Journal on Efficiency and Responsibility in Education and Science

164-173

Authors: Ibrahim Safari

A teacher plays an important role in the development of the students’ potential and helps to form their future. This research intends to study the degree of burnout and job satisfaction in English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers of universities and Schools in Iran, as well as their association with demographic characteristics. To measure teachers’ burnout, Maslach Burnout Inventory questionnaire was applied, which has also been validated by experienced teachers for the Iranian population and the Employee Satisfaction Inventory questionnaire, prepared for the Iranian population, was applied to estimate job satisfaction. Questionnaires were answered completely by 159 teachers, who work at universities and schools in Iran. After data analysis, the findings showed a negative correlation between teachers’ burnout and their job satisfaction; their experience relatively moderate burnout levels, and their job satisfaction level is high. The findings also represented that the type of workplace influences satisfaction regarding the factor “job conditions”. The study was for the first time that Iranian EFL teachers’ burnout and job satisfaction in universities and schools were investigated and the findings showed that by increasing the level of job satisfaction, the perceived burnout decreases, where burnout and job satisfaction presented medium to high negative correlation.

189-203

Authors: Stefanie A. Hillen

School development is often seen as a concerted (re-)action to educational policies, curriculum development, and change in education laws or regulations, and sometimes, as stakeholders’ reactions to low school performance. Generally, school development incorporates organizational, managerial, and educational activities and measures. This is done to adapt to the new situation to achieve the desired changes and goals initiated by a given curriculum reform. In contrast, this paper focuses on school staff–driven development: It describes how teachers together with paraprofessionals contribute to school-development. Using collective responsibility creating working methods of communication, the enactment of staff’s self-chosen measures will be possible. This school staff–driven school development approach makes use of the Dialogue Café and the reflection cycle. The combined use of these working methods is seen as appropriate support for school staff–centered development of the School-In project based on the idea of collective responsibility. The paper presents by the application of a qualitative content and visualization analysis, how the communicative action according to Habermas took place. This is the process from the individual participant’s ideas, through individual and group reflections to finally formulated measures that result in the school’s staff joint actions.

101-112

Authors: Petra Jarkovská, Martina Jarkovská

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) plays a significant role in Human Resource Management (HRM), especially when it comes to stipulating desired employee performance or behaviour, such as work performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment or retention. However, the academic literature offers very fragmented or partial answers to questions addressing this issue, as many scholars focus exclusively on e.g. one-country or one-industry based sample only. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to summarize the current "state-of-the-art" trends in academic literature and thereafter, based on the findings, propose a broader contemporary conceptual approach to managing CSR in relation to employees. The results suggest a positive causal relationship between CSR and desirable employee behaviour, with job satisfaction often playing the function of a mediator. The findings also suggest that adding CSR to HRM practices could improve employees' work attitudes. In doing so, full compatibility with other concepts and principles across the organization is a premise.

130-139

Authors: Surinderjit Kaur Bawa, Rekha Kaushal, Jaswinder Kaur Dhillon

Multimedia programs having a number of elements like Texts, spoken words, sound & music, graphics, animations and still pictures provide different stimuli in their presentations. Art is the field of education that provides a platform for rigorous investigation, representation, expression, and reflection of both scholastic content and the art form itself. The integration of art with other subjects of the school curriculum can open new pathways of learning for students. Vedic Mathematics is an approach to resolve the crisis in education especially in the field of mathematics. It is not simply a collection of new computational techniques; rather, it provides an entirely different approach to the mathematical computation based on pattern recognition. The present paper deals with the development of multimedia packages using techniques of art and Vedic aphorisms on some selected common topics of curriculum of UK and Indian elementary mathematics and the effectiveness of multimedia packages for the development of mathematical skills. The study was conducted using quasi experimental design for research in both countries. The quantitative analysis of data revealed that the multimedia packages developed by using techniques of art and Vedic Aphorisms have significantly improved the mathematical skills of UK elementary school students.

154-163

Authors: Albana Berisha Qehaja

Academics and scholars need to publish their research results. In addition, they are required to publish scientific papers to prove their research commitment and to achieve certain academic titles in higher education institutions. Globally, there are many scientific journals of well-known publishing houses/universities, which offer opportunities to publish scientific work. One of the recent topics in academic circles is the increasing number of invitations to publish articles via quick procedures, without going through the adequate review process. This phenomenon is threatening academic integrity, as these publishers/journals aim at financial benefits and not contributing to scientific development and progress. There is a gap in the knowledge of the scientific researchers regarding the journal selection to publish their work. Some of them are still unintentionally publishing in such journals, mainly as a lack of information about them. The main purpose of this study is awareness-raising, warning, and guidance of scientific researchers, particularly young researchers by providing information on how to avoid submitting manuscripts in these journals. To achieve this, we have consulted the recent literature and practices of different countries, summarized the most used tools/methods to identify predatory publishers and journals, and lastly, we have developed a guiding algorithm for evaluating them.

56-66

Authors: Bimbo Onaolapo Adejare; Gbemi Oladipo Olaore, Ekpenyong Ekpenyong Udofia, Temitayo Bosede Emola

Inefficiency has been a major issue battling the service delivery of non-academic staff in most public universities in Nigeria and this has greatly affected the academic and research outlook of Nigerian universities. Interest in the study was to determine the extent to which induction, demonstration, on-the-job and formal training which are all elements of employee training and development enhance managerial efficiency by looking at employee productivity and quality of service delivery. The study adopts a convenience and stratified sampling technique to select 293 non-academic staffs in selected public universities in Nigeria and the analysis was carried out using the structural equation model (SEM). The results revealed that on-the-job training has a significant negative relationship with the quality of service delivery in Nigerian universities (t=-4.454), (p<0.05) and β=-0.20) which could be because most Nigerian universities do not deliberately place new employees to learn directly from a current employee in order to improve their performance. Hence, the study demonstrates that the only way to resolve inefficiency among non-academic (administrative) staff in public tertiary institutions is to integrate effective training into employee career management and adopt employee performance evaluation process as contained in the private organizations.

79-89

Authors: Lucie Vnoučková, Zdeněk Linhart

Each new generation brings a challenge to employers, university management and teachers with new attitudes affecting their continuous matriculation and degree completion. This article discusses how to retain both business and institutional career-oriented students using real-time communication based on their attitudes, emotions resulting from logically generated synonyms by automatic data evaluation by the information system. The objective of this article is to identify these students early in their academic studies and to assess their likelihood for continuous matriculation and ultimately increase retention rates. Using data from entry questionnaire during application at university, based on their attitudinal expectation, students were categorised into groups that affected their continuous matriculation. Data used in this study were gathered by compulsory entry questionnaire of 535 students in the academic year 2017-2018. Using statistical and dimensional analysis, four groups were identified among university applicants: Proactive, Reactive, Lazy and Institutional. Responses were tested according to Complementary Distribution Function (CDF) and normal distribution as Probabilistic Distribution Function (PDF). Antagonist attitudes were found for answers corresponding to PDF and CDF. Results indicate that business and institutionally oriented students should be separated and treated individually to increase retention.

01-09

Authors: Kateřina Berková, Dagmar Frendlovská, Jan Pospíšil Závodný, Hana Vojáčková, Dana Kolářová

The article presents the results of research into entrepreneurship education in economic and non-economic study programmes of the College of Polytechnics Jihlava (n = 104). The College represents a regional public college of professional orientation in the Vysočina Region, where the business potential is relatively high. Significant differences in attitudes concerning entrepreneurship among students of economic and non-economic programmes have not been proven. As well the correlation between attitudes (interest in conducting business, having preconceptions to start a business and subjective evaluation of one's own ideas) and the students' knowledge of entrepreneurship was not significantly demonstrated. Despite these insignificant differences, there have been links in students’ attitudes. Students of both programmes have a great interest in doing business even at the cost of having preconception to start a business. Above all, the high risk and uncertainty of business earnings are perceived very negatively. They also admit that they do not have enough knowledge and are thus afraid of starting a business, even though they have their own business ideas. Therefore, it is desirable to focus on new platforms for the development of entrepreneurship education and thus support the potential of students.

27-40

Authors: Ibrahim Safari, Mehran Davaribina, Iraj Khoshnevis

This research intended to examine the influence of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and reflective thinking on their professional development. Two-hundred and twelve Iranian EFL teachers from different universities, language institutes, and schools participated in the research. They were requested to answer Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale, The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, Reflective Thinking Scale, and Professional Development Questionnaire as the main data collection instruments. The questionnaires were submitted in three different ways: email, social networks and in person. Structural Equation Modeling on SPSS AMOS version 24 was employed to examine the hypothesized model of relationships. This model was confirmed following the application of the modification indices suggested by the software (Normal chi-square=3.6; RMSEA=.03; RMR=.02; GFI =.93; AGFI=.90; NFI=.92; CFI=.93; IFI=.93). The findings showed significant internal correlations between all the latent variables along with their sub-scales. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis showed that self-efficacy and job satisfaction positively predicted professional development, with self-efficacy exerting more predictive power compared to job satisfaction. It was further found that not only did reflective thinking not predict professional development, but, conversely, it was partly predicted by professional development. Pedagogical implications of the study have been discussed.