Alviss

Migration and financial transactions: factors influencing mobile remittance service usage in the pandemic Wei Lun Chang, Vladlena Benson Information Technology & People, Vol. ahead of print, No. ahead of print, pp. In the global migration crisis COVID 19 had devastating consequences. Workers were confined to their locations due to travel restrictions and working from home became “working away from home” for millions of migrant workers. Mobile financial services emerged as key to livelihood of the mobile remittance recipients. It is essential for service providers to gain insights of users" motives to use mobile remittance services. This study proposed the model by extending unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model and integrating by perceived cost (PC) and perceived security (PS). Based on the survey data (n = 344) the proposed model was tested using analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis. The findings reveal that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, PC and PS affect the users" behavioral intention (BI) to use mobile remittance applications. Social influence nonsignificantly affects the BI and there is no significant influence of facilitating conditions on user behavior. The volume of migrant workers preCOVID 19 reached 3.5% of the global population, the shear number of unprotected workers plunged into devastation by the COVID 19 impact is huge to cause an economic meltdown. Under the pandemic crisis conditions, the findings provide several practical implications on how service providers could improve their products and services to increase mobile remittance applications usage.

Sustainability, Vol. 14, Pages 11695: What Drives Sustainable Development of Enterprises? Focusing on ESG Management and Green Technology Innovation Sustainability doi: 10.3390/su141811695 Authors: Cong Zhang Shanyue Jin Sustainable development of a company is an important task in corporate management. Enterprises must constantly innovate and change to achieve sustainable development. In China, considering the need for sustainable development of enterprises and the requirement of the dual carbon goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, the environment, social responsibility, and governance (ESG) management and green technology innovation of enterprises are in the spotlight. Therefore, this study aimed to use empirical analysis to verify whether the ESG performance of enterprises promotes corporate green technology innovation and to further explore corporate attributes that promote the relationship between the two. This study selected 933 Chinese A share listed companies from 2015 to 2019 as the research object and used the fixed effect model to empirically analyze the relationship between ESG performance and the green technology innovation capability of enterprises. The results show that ESG performance plays an important role in promoting green technology innovation capability. Moreover, this study found that, compared to enterprises with low technology levels or short listing life span, the ESG performance of enterprises with high technology level and long listing life span has a stronger role in promoting the green technology innovation capability of enterprises. Simultaneously, compared with non state owned enterprises, state owned enterprises play a stronger role in the promotion. This study enriches the theoretical mechanism of ESG performance affecting green technology innovation of enterprises, and they have a certain reference value for promoting the sustainable development of enterprises.

In this paper, the effectiveness of training faculty in laboratory teaching (the teaching of science in a laboratory setting using experiments and similar exercises) through the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT)—virtual technologies for faculties in institutions of higher education in the Indian state of Kerala—was evaluated and measured. The efficacy of employing ICT to train teachers in higher education is important, and we have identified 5I factors (innovative, interactive, involvement, informative, and influential) to help ascertain the effectiveness of such technology training during pandemic teaching. The laboratory learning using VL can describe the student’s engagement in the online learning process. This work more specifically identifies how ICT helps in laboratory teaching and identifies the critical pedagogical aspects of the ICT. If the technology has these 5I factors, then it will be an effective teaching method for laboratory learning. Here, we used the ICT virtual labs in science as the technology to evaluate these five factors. The research first began by conducting an ethnicity profile of science teachers in the middle and high/secondary stages of school consisting of classes VII, IX, and X (id est, students of ages 11 to 15). To evaluate the use of VL in the 5I framework, the faculties in science were divided into experimental and control groups (n = 101). The experimental group practiced in a virtual lab in the first stage, but the control group did not. Test I was then performed on both groups. In the second stage, both groups practiced with real lab equipment, and test II was conducted on both groups. The tests and other data from the two groups were statistically analyzed using independent t tests. There were notable differences between the experimental and control groups: in terms of time for understanding the concepts behind the experiment, time for doing the experiment, and accuracy in results, with the experimental group performing significantly better. On the other hand, there was no significant difference between the two groups in task completion accuracy. Overall, there was a beneficial transfer of training from the virtual lab exercise to the real lab, with the experimental group’s average score being higher.

Emerging evidence attests to the need to intervene in young students’ science motivation and achievement before their science motivation starts to dwindle. Heeding this call, we implemented a science utility value intervention for fifth and sixth graders in 23 classrooms (N = 550). Through five intervention sessions that consisted of diverse individual and group activities including writing, students learned and internalized the personal and communal usefulness of science for 14 popular non STEM professions as well as their own aspired future careers. After the intervention, the students in the experimental condition perceived greater utility value of science, were more interested and self efficacious in their science classes, expressed greater appreciation of the role science played in their future careers, and aspired to science related careers more strongly than the students in the control condition. The intervention was especially effective for improving the personal utility value, appreciation, and science related career intention of girls. The advantage of the experimental group in science interest and self efficacy, compared to the control group that received a delayed intervention, was maintained till the end of the semester. The findings provide important empirical and practical insights into designing effective science interventions for young learners.

MTI, Vol. 6, Pages 85: Interactive Laboratories for Science Education: A Subjective Study and Systematic Literature Review Multimodal Technologies and Interaction doi: 10.3390/mti6100085 Authors: Numan Ali Sehat Ullah Dawar Khan In science education laboratory experimentation has a vital role for students learning enhancement. Keeping in view the importance of modern day technologies in teaching learning process, various interactive laboratories (ISLs) have been developed to assist students in hands on experiments in science education. In this paper we describe the potential contributions of existing interactive science laboratories (ISLs) in the major subjects of science, id est, chemistry, biology and physics. The existing ISLs include virtual labs and simulation software where users performed their experiments. Important problems and challenges in the existing ISLs are highlighted. The systematic literature review (SLR) methodology is used for article searching, selection, and quality assessments. For this study, 86 articles after final selection using SLR are selected and classified into different categories. Each article is selected after briefly studying its different information, including category of the article, key idea, evaluation criterion, and its strengths and weaknesses. A subjective study with field experts was also conducted to investigate one of our existing virtual lab about the practical implementation and to find out the key issues in its implementation and use. Then, considering the suggestions of the subjective study, some guidelines are proposed for the improvement of future ISLs.