Bing Ngu

By Bing H. Ngu and Huy P. Phan

The Framework of Achievement Bests provides an explanatory account into the process of optimization, which details how a person reaches from one level of best practice to that of a more optimal level. This framework, we contend, is significant in its explanatory account of personal growth, an internal state of flourishing, and the achievement of exceptionality. This chapter conceptualizes the applicability of the Framework of Achievement Bests to the context of instructional designs. We highlight the tenet of element interactivity, which is integral to the design of a particular mathematics instruction and its potential effectiveness. Element interactivity entails the interaction between elements within a learning material. Owing to the limited working memory capacity, an instruction that incurs high level of element interactivity would impose high cognitive load leading to reduced learning. Our conceptualization postulates the possible alignment between suboptimal and optimal instructional designs with realistic and optimal levels of best practice, respectively. This postulation (e.g., suboptimal instructional design → realistic level of best practice), which recognizes the importance of cognitive load imposition, is significant from a practical point of view. By focusing on instructional designs, it is possible to assist individuals to achieve optimal best practice in learning.

Part of the book: New Pedagogical Challenges in the 21st Century

By Huy P. Phan, Hui-Wen Wang, Jen-Hwa Shih, Sheng-Ying Shi, Ruey-Yih Lin and Bing H. Ngu

The concept of ‘optimal functioning’ has emerged as a major line of research development in educational psychology. Optimal functioning, which reflects the paradigm of positive psychology, is concerned with a person’s achievement of maximization in his/her functioning, whether it is mental, cognitive, emotional, or social. This inquiry places strong emphasis on importance of flourishing, happiness, and the proactivity of human endeavors. An important question then for consideration, from this testament, is how researchers optimize the achievement of optimal functioning. We have recently made progress by focusing on empirical research development and methodological conceptualizations into the study of optimization. Our conceptualizations, collectively, contend that there are psychological, educational, and psychosocial variables that operate as sources of ‘energization’, which then stimulate the buoyancy of motivation, personal resolve, effective functioning, strength, and effort expenditure. Energization, in its totality, from our postulation, may then arouse, intensify, and sustain a person’s internal state of functioning. Our cross-institutional, cross-cultural research collaboration (e.g., Australia, Malaysia, and Taiwan), to date, has considered one notably construct that could serve as a source of internal energization for the achievement of functioning: mindfulness. We strongly believe that the totality of mindfulness, positive in nature, could play a central role in the psychological processes of human agency.

Part of the book: Educational Psychology