Problems of Education in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, Vol. 63, PEC, 2015

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Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

It seems, that education questions and problems are analysed rather intensively. Educational researches of various sizes and on various subjects are constantly carried out - both at national, regional and international levels. There wouldn’t probably be a country on this planet, in which such theme researches in one way or another wouldn’t be carried out. Education is not only interdisciplinary, but a very diverse sphere. Where the man is in action, education is inevitable. If one could have a look at the publications of the education field, one could see that diversity is enormous. Leaders are brought up, career preparation is going on, creativity is encouraged, modern media and ICT are taught to be used, so - called 21st century skills are sought to be educated and so on. To tell the truth, hardly anyone could tell what these 21st century skills are, because hardly anyone could bring oneself to tell what skills will be necessary, let’s say, in 2050.

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Authors: Knut-Andreas Christophersen, Eyvind Elstad, Trond Solhaug, Are Turmo

Pre-service teachers’ gender and its associations with motivational orientations are under-researched issues. This study, therefore, used a survey methodology to research gender variations in the motivational orientations of pre-service teachers in general. The research clearly shows that male pre-service teachers are less motivated than their female counterparts and have higher levels of disillusion motivation. Female pre-service teachers are more influenced by teacher role models and show higher levels of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy in classroom management. Males seem to internalize external academic pressure to a lesser extent. Further research is needed to better understand these significant findings. The conclusion is that interactions between gender and pre-service teachers’ motivational orientations need to be further explored and explicitly addressed by teacher educators.

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Authors: Karol Dudek, Paweł Bernard

There is an increasing problem of a much smaller number of students in natural sciences or mathematics in Poland. The number of students is decreasing so dramatically that some courses are closed. Therefore, it becomes very important to look for the possible causes. The starting point for these considerations is the study on the image of a scientist. The image of a scientist and the factors that shape it have been the subject of research in various countries around the world for more than fifty years. The aim of the present research was to determine what the image of a scientist according to Polish students is. Additionally, the impact of the students’ age (in the range of 13-19 years old) on this image was analysed. The study involved 938 students of lower and upper secondary public schools from all over the country chosen randomly. The research was based on a questionnaire which was anonymous and community-based. The main questions were preceded by an enquiry about the respondent’s personal information such as gender, age, type of school they attend, and school locality. These data were needed for the analysis of such factors as, for example, the effect of gender. The obtained results showed that the image of a scientist according to Polish students is quite similar to the stereotype adopted by students from other countries. Contrary to some earlier reports, Polish students usually presented a scientist as a young person and paid more attention to personal safety equipment like a lab coat, gloves and goggles. It should be noted that this stereotype is quite archaic and is not associated with a real vision of a scientist. This lack of awareness may have an impact on shortage of students in the structure of science studies.

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Authors: Emine Erdem

This study has been carried out with the aim of investigating the relationship between the attitudes of chemistry teacher candidates towards chemistry in laboratory classes and their self-efficacy beliefs. Teacher candidates composed of undergraduate students who have already taken or are currently taking laboratory classes and study Chemistry Teaching have participated in this study. Relational survey model has been used in this study. Chemistry Attitude Scale (CAS) developed by Geban, Ertepınar, Yılmaz, Altın & Şahbaz (1994) and Chemistry Self-efficacy Scale (CSS) were used as data collection tools. Simple correlation and one-way analysis of variance in independent groups have been used in order to analyse data. According to the results from study data, there is a meaningful linear relationship between self-efficacy scores and attitude scores of teacher candidates. An increase in self-efficacy scores and attitude scores of teacher candidates with regard to consecutive grade levels has also been observed. Self-efficacy and attitude scores of the students have been compared by using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). However, a meaningful difference in self-efficacy scores and attitude scores of students with regard to grade levels has not been observed.

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Authors: Özge Özyalçin Oskay

In this study it was determined how pre-service chemistry teachers’ creativity fostering behaviours and their perceptions of their technology skills predict their success in Project Based Educational Technology and Material Development course. A sample of the study consists of 45 pre-service teachers attending Department of Chemistry Education at Hacettepe University. After the applications which took 10 weeks, pre-service teachers presented their materials and evaluated their peers and themselves. In order to determine pre-service teachers’ creativity fostering behaviours, “Creativity Fostering Teacher Index Scale” which was developed by Soh (2000) and adapted into Turkish by Dikici (2013) was used. In order to determine pre-service chemistry teachers’ perceptions on their technology skills, “Application Based Educational Technology and Material Development Skills Scale” consisting 46 items and developed by Akgül (2010) was used. Descriptive Statistics of “Creativity Fostering Teacher Index Scale” and “Application Based Educational Technology and Material Development Skills Scale” show that prospective teachers have behaviours supporting creativity and their perceptions about their technology skills is over the average. And multiple regression analysis shows that pre-service teachers’ creativity fostering behaviours and their perceptions on their technology skills together predict their success in project based material development course.