Conference Agenda

In large-scale educational assessments, multiple test forms are commonly administered to ensure test security and operational feasibility. For test scores to be fairly interpreted, results from different forms must be comparable. Traditionally, test equating relies on anchor items that allow adjustments for differences in group ability. However, in many settings, anchor items are unavailable, requiring alternative approaches.

Generalized Kernel Equating (GKE) provides a flexible framework for equating test forms under various data collection designs, including the Non-equivalent Groups with Covariates (NEC) design, which incorporates background variables related to test scores to account for group differences. A methodological challenge arises when some of these background variables are themselves measured using different test forms, potentially introducing discrepancies and bias into the equating process. To address this issue, repeated equating of covariates has been proposed, where compromised covariates are first equated before being incorporated into the primary GKE process.

While previous research has demonstrated the theoretical advantages of repeated equating of covariates and its performance in simulation settings, its longitudinal behavior in real-world high-stakes assessments, where populations and testing conditions evolve over time, is less well known. This study investigates the longitudinal stability of repeated equating of covariates within the GKE-NEC framework in the context of the Czech Republic’s national upper secondary school leaving examination (matura exams). The focus is on the English Language test administered in spring and autumn terms between 2016 and 2024. Students taking the exam in the autumn term systematically differ from those in the spring term, typically showing lower performance and higher rates of repeated attempts. Furthermore, the composition of students selecting non-mandatory subjects such as English varies across years, creating additional challenges for maintaining score comparability over time.

The primary aim of the study is to investigate whether repeated equating of covariates using GKE produces stable equating scores across multiple exam years. Specifically, we analyze (a) the consistency of equated score distributions across years, (b) how changes in student populations influence equated score distributions within the GKE framework, and (c) whether pre-equating covariates enhances the robustness of equated scores over time. By providing empirical evidence from a national high-stakes assessment context, this research contributes to the understanding of covariate-based equating methods in the absence of anchor items.

Over the past decade, creative thinking has gained increasing recognition as a major educational priority. Creativity is commonly understood as a fundamental competence in education, work, and broader society, given its role in promoting individual well-being, social engagement, and economic innovation. International organisations highlight creativity and other 21st-century skills as essential educational outcomes, alongside literacy and numeracy, and associate them with higher educational attainment, improved employment prospects, and overall societal progress (Beghetto, 2021; Grey & Morris, 2024; OECD, 2023). This emphasis is also reflected in international large-scale assessment studies, where creative thinking was assessed for the first time within the OECD PISA 2022 study, in which Slovenia participated alongside 63 other countries. The PISA 2022 assessment operationalises so-called “little c” creativity through tasks embedded in four domains: written expression, visual expression, social problem solving, and scientific problem solving. These domains represent both general and domain-specific dimensions of creativity, while the tasks were designed to elicit either divergent thinking or original and creative ideas (OECD, 2024a). In addition to students’ performance, PISA also examined factors related to creative thinking through accompanying questionnaires, such as supportive home and school environments and perceived creative self-efficacy (OECD, 2019).

The initial findings of PISA 2022 study revealed concerning results for Slovenia. Slovenian 15-year-old students performed below the OECD average on the creative thinking scale. Only 73% reached the basic proficiency level, and merely 16% achieved the highest levels, compared to the OECD average of 27%. Furthermore, Slovenian students rated themselves lower than their OECD peers on several scales related to creative thinking, including creative self-efficacy, creative school, peer and family environment, creative activities in and outside school, and creativity and openness to intellect, art, and reflection. These aspects have also been identified in previous research as important predictors of students’ learning outcomes (e.g. Beghetto, 2006; Vincent-Lancrin et al., 2019; Wang & Degol, 2016). Their relevance is particularly pronounced in the Slovenian context, where the development of creative thinking has not previously been a priority in educational policy. The results are also noteworthy in light of Slovenian students’ declining performance in reading, mathematics, and science (OECD, 2023). Taken together, they point to a clear need for more systematic attention to creativity within the Slovenian educational system.

In response, the Slovenian Ministry of Education launched a project in 2024 aimed at gaining a more in-depth understanding of the state and needs in fostering the creative potential of gifted students, from the perspectives of individuals, educational institutions, and society, including policy makers. One key objective is an international comparative analysis based on PISA 2022 data and the identification of good practices from abroad. The first results of this study are presented in the following sections, focusing on two main research questions: (i) how do the results of Slovenian students on the scales of different aspects of creative thinking compare with those of countries that rank at the top according to the PISA creative thinking scale or the Global Creativity Index (i.e. Finland, France, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Switzerland)?, and (ii) which of these aspects of creative thinking significantly predict students’ performance in creative thinking on the PISA 2022 scale in Slovenia?

As such, the study contributes to research on creativity in education by offering a national-level examination of creative thinking and its key predictors. Using large-scale assessment data, the findings provide evidence-based implications for educational policy and practice and strengthen international comparative perspectives on fostering creative thinking across educational contexts.

Academic writing is an important skill for people learning a second language, especially when they are at the upper-intermediate level. At this stage, learners are expected to express clear and logical ideas, think critically, and use the right language for academic situations. However, numerous research continuously shows that only feedback doesnot improve completely unless students actively process and interpret it. (Carless & Boud,2018). Because some learners apply revisions at a surface level or ignore comments that they do not comprehend (Ferris,2018). Reflective writing is increasingly recognized as a type of deepening learning where the intentional examination of one’s writing decisions, learning strategies and feedback responses are summarized. (Boud, Keogh & Walker,2013). According to Colomer et al.(2013) and Hyeler (2015) reflection is a process of exploring experiences to develop understanding and appreciation, is a fundamental feature of transformative learning. Learning through reflection is not only a question of acquiring knowledge or skills, but a matter of redevising the relationship between knowledge, practice, and experience. Reflective writing fosters metacognitive awareness by motivating students to analyze their strong sides, weak points, and strategic choices (Zimmerman,2013). While writing reflection learners describe what they discovered, defend revisions, and make plans for further development. Moreover, the other research highlights that reflection can assist self-regulated learning, enhance noticing of linguistic features, and enhance the transfer of feedback to new assignments (Boudet al.,2013;Yang,Badger,& u,2006)

Peer and teacher feedback are essential aspects of process-based writing as the former encourages collaboration, audience awareness, and critical evaluation of others’ texts, while the latter presents expert guidance and input. However, many learners consider feedback as a passive correction activity rather than as a resource for improvement (Ferris, 2018). Reflective writing allows students to consider the reasons behind their decisions, the relationship between feedback and learning objectives, and the necessary modifications serving as a link between receiving and applying feedback in this way. In EFL environments, reflective writing has been associated with improved organization, rhetorical awareness, and revision depth (Chen, 2020). Reflection journals have been shown to assist learners evaluate peer comments more analytically and integrate teacher feedback more efficiently (Lee, 2017). However, empirical evidence combining reflection, peer and teacher feedback at school level remains minimal. Therefore, this study attempts to extend previous work by providing quantitative and qualitative evidence of reflective writing’s effects on academic essay performance. Teachers who use a reflective approach to teaching enable students to participate in the meaning-making process (Xhaferi & Xhaferi,2017)

The research question is:

After receiving feedback from peers and teachers, how do students view the impact of reflective writing on their writing techniques, metacognitive awareness, and self-regulated learning in academic writing?

The participants were 49 upper-intermediate students at intellectual school who share comparable academic experiences and English proficiency levels. Students were divided into three groups: 2 experimental groups(1EG and 2EG) consisting of 16 students in each and control group(CG) (17). All groups followed same course-syllabus and were taught by the same instructor to minimize instructional variability.

A quasi-experimental research-design with pre- and post-writing tasks was employed, all participants completed three argumentative writing using prompt type “Discuss both views and give your opinion,” which is chosen according to test specification for summative tasks. The essay topics addressed 1)Virtual Reality and its impact on human communication, 2)Space Tourism emerging industry,3)Space funding priorities. All essays were written under-timed, exam-style conditions to guarantee uniformity and replicate actual assessment situations.

Both experimental and control groups followed the same writing cycle. It included submission of an initial draft, participation in peer-feedback session, teacher-feedback, and submission of a final revised draft. Main difference between them was in post-feedback period since students in

Contemporary educational research increasingly emphasises reflective thinking as a key mechanism for deep learning and learner autonomy. Reflection is commonly understood as a metacognitive process through which learners analyse their learning experiences, evaluate understanding, and regulate future actions. Recent studies show that structured reflection supports the development of self-regulated learning by enabling students to identify both strengths and gaps in their understanding . In lower secondary education, where learners gradually move toward greater academic independence, reflective practices play a crucial role in fostering awareness of learning processes rather than focusing solely on task completion. However, reflection does not occur spontaneously. Without pedagogical scaffolding, students’ reflective responses often remain descriptive and superficial. Learners may report what they did during a lesson without analysing what they understood or failed to understand. This limitation has led researchers to argue for the use of explicit reflective frameworks that guide learners through systematic stages of analysis and goal-setting. From this perspective, reflective thinking is not merely an individual cognitive act but a pedagogically mediated process shaped by instructional design and classroom practices. Formative feedback has long been recognised as a powerful influence on student learning. More recent scholarship, however, has shifted attention from the delivery of feedback to students’ ability to engage with it meaningfully. This shift is captured in the concept of feedback literacy, defined as learners’ capacity to understand, interpret, and use feedback to improve learning. Studies demonstrate that feedback is most effective when students are positioned as active participants rather than passive recipients. Gan, An, and Liu (2021) argue that dialogic feedback practices, which encourage questioning, reflection, and interaction, are more effective in enhancing engagement and learning outcomes than corrective or transmissive feedback. At the same time, Torrance (2020) cautions that overly procedural approaches to formative assessment may limit learning by reducing feedback to compliance-oriented tasks. These perspectives highlight the need for pedagogical models that balance structure with learner agency and reflective depth.

Within this theoretical context, the 3D (Discovery–Doubt–Direction) method is proposed as a structured reflective framework integrating reflection with formative feedback. The Discovery stage focuses on recognising learning achievements and constructing meaning from experience. The Doubt stage represents a key theoretical contribution of the model. In this study, doubt is reconceptualised not as emotional uncertainty, but as a metacognitive phase of identifying incomplete understanding, conceptual gaps, and learning difficulties. This interpretation aligns with contemporary research on self-assessment and metacognitive monitoring, which emphasises that recognising “what is not yet understood” is essential for effective learning regulation (Panadero et al., 2023). The Direction stage involves goal-setting and strategic planning, enabling learners to translate reflection into concrete learning actions. By explicitly linking reflection to action, the 3D method addresses critiques that reflective activities often fail to result in meaningful learning improvement. The effectiveness of reflective feedback practices is closely connected to learners’ diverse readiness levels, learning profiles, and interests. Differentiated instruction, as conceptualised by Carol Ann Tomlinson, provides a theoretical foundation for addressing learner diversity through flexible content, process, and product. Recent research highlights the role of differentiation in promoting equity and inclusion through adaptive learning processes and responsive feedback (Tomlinson & Murphy, 2022). Within the 3D method, differentiation is operationalised through varied reflective prompts, scaffolds, and modes of expression, allowing learners with different levels of confidence and achievement to engage meaningfully in reflection (Carless et al., 2020). By integrating reflective learning theory, feedback literacy, formative assessment, and differentiated instruction, this study conceptualises reflective thinking as a dialogic, metacognitive, and pedagogically structured process. The 3D method thus provides a coherent theoretical framework for developing reflective thinking in lower secondary education.

This study aimed to develop culturally context-sensitive self-report measures of Virtue Practice and Meaning Exploration for upper elementary students and to provide preliminary evidence of reliability and validity. Social-emotional and character development contributes to children’s well-being, interpersonal functioning, and school adjustment, and is essential for evaluating the effectiveness of character education programs. Given the diversity of construct definitions across programs and the growing need for culturally responsive measurement, we developed two scales grounded in the MVP framework, in which M represents moral thinking, V represents virtue practice, and P represents purpose exploration. Scale development followed five steps: construct definition and literature synthesis, item pool generation, expert review and revision, pilot administration with item analysis, and validation of the measurement model. For Virtue Practice, eight core virtues (fairness, respect, courage, honesty, cooperation, empathy, gratitude, and love/care) were consolidated into four dimensions: Fairness/Respect, Courage/Honesty, Empathy/Care and Gratitude, and Cooperation. An initial pool of 98 items was reviewed by experts and reduced to 54 items. For Meaning Exploration, four subscales were specified—Emotional Awareness and Regulation, Self-Control and Regulation, Self-Exploration, and Growth Motivation—yielding 70 draft items that were reduced to 46 items after expert review. Pilot data were collected from 172 students in Grades 3 to 5 (53% boys, 47% girls). Items with low discrimination were removed based on item–total correlations and factor loadings; items with item–total correlations below .30 were deleted. The final Virtue Practice scale included 41 items. Internal consistency estimates (Cronbach’s α) for the four Virtue Practice subscales ranged from .67 to .82. The Meaning Exploration scale was further refined to 32 items, with subscale α coefficients ranging from .61 to .81. To evaluate construct validity, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted in R using the lavaan package. Given the ordinal response format and modest sample size, polychoric correlations were used and parameters were estimated with the WLSMV estimator. Model fit for Virtue Practice was acceptable to good (χ²/df = 1.95, CFI = .95, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .075). Model fit for Meaning Exploration was acceptable (χ²/df = 2.32, CFI = .95, TLI = .94, RMSEA = .088). In a paired subsample (n = 107), Meaning Exploration scores were significantly lower than Virtue Practice scores (t(106) = 9.16, p < .001), with Self-Control/Regulation lowest within Meaning Exploration. Overall, results provide initial psychometric support for the two scales and suggest their potential utility for evaluating character education and related interventions in elementary school settings. The Meaning Exploration model demonstrated acceptable fit; future work will further refine items and conduct cross-sample validation to improve model stability.

1. Research Questions:

RQ1: What evidence supports the validity and reliability of the Computational Thinking Anxiety Scale (CTAS) for assessing computational thinking anxiety (CTA) across late childhood and adolescence?

RQ2: How is CTA related to computational thinking performance (CTP)?

RQ3: How does this relationship diverge from general trait anxiety and vary across individual characteristics such as age, gender, and programming experience?

2.Theoretical Framework:
The study is grounded in an integrative, multi-theoretical framework that bridges affective science, cognitive development, and computational thinking theory. It posits CTA as a dynamic, multidimensional construct emerging from cognitive-affective-behavioral interactions during engagement with core computational thinking (CT) processes.

First, the Integrated Model of Emotion and Cognition (Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000) provides the foundational premise that affective states like anxiety are not mere epiphenomena but are fundamentally intertwined with cognitive processing, jointly shaping competence development. This is critical for understanding how anxiety can specifically impair components of the CT process.

Second, to operationalize the phenomenology of anxiety, we integrated the American Psychological Association’s tripartite model of emotion (APA, 2025b) with the classic ABC Model of Attitude (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). This yielded a triple-ABC framework defining CTA across synchronized manifestations: Affective (Physiological Symptoms: e.g., arousal), Behavioral (Stressful Behaviors: e.g., avoidance), and Cognitive (Cognitive Impairment: e.g., worry, mental blocking).

Third, to anchor this affective-behavioral-cognitive superstructure specifically within the CT domain, we populated it with a refined, domain-general CT competency model (Shute et al., 2017; Wing, 2006). This model conceptualizes CT as a systematic sequence involving decomposition, abstraction, algorithmic design, debugging, iteration, generalization, pattern recognition and parallelism. This creates a precise matrix for locating anxiety (e.g., cognitive impairment in pattern-recognition).

Finally, a developmental psychometric perspective, informed by Piagetian theory (Piaget, 1972), underpins the investigation. We hypothesized that the architecture of CTA is not static but evolves in tandem with cognitive maturation, particularly during the transition from concrete to formal operational thought, leading to predictable reorganizations in the salience of specific anxiety dimensions.

This robust, layered framework guided the item generation for the CTAS, ensuring it captures the full, developmentally-sensitive phenomenology of anxiety within the unique cognitive architecture of CT, while rigorously distinguishing it from related constructs like programming anxiety or general trait anxiety.

Design Thinking (DT) originated in professional design practice as an iterative approach used by designers to meet user needs (Liedtka, 2015). In the information age, DT has expanded beyond traditional design domains and has become an essential method for non-designers to address complex, technology-driven environments that require frequent problem solving. Research has documented DT applications in social innovation, healthcare, business, and engineering (Razzouk & Shute, 2012). Interest in integrating DT into early childhood education is also increasing, as DT-related interventions have been shown to positively influence young children’s STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) dispositions (Ata-Aktürk & Demircan, 2021), problem-solving skills (Yalçın & Erden, 2021), and 21st-century skills (Yalçın & Öztürk, 2022). These competencies are important for helping children thrive in a rapidly changing, technology-driven world.

Despite this growing recognition, research on DT among preschool children remains constrained by the lack of appropriate measurement tools. As a result, most existing studies have relied primarily on qualitative methods (e.g., Hatzigianni et al., 2021), and a systematic quantitative evaluation framework has not yet been established. In other educational stages, however, scholars have developed scales assessing students’ DT dispositions (Tsai & Wang, 2021), DT skills (Ergin & Coşkun, 2024), and DT mindsets (Vignoli et al., 2023). Developing a DT scale specifically for preschool children would advance quantitative research in this area, facilitate empirical studies, and provide an evidence-based foundation for pedagogical practice. Therefore, this study aimed to fill the research gap by developing and validating a DT scale with a sample of Chinese preschool teachers and children.

Prior research has highlighted the relevance of the IDEO (Innovation Design Engineering Organization) model and the Stanford d. school (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford) model for early childhood DT education (Hatzigianni et al., 2021;Yalçın & Öztürk, 2022). The former is derived from the DT toolkit launched by IDEO (2012) for educators, in which DT is defined as a human-centered mindset and follows the process of discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation, and evolution (p. 14). The Stanford d. School’s (2018) DT model also consists of five steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test (p. 1), primarily aims at promoting the academic research and educational dissemination of DT. These two institutions share a close history and collaborative relationship, and their core methods and tools are deeply interconnected (Brown, 2009). Given that the Stanford d. school’s DT model is widely used in the field of educational dissemination, this study adopts it as the theoretical foundation for scale development.

A review of the existing literature on the development and validation of DT scales reveals that most scales are derived from the DT models proposed by IDEO and Stanford d. School (Cai & Yang, 2023; Chen et al., 2023; Ergin & Coşkun, 2024; Tsai & Wang, 2021). In these scales, the stages of the DT model are typically used as the primary dimensions. Additionally, some scholars have also considered the developmental appropriateness of the target measurement population, incorporating other competencies that frequently emerge during DT activities as additional dimensions (e.g., Vignoli et al., 2023). Furthermore, items in the existing DT scales are usually designed in Likert-scale formats (e.g., Chen et al., 2023). However, it is worth noting that there is a research gap in the availability of developmentally appropriate and psychometrically reliable DT assessments explicitly tailored for preschool children. Therefore, the primary aim of the current study is to address this gap by developing a DT measurement scale that is both developmentally appropriate and psychometrically sound for preschool children.