governance.