The purpose of this essay is to investigate whether the vocabulary in authentic texts used by upper secondary English teachers teaching the course English 7 reach the expectations set by the Swedish National Agency for Education and the CEFR. This was done by analysing 26 texts contributed from five teachers with vocabulary profile web tools such as Text Inspector and Compleat Lexical Tutor. The analysis focused on word frequency and the CEFR levels.. The word frequency results showed that the vocabulary difficulty of teachers’ texts deviated slightly of being too simple or difficult for English 7 students, while the CEFR results showed that the vocabulary difficulty was too advanced for English 7 students. Although the results deviated from one another, the vocabulary difficulty of the teachers’ texts was often similar to each other. Furthermore, the results showed that the vocabulary difficulty often variated between text genres. The study, therefore, reasoned that the English 7 teachers enact their agency by selecting texts that they not only believe are suitable for their students but also will be suitable for students with different language proficiencies. The study concluded that English 7 teachers select texts of similar vocabulary difficulty and that English 7 students read authentic texts that contain advanced vocabulary that goes beyond the expectations of the CEFR. The study also suggested that further research should investigate how the CEFR should be interpreted and that similar studies should include a closer engagement with the teachers to obtain their views on how and why they select particular authentic texts.

There is a high cost to nurse manager turnover and added to this challenge is the difficult tasks that hospitals have of recruiting and retaining nurse managers. These difficulties make it challenging for healthcare providing institutions to achieve consistent positive patient and staff outcomes. The current study examined the relationship between self-leadership, authentic leadership, and job satisfaction with nurse managers. Three elements making up the theoretical framework of this research were self-leadership, authentic leadership, and job satisfaction. The 2 predictor variables were self-leadership and authentic leadership. An evaluation of whether a relationship existed between the predictors and the criterion, job satisfaction, was made. A total of 76 nurse managers completed an online survey, and a linear regression was used to analyze the data. Results indicated that self-leadership was not a statistically significant predictor of job satisfaction at a CI of 95%. Authentic leadership and 3 of its 4 dimensions were found statistically significant as a predictor of job satisfaction at a CI of 95%. This study may have implications for positive social change through its indirect effect on the management and execution of patient care.

<p> A student’s education should be reflective of the innovative and progressive nature of the professional world. While innovation was previously viewed as an economic driver or technological concept in the 20th century, modern times have innovation permeating into all branches of society, intending to seek and develop new knowledge and ideas across any academic and professional disciplines. With this inclusion of innovation in all aspects of society, students should be provided educational opportunities to develop innovation capabilities, skills, and mindsets that can better prepare them for the professional world as well as for making both societal and personal impact. Innovation-focused education has been positioned to aid in 1) developing social responsibility in students, 2) fostering innovative behaviors that can benefit the organizations in which students become part of in their future, 3) empowering students to pursue their own personal ventures, and 4) enhancing the economy of a nation. And, using a transdisciplinary approach to teaching innovation, can be one approach to bridge, or even break down, the silos that exist within modern higher education—creating a more authentic community of practice to nourish student learning and their innovative ideas. Researchers have found that innovation capabilities are not typically a by-product of traditional comprehensive education and without specific curriculum to cultivate innovation practices among students across majors, many may be missing out on valuable knowledge and skillsets. Addressing this concern, an undergraduate model at Purdue University has been developed to provide students with the time, resources, and opportunities to enhance their innovation capabilities through co-teaching and co-learning from faculty and students from differing academic units/colleges. This model brings together the disciplinary lenses from three different colleges, including engineering technology, business management, and liberal arts. Engaging students in a transdisciplinary, authentic learning experience across these academic units can allow them to form a community of practice by working on innovation projects over multiple semesters within an engaged network of faculty, peers, and mentors from a variety of disciplines. However, as this model is implemented there is a need to better understand how this collaborative approach to teaching innovation influences undergraduate learning. Therefore, this study 1) examined student perceptions of this innovation education model related to its co-teaching and co-learning pedagogical approach as well as 2) analyzed the influence of this model on student innovation skills (i.e., <em>integrative learning</em>, <em>teamwork</em>, and <em>problem solving</em>). To do so, data was collected from Likert-style prompts and open-ended survey responses and semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic coding and a non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The results of this analysis revealed 1) working in teams is a necessary evil for many students, 2) cross-college collaboration enhances brainstorming and ideation in general, 3) a collaborative, transdisciplinary setting for learning allows for the application of prior knowledge, and 4) multiple instructors allowed for a greater range of feedback throughout the design process, among other findings in regard to student perceptions of the collaborative teaching and learning model. In addition, the results indicated that there was a statistically significant difference in the students’ perceptions of their innovation capabilities related to all sub-constructs of both <em>integrative learning</em> and <em>problem solving</em>, while students’ perceptions of their abilities relating to <em>teamwork</em> were less consistent. Leveraging these results, discussions around best ways to implement a similar model of teaching in other contexts, the benefits students identified from working collaboratively with individuals outside of their academic unit, and optimal strategies for developing this model have been brought to life. Also, aligning to the data collected in this study, recommendations for educational practice, such as consistency between instructors, alternative strategies for using a similar model in a different time-span, and students identified issues and potential solutions have been provided as well as continued needs for future research. All of this information is positioned to help inform future innovation education research, identifying benefits and drawbacks of the collaborative form of teaching and learning, and analyzing students’ self-perceptions of the skills they developed. Hopefully, this information will be valuable as more institutions look toward transforming teaching and learning practices to provide more engaging, cross-college models that enhance the value of the learning experiences they provide to students on their campuses.  </p>

Currently, too many pupils complete meaningless one-way writing tasks, which only their teachers receive, which makes increasing authenticity in the language contexts crucial for learners. The purpose of this study is to investigate: the experiences and opinions of two ESL 7-9 teachers in two schools in southern Sweden regarding their practices of authenticity in learning task instructions, the views of their pupils towards these writing tasks, and the benefits and challenges of integrating an authentic writing task. The Swedish steering documents emphasize that pupils should confidently adapt their languages to various purposes and learn how English is used across cultures and settings; however, authenticity does not feature heavily in the steering documents. This study used a Passion Project that incorporated explicit instructions, a recursive writing process, and a genre-based process for writing to an authentic audience. Against that background, this study seeks to answer the research questions by analyzing two teachers’ experiences and opinions, the pupils’ views toward authenticity in writing tasks, and the possible benefits and challenges. In order to collect empirical data, a mixed methodology method was applied, which included questionnaires and interviews with teachers and pupils. The results indicate that although the authentic audience is a new concept to the L2 learners, introducing it explicitly and providing examples help to reduce pupils’ nervousness. Furthermore, introducing the pupils to a new concept piques their interests and teaches them new ways to write. Therefore, writing strategies that incorporate an authentic audience are important. Despite the change from traditional to modern instructions, the pupils’ attitudes were highly favorable. Last but not least, the benefits are that pupils can relate what they are learning in the classroom to the outside world. However, there are challenges as not all pupils feel comfortable sharing something they write with others, and teachers do not always have the time to plan, organize, and execute tasks that include authentic audiences.

The English language surrounds young children from an early age, and as they growolder, it will continue to be an important part of their lives, both inside and outside ofschool. The ability to read English is therefore essential to participate in a democraticsociety. Previous research suggests that reading stories from an early age can supportyoung learners in acquiring new language. Therefore, this study aims to investigate howteachers select and use children’s literature in their EFL teaching for years 1-3. SixSwedish primary school EFL teachers have participated in this qualitative study. Theempirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The results show thatteachers express a positive attitude towards using children’s literature in their teachingand suggest several important factors when choosing and using it. However, the resultsalso indicate that teachers face challenges when implementing the materials, due tofactors such as time constraints. Despite the time constraints, several teachers usechildren’s literature because of the benefits, such as offering authentic language thatpupils can use in their daily life, both inside and outside of school.

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Swedish pupils are exposed to English outside school to a large extent today, which makes English Foreign Language (EFL) teaching challenging in several ways. The topic for this study arouse when some pupils expressed that working with text and workbooks or digital teaching materials tended to be boring or lacking challenges. Pupils meet English in various environments and in order to be able to communicate they need to have a language, not just knowing about a language. The Swedish curriculum emphasizes the importance of pupils being presented to teaching aids which can provide them with a rich and dynamic language, as well as authentic content in order to reflect on and enhance their own use of language. Previous research showed that working with authentic materials and authentic recipients may provide pupils with learning situations that promote communication and motivation to enhance pupil’s English knowledge. In order to explore Swedish EFL teachers’ perceptions on working with authentic recipients in grades 4-6, a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were conducted. Results from the questionnaire and interviews show that Swedish EFL teachers include activities with authentic recipients to some extent, but there seem to be a discrepancy between how often they do it and to what extent they wish to do it. The results also show that there is a discrepancy between what kind of activities teachers perform and what kind of activities they would like to perform. The results of teachers’ beliefs in this study may contribute to further research on possibilities to facilitate the use of authentic recipients in EFLteaching, if preferred.

The study’s intention is to research the questions of how authentic assessment could benefit EFL students’ speaking skills in Swedish upper secondary school and what some advantages and disadvantages were of doing so. To this end secondary sources were used to gather information to be able to answer the research questions. The results showed that the benefits of authentic assessment could help students’ speaking skills in improving their accuracy and fluency, their conversational skills and grammar use for communicative competency. Results also showed that authentic assessment promotes learning style diversity. Both skill and materialistic issues were found as some advantages and disadvantages of using authentic assessment when assessing EFL students’ speaking skills. Examples of advantages were authentic assessment helping students develop skills such as critical and logical thinking, interactional skills and combining cognitive objectives with attitudes and social skills. No disadvantages in favour of the students were found. However, the teacher’s lack of possible knowledge needed to use authentic assessment was noted. A final discussion expressed that authentic assessment, like any other type of assessment, has its value when used in the right context.

The field practicum is designed to offer students the opportunity to integrate knowledge and practice prior to graduation; however, students continue to lack the ability to connect theory to practice within the field practicum. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the beliefs, attitudes, and perspectives of social work students regarding the application of theory to practice within the field practicum. The conceptual framework included concepts of empowerment, empowerment theory, and social constructivism. The research question addressed how social work students at a local university described the issues related to connecting theory to practice within the field practicum. Data collection involved interviews with 6 social work practicum students, observations, and document analysis. Data were coded and analyzed to identify 4 themes: learned theories, concerns, theory to practice, and student beliefs related to theory and practice. Findings confirmed students' inability to connect theory to practice. Findings were used to develop a project incorporating simulated learning environments in social work curricula to increase the connection of theory to practice. Findings may be used to enhance students' ability to integrate theory into practice, which may strengthen the profession of social work through improved service delivery at local, state, national, and global levels.

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