The purpose of this study was to assess rural students’ computational thinking abilities. The following proofs were observed: (1) Students’ abstraction affected algorithmic thinking skills; (2) Students’ decomposition influenced algorithmic thinking skills; (3) Students’ abstraction impacted evaluation skills; (4) Students’ algorithmic thinking affected evaluation skills; (5) Students’ abstraction impacted generalization skills; (6) Students’ decomposition impacted generalization skills; (7) Students’ evaluation affected generalization skills. Gender differences were observed in the relationship among the computational thinking factors of junior high school students. This included the abstraction-generalization skills; evaluation-generalization skills; and decomposition-generalization skills relationships, which were moderated by the gender of the students. 258 valid surveys were collected, and they were utilized in the study. Conducting the descriptive, reliability, and validity analyses used SPSS software, and the structural equation modeling (SEM) was also conducted through Smart PLS software to assess the hypothetical relationships. There were gender disparities in the correlation among computational thinking components of the junior high school students’ studying in rural areas. Research has shown that male and female students may have different abstractions, evaluations, and generalizations related to computational thinking, with females being more strongly associated than males in non-programming learning contexts. These results are expected to provide relevant information in subsequent analyses and implement a computational thinking curriculum to overcome the still-existing gender gaps and promote computational thinking skills.

Background: The prevalence of anxiety among college students is a growing global concern, with a median prevalence of 32%. This study addresses the need for effective interventions within an educational policy framework to alleviate anxiety and promote mental health among college students. Objective: The study aims to evaluate the impact of breathing relaxation exercises and tactile art therapy on college students’ self-understanding and psychological well-being, providing reference information for policies and practices in mental health education. Methods: We enrolled 10 college students from X University in South Korea, dividing them into an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of breathing exercises and tactile art therapy, while the control group received standard psychological counseling. Pre- and post-tests assessed breathing function, self-understanding, and psychological well-being. Results: The experimental group demonstrated significant improvements in breathing function, particularly in forced vital capacity (FVC), and in psychological well-being, as measured by the Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWBS). Sub-factors such as safety, goal orientation, and self-acceptance within self-understanding, self-acceptance, positive relationships, purpose in life, and environmental mastery within psychological well-being, showed notable enhancements. In contrast, the control group did not show significant effects in terms of FVC and FEV1（p > 0.05）, and there were no statistically significant differences in the various sub-factors of self-understanding and psychological well-being. Conclusion: The study demonstrates that integrating breathing relaxation exercises and tactile art therapy into educational policy can significantly reduce anxiety and enhance the psychological well-being of college students. These findings suggest that such interventions can be effective components of a comprehensive educational policy aimed at improving student mental health.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted global crises and enforced strict measures like the Movement Control Order (MCO) in Malaysia, significantly impacting societal norms, particularly affecting secondary school students. The current study employs a qualitative methodology to determine how COVID-19 affects the life stress experienced by secondary school students. Secondary school students were recruited in Sabah, Malaysia, from April to August 2022, after Malaysia entered the endemic phase on 1 April 2022. As part of a larger survey, students were asked to respond to an open-ended question about life stressors they face as a result of the pandemic COVID-19 or during home-based teaching and learning (PdPR). A total of 1069 secondary school students from various backgrounds were included in the study. However, only 714 students responded to the open-ended question. The pattern of meaning across the texts was determined using Birks and Mills’s method of multilevel coding. The students’ perspectives on life stressors were classified into five broad categories: restriction stress, emotional stress, online study stress, family-related stress, and others-related stress. Restriction stress, which refers to being confined at home, restricted movement, hampered family, friendship, and outdoor activities, and no freedom were rated as the most significant life stressors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic by students. This research provides valuable insights for policymakers, educators, and parents, emphasizing the profound effect of pandemic-induced restrictions on student life and the essential role of targeted interventions in fostering resilience among students.

This study aims to use dialectical thinking to explore the impacts and responses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) empowerment on students’ personalized learning. The effect of AI empowerment on student personalization is dissected through a literature review and empirical cases. The study finds that AI plays a significant role in promoting personalized learning by enhancing students’ learning effectiveness through intelligent recommendation, automated feedback, improving students’ independent learning ability, and optimizing learning paths, however, the wide application of AI also brings problems such as technological dependence, cheating in exams, weakening of critical thinking ability, educational fairness, and data privacy protection to students. The study proposes recommendations to strengthen technology regulation, enhance the synergy between teachers and AI, and optimize the personalized learning model. AI-enabled personalized learning is expected to play a greater role in improving learning efficiency and educational fairness.

STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education has recently been encouraged and attracted much national attention. This qualitative study aimed to conduct a thematic analysis of college student STEAM open responses to provide an examination of college students’ perceptions of their STEAM experiences into the STEAM field. Based on transformative learning theory, a thematic analysis of 756 written responses to seven prompts by 108 college student participants revealed three primary themes: (1) exciting and challenging difficulties, and transdisciplinary learning in STEAM; (2) STEAM learning of gradual process, problem-oriented instruction, and creative problem solving; and (3) metacognition development in STEAM. The findings revealed that undergraduates’ STEAM perceptions provide strong support for STEAM implementation to enhance teaching effectiveness in higher education.