We did it!! A paper has been accepted!! Dr. Li Chen, who obtained her PhD at the Yamada Lab and is currently an Assistant Professor in Dr. Shimada’s lab, made it happen! Truly wonderful news! Well done! It was a tough situation with a tight deadline, but she pulled through. I’m so glad. The journal it was accepted in is SAGE Open (SSCI: Impact factor 2.0, Google Scholar Matrix #9 in Social Sciences (general)). Being an SSCI journal and ranked in the top 20 of the Google Scholar Matrix is a fantastic achievement. Having two SSCI papers in one year is remarkable. I hope our young researchers will follow in Dr. Chen’s footsteps and keep up the great work.

• Reference: Chen, L., Taniguchi, Y., Shimada, A., & Yamada, M. (2024). Exploring Behavioral and Strategic Factors Affecting Secondary Students’ Learning Performance in Collaborative Problem Solving-Based STEM Lessons. Sage Open, 14(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440241251641

STEM education often incorporates Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS), such as project-based learning, but the factors that influence its effectiveness are not yet very clear. Therefore, this study identified effective strategic and behavioral factors and evaluated their impact on students’ learning outcomes. Data was collected and analyzed from 106 students in a first-year junior high school science class, showing that STEM learning based on CPS improves learning outcomes. Furthermore, path analysis revealed that perceptions of CPS and several behavioral factors directly improved learning outcomes, while factors related to learning strategies did so indirectly. Additionally, dialogue analysis showed that the integrated use of CPS skills, particularly task coordination skills, improved learning performance. The findings of this study allow us to grasp the specific effects of CPS in STEM education and provide significant implications for lesson design.

I hope those interested will give it a read. As it is an open-access journal, everyone can read it. Thank you for your continued support.