Search Results (5,240)

Background and Objectives: While the effectiveness of video modeling (VM) in teaching academic, daily living, and social skills to individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is frequently investigated, studies examining the use of VM in teaching gymnastics-based motor skills are limited. This study aimed to examine the effects of VM on the acquisition and maintenance of a gymnastics-based motor skills in preschool children with ASD. Methods: The study employed a multiple-probe method across participants in a single-subject research design. Three preschool children diagnosed with mild ASD participated in this study. Baseline, intervention, and follow-up data were systematically collected and analyzed. Social validity data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with parents and special education teachers. Results: The percentage of correct responses increased throughout the VM intervention sessions, and all participants reached the proficiency criterion. Follow-up data collected after the intervention showed that the acquired skill was maintained, and the percentages of correct responses ranged from 80% to 100%. Social validity findings revealed that both teachers and parents perceived VM as an effective and feasible teaching approach for teaching motor skills to children with ASD. Conclusions: The research findings demonstrate that VM is an effective and socially valid teaching method for teaching and maintaining gymnastics-based motor skills in preschool children with ASD. These results contribute to the existing literature by demonstrating the applicability of video modeling in the context of gymnastics-based training. Full article

This study explores how residents of Vrnjačka Banja (Serbia) perceive the impacts of tourism and how these attitudes influence their support for future tourism development. Specifically, it examines positive and negative economic, socio-cultural, and environmental impacts, as well as the types of tourism residents favor. Data were collected from 420 local residents using a structured survey, and the reliability of the scales was confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha. Descriptive statistics provided an overview of participant characteristics, while MANOVA and follow-up ANOVA tests were used to examine differences in perceived tourism impacts across tourism types. Multiple linear regression was used to assess how attitudes toward positive and negative impacts predict residents’ support for future tourism development. The results indicate that attitudes toward positive impacts are relatively consistent across residents, whereas negative socio-cultural and environmental impacts differ depending on the type of tourism they support. Regression analysis shows that positive socio-cultural and environmental impacts are the strongest drivers of residents’ support, while negative socio-cultural and economic impacts reduce support. These findings highlight the importance of social and environmental considerations in shaping community attitudes and suggest that sustainable tourism planning should prioritize local well-being and responsible environmental management alongside economic objectives. This study contributes to the literature by addressing the heterogeneity in residents’ attitudes through tourism type preferences, while also highlighting the limited research on this topic in spa destinations. It further provides practical guidance for destination managers and policymakers in developing more targeted and sustainable tourism strategies. Full article

Background: Small-sided games (SSG) and running-based high-intensity interval training (HIIT) are commonly used in soccer conditioning to improve aerobic fitness and performance. Although both modalities induce high cardiovascular stress, their acute neuromuscular, perceptual, and cognitive responses remain incompletely understood when examined within the same cohort. This study compared the acute physical, psychophysiological, and cognitive responses to SSG and Tabata-type HIIT in amateur male soccer players. Methods: Thirty-two male amateur players (n = 32; age: 20.53 ± 1.65 years) completed a counterbalanced within-subject crossover design. Participants performed a 4v4 SSG protocol and a running-based Tabata-HIIT protocol (8 × 20 s, 10 s recovery) on separate days (48 h apart). Countermovement jump (CMJ), squat jump (SJ), 20-m sprint, agility t-test, heart rate, perceived exertion (Borg CR-10), mental effort, and cognitive performance (d2 test) were assessed pre- and post-exercise. Parametric variables were analyzed using 2 × 2 repeated-measures ANOVA (time × protocol; η²p), and non-parametric data were analyzed using Friedman and Wilcoxon tests (r) (p < 0.05). Results: Both protocols elicited similar cardiovascular responses (~90% HR_max). A significant protocol × time interaction was observed for CMJ (p < 0.001), showing a decline after Tabata-HIIT, whereas performance was maintained after SSG. No inter-protocol differences were found for SJ, sprint, or agility. Perceived exertion and mental effort during recovery were higher following Tabata-HIIT (p < 0.05). Cognitive performance improved after both protocols (p < 0.001), with no between-protocol differences. Conclusions: Despite comparable cardiovascular load, Tabata-HIIT was associated with greater acute neuromuscular and perceptual strain, whereas SSG preserved neuromuscular performance. Perceptual and mental responses may therefore differ despite similar physiological intensity, which may inform soccer training prescription. Full article

Background: Older adults are particularly vulnerable to heat related illness due to impaired thermoregulatory responses. Heat acclimation (HA) strategies can mitigate the negative impacts of high environmental temperatures on physiological and perceptual responses. Whilst active HA strategies may prove problematic for older adults, passive approaches such as hot water immersion (HWI) may be more feasible. Methods: This study investigated the effects of four consecutive days of HWI on physiological and perceptual markers in individuals aged over 65 years during moderate exercise. Nine healthy, recreationally active participants (76 ± 5 years) completed two 30 min cycling bouts at 75–80% age predicted HR_max pre- and post-four days of HWI at 40 °C. Measures of average HR, gastrointestinal temperature, skin temperature, thermal sensation, thermal comfort, rate of perceived exertion, power output, and distance covered were recorded during both exercise bouts. Results: Results showed a significant increase in exercise capacity as measured by power output (p < 0.05, 7.45 W) post-intervention, despite no change in ratings of perceived exertion, and reductions in average heart rate (112 ± 3 vs. 109 ± 4 bpm). There were no alterations in gastrointestinal or skin temperature, and ratings of thermal comfort and sensation remained unchanged post-intervention. Conclusions: These preliminary findings provide important new evidence that four days of passive HWI may be a practical and effective method of inducing physiological adaptations in older individuals, which may be of use in interventions to mitigate the negative impact of high environmental temperatures in this population. Full article

This study explores how school leadership styles are perceived to relate to teacher resilience during crises in Arab schools in Israel. Drawing on twenty semi-structured interviews with principals and vice-principals, findings show that transformational and participative leadership, characterized by emotional support, accessibility, active listening, and shared decision-making, are perceived to foster teachers’ sense of security, self-efficacy, and collective resilience. In contrast, authoritarian and rigid approaches are described as contributing to increased stress, reduced motivation, and diminished coping capacity. The study highlights the significance of socio-cultural and political contexts, indicating that effective leadership in crises involves not only professional guidance but also cultural awareness, flexibility, and responsiveness to staff needs. These findings underscore the value of integrative leadership approaches and targeted professional development to support teacher well-being and organizational resilience in crisis-prone settings. By focusing on leaders’ perspectives, the study contributes to understanding how culturally sensitive and adaptive leadership practices may support educational stability under conditions of uncertainty. Full article

Many physics educators seek to improve their courses but feel constrained by traditional post-secondary structures and norms. Instructors often perceive a false tension between fostering inclusive learning environments and maintaining the rigor central to the discipline. The Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) Guide synthesizes decades of research-based recommendations for improving physics education. However, it offers limited guidance on how to integrate these diverse recommendations into a coherent, course-level approach—a responsibility that falls to individual instructors, whose graduate training prepared them primarily as researchers rather than as educators. This paper begins by motivating and introducing the Practicing Professionalism Framework (PPF), a course design framework developed in alignment with EP3 recommendations that encourages development of professional skills in a way that connects students’ interests and values to the broader physics community. We present the PPF in sufficient detail to enable motivated faculty to adopt and adapt it as a research-informed tool for aligning their course design with both their professional values and instructional goals. Next we present the PPF implemented in two very different instructional contexts, demonstrating how the PPF can offer a structured pathway for making courses more inclusive while preserving disciplinary rigor. We conclude with observations across the two case studies. Full article

This study examines the acceptance-related and usage patterns of smart office furniture among Chinese office users. Building on UTAUT2 and a usability-oriented perspective, we compare five alternative structural models that assign different roles to perceived usability in explaining intention and self-reported use of smart office furniture. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling on 239 valid responses, and comparing explanatory performance with out-of-sample prediction, we found that the model in which perceived usability and behavioral intention jointly predict use performed slightly better, although two specifications should be regarded as closely competing alternatives. Results show that facilitating conditions, effort expectancy, price value, and habit are positively associated with behavioral intention, whereas habit, perceived usability, and behavioral intention are positively associated with self-reported usage behavior. Robustness checks with sedentary-context controls indicate that discomfort is positively associated with adoption intention, whereas posture-management tendency is positively associated with self-reported usage behavior. Overall, the main pattern of associations remains broadly similar. The findings suggest a cross-sectional intention–behavior pattern among experienced Chinese users and offer actionable implications for usability-centered design, service delivery, and health-needs-based market segmentation. Full article

2S/LGBTQIA+ survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) face multiple, intersecting barriers to accessing care, yet little is known about how these barriers are shaped by IPV-caused brain injury (IPV-BI). Background/Objectives: This study aimed to explore how stigma and institutional trust influence 2S/LGBTQIA+ survivors’ experiences of help-seeking following IPV-BI. Guided by a Community Advisory Board, four semi-structured focus groups were conducted with 29 2S/LGBTQIA+ IPV-BI survivors. Methods: Reflexive thematic analysis was used to examine participants’ help-seeking accounts, with attention to minority stress and intersecting stigmas related to IPV, BI, and 2S/LGBTQIA+ identity. Results: The findings indicate that survivors navigated compounded stigmas that limited access to safe, affirming services and heightened vulnerability during help-seeking. Institutional trust was central to participants’ decisions to disclose sensitive information and engage in care, with confidentiality emerging as a critical determinant of perceived safety. Participants described negotiating disclosure, anticipating discrimination, and avoiding services when systems were perceived as unsafe or unresponsive. Conclusions: These findings highlight the need for service systems to integrate IPV-BI into screening and support protocols, provide training on the intersections of IPV, BI, and 2S/LGBTQIA+ identities, and centre confidentiality as a condition for trust and access, ultimately fostering safer, more responsive systems of care. Full article

The rapid adoption of immersive and adaptive digital technologies is redefining sustainability education, but the mechanisms by which these technologies support perceived sustainability outcomes remain unclear. This paper models the Digital Experiential Learning Ecosystem (DELE), including simulation, AR/VR, gamification, AI personalization, and collaborative digital platforms, as a higher-order construct. It discusses its role in Perceived Sustainability Outcomes through learning engagement. Basing the study on the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework, the study hypothesizes that the digital ecosystem design can be viewed as an environmental stimulus, engagement as the organismic processing state, and Perceived Sustainability Outcomes as the developmental response. The results, obtained using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), indicate that DELE is positively associated with learning engagement and Perceived Sustainability Outcomes. Learning engagement is found to be the leading mechanism through which digital experiential environments are converted into perceived sustainability outcomes, but a smaller yet significant direct structural relationship also remains. These findings indicate that digital transformation within the education sector creates sustainable value not only through technological sophistication but also through carefully planned engagement-based learning environments that support systems thinking, applied problem-solving, and adaptive readiness to work in multifaceted environments. The research also advances the body of research on sustainability education by developing a model of digital learning as an integrated ecosystem and by explaining the psychological and structural processes of perceived sustainability outcomes. Full article

This study examines the gap concerning occupants’ perceived thermal comfort and objectively measured indoor conditions in a green university building in Riyadh. The purpose is to assess occupant satisfaction with thermal conditions, compare subjective responses with physical measurements, and derive design and operational implications for educational buildings in hot-arid climates. The primary aim was to assess occupant satisfaction with indoor thermal conditions and to measure key environmental parameters to provide a thorough assessment of thermal comfort. A cross-sectional approach was used, combining subjective data from the Center for the Built Environment (CBE) Occupant Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) survey with objective measurements of air temperature, relative humidity, mean radiant temperature, and air velocity, which were documented over five consecutive working days during the mid-winter period in Riyadh. These parameters were explored using the CBE Thermal Comfort Tool to calculate Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied (PPD) indices. Statistical analyses examined the relationship between occupant-reported comfort and measured environmental conditions. Results showed that only 36% of occupants reported satisfaction with thermal comfort, while 48% expressed dissatisfaction. In contrast, objective measurements indicated stable indoor conditions within recommended comfort ranges (average temperature 23 °C, humidity 30–34%, MRT 24 °C, air velocity 0.5–1.0 m/s), with PMV values near neutral (−0.2 to 0.0) and PPD below 6%. The observed discrepancy highlights the influence of regional climate, individual adaptability, and perceived control. These findings emphasize the need to integrate both subjective feedback and objective measurements to develop occupant-centered strategies that enhance comfort and well-being in sustainable educational buildings in hot-arid climates. Full article

BIM is a key technology for the digital transformation and sustainable development of the construction industry through enhanced productivity, transparency, and fostered innovation. Although scholars have investigated the constructs driving BIM adoption intention, a comprehensive framework has seldom been adopted, and thus some vital factors have been overlooked, such as collaboration partner pressure. Meanwhile, the targeted group is usually practitioners of a certain type of company while a construction project requires the participation of multiple types of companies. To address these research gaps, the aim of this study is to explore the factors driving various stakeholders’ intention to adopt BIM by applying the TOE framework, considering nine factors across three dimensions. A total of 512 valid responses from owners, consulting firms, design firms, construction companies, suppliers, engineering surveying firms, and universities or research institutes were collected and analyzed through the structural equation modeling (SEM) method. The SEM results indicated that six factors were positively related to the intention to employ BIM, among which management commitment (β = 0.182, p < 0.001) and perceived ease of use (β = 0.180, p < 0.001) exhibited the strongest effects. However, three factors (perceived usefulness, supporting technical facilities, and mimetic pressure) exerted no significant influence. The findings of this study may provide a valuable reference for promoting the application of BIM technology in the construction industry. Full article

The current study aimed to examine whether Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation is associated with higher patient satisfaction. A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based comparative study was conducted between April and July 2025 in outpatient departments of one JCI-accredited hospital (University Medical Center) and two nationally accredited public polyclinics in Astana, Kazakhstan. The questionnaire was designed to assess satisfaction across four domains: communication, staff responsiveness, hospital environment, and perceived quality of care. The patients attending the JCI-accredited hospital demonstrated significantly higher satisfaction across all domains compared to those of nationally accredited hospitals (p < 0.01). The largest difference was observed in staff responsiveness. In the multivariable regression analysis, the accreditation status emerged as the strongest independent predictor of overall patient satisfaction score (β = 0.42; 95% CI: 0.31–0.53; p < 0.001), even after adjusting for age, gender, education, employment status, and prior hospital visits. Education level and previous hospital experience were modest yet statistically significant predictors, whereas age, gender, and employment status were not significant in the adjusted analyses. JCI accreditation was associated with higher patient satisfaction scores in outpatient care settings, indicating a positive relationship between accreditation status and patient-centered outcomes. Full article

Understanding how users perceive and attend to the anthropomorphic appearance and empathic responses of artificial intelligence medical conversational agents (AIMCAs) can help reveal the key judgment cues underlying trust formation and use decisions, while also informing interface and dialog design. To this end, this study employs a 3 (appearance anthropomorphism: high, medium, low) × 2 (empathic response: present, absent) within-subject eye-tracking experiment, combined with subjective scales and brief post-task open-ended feedback. During a static prototype viewing task based on hypothetical consultation scenarios, we concurrently recorded trust, behavioral intention, and visual measures for key areas of interest (AOIs; appearance area, conversational content area, and overall interface area). Eye-tracking measures were normalized by AOI coverage proportion to improve cross-AOI comparability. The results show that both anthropomorphic appearance and empathic response significantly increased users’ trust in AIMCAs and their behavioral intention. An interaction between these two types of social cues was also observed, suggesting that when visual embodiment and linguistic style are aligned at the social level, users are more likely to form favorable overall judgments. At the level of visual processing, however, no interaction effect was found, and the eye-tracking measures showed only partial main effects, indicating that subjective synergy does not necessarily correspond to synergistic changes in attentional allocation. Overall, anthropomorphic appearance and empathic response exerted consistent facilitating effects on outcome variables, but displayed different patterns of attentional allocation and information prioritization at the visual level. Accordingly, AIMCA design should emphasize consistency between appearance cues and conversational strategies, optimize users’ initial judgments and interface comprehension, and use intention through verifiable information organization and clear boundary cues. Full article

Major social, cultural, and sociopolitical events routinely disrupt daily life, yet their effects on sleep are rarely conceptualized at the population level beyond anecdotal sharing. The purpose of this Opinion piece is to initiate a preliminary discussion of “public sleep” as a novel construct describing systematic, event-related changes in sleep timing, duration, and quality that emerge coherently within communities in response to shared social experiences. Drawing on similarities with the well-established concept of public mood, we posit that sleep can be shaped by social environments in which shared attention, emotional climate, and coordinated schedules exert systematic influence. In support of this claim, we describe preliminary evidence from diverse domains demonstrating population-level sleep disruption following major events, including the transition to Daylight Saving Time, national elections, prolonged crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and armed conflicts, and highly salient cultural activities such as major sporting events. These reports from disparate fields provide an initial indication that public sleep disruptions can be acute or prolonged, geographically localized or global, and may be shaped by the duration, emotional intensity, and perceived importance of the associated event. We further highlight the potential public health, safety, social, and economic consequences of collective sleep loss, underscoring its relevance beyond individual well-being. Finally, we outline key directions for future research, emphasizing the need for systematic reviews, mechanistic studies, longitudinal designs, and policy-relevant recommendations. Recognizing public sleep as a measurable population phenomenon would provide a foundation for anticipating, monitoring, and mitigating sleep disruption during periods of collective strain, with implications for both individual health and societal resilience. Full article

Distance learners in higher education are often assumed to face limited peer interaction, potentially weakening their sense of belonging. This study examines peer relationships and belonging among students in distance and blended university programs, with attention to the role of virtual reality (VR) within digitally mediated learning environments. Immersive VR teaching is included in the curriculum for distance learning students in the studied programs. Using a mixed-methods design, survey data and open-ended responses were collected from 17 students in Information Studies and Information Service Design. An adapted Classroom Community Scale was supplemented with items addressing the perceived contribution of different communication technologies. Contrary to expectations, fully distance learners did not report weaker agreement with statements reflecting belonging than blended students; on several items, they expressed stronger agreement, particularly regarding perceived peer support and learning opportunities. Results indicate that conventional 2D communication tools, particularly chats and video calls, are central to sustaining peer relationships. VR was not perceived as essential but described by some students as an added value supporting shared experience and group cohesion. Overall, belonging emerges as a socio-technical achievement shaped by communication practices rather than physical proximity. Full article