Sari Karmina

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in education, yet evidence regarding its adoption by kindergarten teachers remains limited, particularly in Indonesian early childhood settings. This study investigated the AI tools used by kindergarten teachers, their educational purposes, implementation challenges, and technology acceptance factors influencing AI integration in Malang, Indonesia. The design used was an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach. Ten Guru Penggerak and five kindergarten administrators participated in interviews, observations, and document analysis to gather qualitative data. Findings informed a questionnaire administered to 250 kindergarten teachers selected through equal-allocation stratified random sampling across five districts of Malang City. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze quantitative data. Qualitative findings showed that teachers used AI for lesson planning, play-based learning design, storytelling, media creation, assessment, documentation, parent communication, and professional learning. Teachers critically reviewed AI-generated content to ensure developmental, curricular, cultural, ethical, and safety appropriateness. Major challenges included limited AI literacy, inadequate infrastructure, restricted premium features, inaccurate outputs, insufficient institutional support, and privacy concerns. According to quantitative findings, behavioral intention was positively and substantially correlated with performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and enabling factors, but there was no statistically significant correlation with social influence. Behavioral intention influenced the effects of performance expectation, effort expectancy, and enabling environments and was substantially correlated with self-reported AI integration. These results imply that teachers’ perceptions of AI’s utility, usability, institutional support, and professional competence all play a role in its successful incorporation in kindergarten. Strengthening AI literacy, prompting skills, ethical awareness, and developmentally appropriate pedagogical practices is essential for sustainable AI implementation in early childhood education.

Deep learning has become an increasingly popular topic in the literature as a solution to Indonesia's surface-level learning outcomes. However, little is known about how teachers turn this pedagogical approach into everyday, technology-mediated EFL practice. Using a qualitative multiple-case study design, this study examined how four Indonesian senior high school EFL teachers and eight students across two public senior high schools enacted deep learning through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis. Findings show that technology worked as an interactional interface between teachers' pedagogical goals and students' engagement. This extends the HCI perspective in educational technology by showing that technology's mediating role depended not only on tool affordances, but also on task design, interaction demands, and feedback patterns. Four technology-mediated functions were found. Pen pal platforms repositioned English as an authentic communication tool. ChatGPT helped reduce speaking anxiety through low-pressure practice. Padlet and Facebook expanded the audience for students' writing and provided space for peer feedback. YouTube brought language learning into contact with global media and critical engagement with it. Pedagogy, rather than technology, established the level of cognitive involvement in the learning process. These factors impeded it: large class sizes, administrative pressure on teachers, an exam-based learning culture, and unequal access to technology. The results further our understanding of technology's role as a pedagogical medium in language teaching from a Human-Computer Interaction perspective.

While previous research has demonstrated positive short-term effects of such courses, few studies have examined changes sustained over an extended period, particularly in urban contexts facing ecological challenges. This study seeks to explore the long-term impact of integrating environmental topics into essay writing courses on EFL university students’ environmental literacy in Malang, Indonesia. Using a qualitative case study design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten students two years after they participated in the course. Thematic analysis revealed significant transformations across cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions. Students developed a deeper understanding of environmental issues, formed emotional connections to ecological concerns, and adopted sustainable practices in daily life. They also showed increased motivation to share environmental knowledge with their communities. These findings suggest that essay writing courses that incorporate environmental themes can foster meaningful, long-lasting changes in students’ attitudes and behaviors. This research contributes to the broader discourse on environmental education in EFL settings and highlights the potential of writing courses as a platform for cultivating environmental awareness and action.

Cooperative learning (CL) is an instructional approach that facilitates students’ knowledge construction through collaborative interaction in small groups. This qualitative case study explores how CL has been applied in an international primary classroom setting where located in Gresik East Java Indonesia. Two English teachers were interviewed using semi-structured interview and their classes were observed to collect the data. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings showed that CL enhances active engagement, collaboration, and cognitive learning. However, teachers faced several barriers in implementing CL, including time constraints, differences in student’s skill levels, and classroom management. To address these challenges, teachers employed diagnostic assessments, flexible grouping, and structured reflections. These findings suggest that while CL is beneficial, its success depends on sufficient teacher training, especially in culturally diverse classrooms. The study underscores the importance of sustained professional training and adaptive strategies to maximize the effectiveness of CL in multicultural setting.

Sustained motivation in extensive reading (ER) is essential for fostering long-term reading habits. The L2 Motivational Self-System (L2MSS)—comprising the ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and L2 learning experience—provides a framework for understanding motivation in second-language learning contexts. However, the specific role of L2MSS in motivating learners to persist in ER remains underexplored. This explanatory sequential mixed-method study investigated the relationship between L2MSS components and students’ willingness to continue ER. Data were collected from 64 English department students at a university in Malang, Indonesia, through quantitative surveys followed by qualitative interviews to contextualize the findings. The quantitative analysis revealed that the ideal L2 self was the strongest predictor of students’ willingness to engage in ER. The ought-to L2 self and L2 learning experience were found to have a lesser but still notable impact. Qualitative findings indicated that students recognized the value of ER and identified supportive environments, such as positive teacher and peer interactions, as key facilitators of their engagement. The results underscore the primacy of the ideal L2 self in sustaining motivation for ER, while the acknowledgment of ER's benefits and a conducive learning environment also played supportive roles. These findings suggest that educators should emphasize the intrinsic value of ER and cultivate an encouraging environment to strengthen students' self-commitment. The study highlights the importance of fostering the ideal L2 self and promoting supportive ER environments. Educators should actively advocate the value of ER to students and their families to enhance long-term engagement.

Evidence has shown that social and emotional learning (SEL) improves students' behavior, attitudes, peer relationships, and academic outcomes. However, teachers have challenges in promoting SEL due to insufficient professional development and pedagogical strategies. Cooperative learning, a pedagogy promoting student-centered learning, has been suggested to help teachers foster students' SEL. However, little research has been conducted to investigate cooperative learning alignment with SEL. Thus, this current study explores teachers' perspectives on implementing cooperative learning to promote students' SEL. Seven elementary school teachers implementing cooperative learning and SEL in their classrooms joined the study. A qualitative interpretative case study design was used. Teacher interviews as primary data, and field notes, teachers' artefacts, lesson plans, and teaching videos were collected. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data from the teacher interviews and field notes. Four themes were generated: group roles, exploring potentials and weaknesses, meaningful interactions, and consensus decision-making. The findings suggest that cooperative learning through clear group roles promotes elementary school students' self-awareness and social awareness, meaningful interactions, and consensus decision-making.

The integration of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) into language teaching and learning is mandated by the national policy in Indonesia. This study aims to describe 34 experienced female EFL teachers’ experiences ICT professional development.. This study reports on: 1) encouraging and discouraging factors of ICT use for participants, 2) solutions of ICT integration for participants’ professional development, and 3) peers’ perception on participants’ improvement of ICT competencies. In order to investigate the external and internal factors on the participants' ICT professional development experiences, a sequential explanatory design with mixed methods approach was used in the study. In the first phase, a questionnaire was used as the instrument to categorize participants into satisfactory ICT proficiency and less satisfactory ICT proficiency. The second phase was one-on-one interviews to find further information on the participants’ experiences on ICT professional development. The questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS, while interviews were analyzed using deductive content analysis which employs four stages in its process. Results show that all teachers with proper ICT proficiency and those who are less proficient in ICT have positive perceptions of the use of technology in education. However, there are differences in how they solve internal and external problems, and how they perceive guidance from peers and also support from the school environment. This study recommends universities and the government to develop programs of ICT professional development suitable for experienced female teachers.

Implementing digital game-based language learning in a developing country faces many challenges due to the teachers’ and students’ digital competence and technological limitations. Furthermore, most of the research in implementing digital game-based language learning is conducted in developed countries. Therefore, this current research focuses on the studies of the implementation of digital game-based language learning conducted in developing countries to see whether some improvements can be made in this area. The results show that implementing existing games and developing new games are the two major distinctions in applying digital game-based language learning. On one hand, while using existing games is easier and more convenient, most educational games are in the form of quizzes with limited gameplay, and non-educational games are more fun but can cause addiction and are not entirely suitable for learning. On the other hand, the games developed specifically for learning English are great, but they are primarily simple games designed to achieve beginner goals such as vocabulary and reading skills for young learners. Therefore, the need for digital English language learning games designed for more complex objectives for various age groups with good visuals and gameplay is still available, and much future research should be done in this area.

This study describes Indonesian secondary school EFL teachers’ and students’ profiles of reading engagement, which comprises behavioral, affective, cognitive, and social dimensions. The researchers employed a survey design involving 70 teachers and 828 students of secondary schools in 50 regions in Java, Sumatra, and the Borneo Islands. The instrument used was a teacher questionnaire and a student questionnaire which contained 16 close-ended questions and 7 open-ended questions. The data from close-ended responses were tabulated and presented in percentages, while the data from open-ended responses were analyzed based on themes, then shown in excerpts. The key findings reveal that four dimensions of reading engagement have been implemented by EFL teachers. Both students and teachers show positive reading behavior and attitude toward reading materials and activities. These findings map the reading engagement practiced in EFL classes in secondary schools in Indonesia, which add knowledge about RE strategies improving EFL teachers’ strategies to engage students in reading English texts, which is expected to enhance students’ English reading comprehension and literacy.

Cooperative learning (CL) occurs when a small heterogeneous group works on a structured activity to accomplish a joint goal. The establishment of heterogeneous groups, rather than homogeneous groups, remains one of the key pillars of CL. Heterogeneity can refer to a range of qualities including a range of ability, learning styles, personality, and genders. Research that explores the advantages and disadvantages of same- or mixed-gender composition of CL groups has yielded divergent results. This chapter builds on this research by exploring lower secondary students’ perceptions of working in single- and mixed-gender groups in CL in an Indonesian context. The findings of this study suggest that mixed-gender groups enable the students to learn about the opposite gender, increase positive attitudes towards learning the content, and make learning ‘more fun.’