Journal on Efficiency and Responsibility in Education and Science

Number 4, 2018

72-77
Motivation of Students of Economic and Technical Fields as a Tool of Competitiveness of Universities and Colleges: Empirical Study

Authors: Kateřina Berková, Jana Borůvková, Lenka Lízalová

Abstract

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Number of views: 348

The article presents an analysis of factors influencing the students´ motivation to study economic subjects in economic and technical study programmes in the conditions of a practically oriented college. The research is focused on quality management systems of universities and the competitiveness in the tertiary education market. Specifically, the area of quality of higher education is addressed, through students’ assessment of the subject of Business Administration. Motivation factors related to teaching techniques were classified and the intensity of motivation of the respondents was investigated in the questionnaire survey. The statistical analysis of data suggests that there are differences in the motivation of students of economic and technical study programmes. Students of technical study programmes Applied Computer Science are more demanding and have higher expectations from study programmes compared to students in the study programmes of Finance and Management, whose expectations are lower. The results are discussed and compared with a similar foreign research. A pedagogical constructivism should be introduced into the Czech education, resulting in enhancement of attractiveness of the study programmes, thus increasing the level of competitiveness of the college.

78-84
On the Problem of Generating a Large Number of Comparable Test Variants

Authors: Mikuláš Gangur, Miroslav Plevný

Abstract

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Number of views: 326

The paper presents a possible way of solving the problem of creating more test variants for a large number of students divided into groups. The proposed solution may consist in introducing a parameterized automatic test generator. The principle of an automatic parameterized test generator is shown. The process of the question tree construction according to the increasing numbers of questions in the banks of the particular subjects leads to a combinatorial explosion. This often results in the excessive time of generation of the different variants of tests. To solve this problem, a heuristic method based on a pre-processing stage that precedes the construction of the searching tree is proposed. Further, the results of the experiments comparing the time of the test generation and the congruence of the test variants generated by the algorithm either using or non-using this heuristics are presented. According to these results, the use of the generator with the proposed heuristics provides a considerably shorter time of generation, and the congruence of the generated test variants is even better in most cases.

85-92
Impact of Order of Data in Word Problems on Division of a Whole into Unequal Parts

Authors: Jarmila Novotná, Martin Chvál

Abstract

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Number of views: 298

The paper investigates how the order of numerical data in word problems on division of a whole into unequal parts affects achievement and reasoning of 14-16-year old pupils. The variable was altered in two word problems, in one of which also the context was changed (psychological variable) and in the latter “if-clause” is or is not used (linguistic variable). 182 pupils were involved in the experiment. The solutions were analysed quantitatively using Item Response Theory as well as qualitatively. The data suggest that pupils’ success is affected by the order of numerical data in the statement in an unfamiliar context. The presence of “if-clause” in the statement was studied in a two-level problem. The order of numerical data played its role in case of formulations without “if”. The results of the experiment are of interest for mathematics education as well as for construction of tests. The paper is an extended version of the paper by Novotná (2018).