Problems of Education in the 21st Century

5-9

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

Why the 21st century scholars start raising their voices while facing troubles and difficulties in the field of education. To identify the situation, it is worth having a closer look at the present schooling system. Post-modern life and education more and more frequently are coming into force. Superficiality becomes a common phenomenon. Only available regularly used and easily with no effort achieved attractive things are greatly appreciated. What is more, only minimal efforts are taken to gain a broader educational background. Quite a few countries display similar tendencies. On the other hand, education is frequently treated as a product or a kind of service. The laws of the wild market fail to get round this area of life. The chosen life style (including education) rather than the meaning of life and education itself often play a crucial role.

25-35

Authors: Anass Bayaga

The purpose of this empirical study was to investigate the difficulties of learning statistics and probability amongst students pursuing Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) programme in University of Fort Hare in South Africa. The approach was a mixed method, sampling 43 students, in which case a quantitative analysis (RM-ANOVA, RM-MANOVA & ANCOVA) dominated to test four propositions. The findings revealed four conclusions: (1) students receiving deliberate instruction in how to solve problems do become better and are able to ‘think statistically’ (2) there was good reason to suggest that students’ level of specific mathematics skills impact on their statistical ability (3) in contrast, there was not enough supporting evidence to suggest that students’ intuitive notions of probability does get stronger with age and lastly (4) efficacy of computers in guiding design of instruction is an important component of statistical learning. Most important implication of the study was that the use of strategies to improve students’ rational number concepts and ratio/proportion reasoning assists to recognise and confront common errors in students' statistical and probability thinking.

44-57

Authors: Ya'arit Bokek-Cohen, Nitza Davidovich

Similarly to other industries, the academic world has increasingly become a 'global village', in which foreign-born instructors constitute a large proportion of university faculty. Most studies on foreign-born faculty members have documented various difficulties in the integration of foreign-born instructors in academic institutions. This paper presents data indicating the successful integration of foreign-born instructors in Israel’s largest public college, and identifies the factors that contributed to this success. Data are based on several measures used to assess faculty members on an annual basis in teaching, research, administration, and community service. Linear discriminant analysis (LNA) was performed to examine whether faculty assessment scores distinguish between Israeli-born and foreign-born instructors. Findings show that foreign-born instructors have become successfully integrated in the institution. Four complementary explanations for their successful integration are proposed. We conclude with a discussion of managerial implications for institutions seeking to diversify their staff and successfully integrate foreign-born instructors FBF in higher education institutions.

71-79

Authors: Daina Celma, Ausma Golubeva

As today is the time of rapid changes, the activities of academic personnel become more and more complicated. This also refers to study program managers, who are the responsible persons for higher education study programs. Study program managers are not specially trained to manage study programs. It is usually assumed that anyone with enough academic experience and specific academic degree can become a study program manager and manage it through its existence. However, being a study program manager entails a wide range of different responsibilities which underlies a need for study program manager to possess many competences that a manager in any other organization or position should have - specific knowledge, skills, abilities and also -preferably- certain personal traits. Taking this relevant issue into account, a research was carried out in two Universities of Latvia, where both lecturers and study program managers were asked to fill in questionnaires in order to define a set of professional competences a successful and effective study program manager should possess. Besides, it was concluded that study program managers do need further education and training regards improving their competences and acquiring new ones. Not surprisingly, this need for further education was more stressed by the lecturers than by study program managers themselves.

93-103

Authors: Vaike Kiik-Salupere, Jaan Ross

Increasing competition among musicians on the contemporary scene means additional requirements in terms of preparing of versatile and competitive singers, i.e. students who have acquired stable and high-level technical skills and who cope with the competitive environment. Therefore the additional ability of the voice teacher emerges: that is to support the student emotionally in the lesson, and equip the student with knowledge to deal with performance anxiety. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven eminent voice teachers and interviews with an ad-hoc-designed questionnaire were conducted with the students of classical singing at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (14), at the Tallinn Georg Ots High School of Music (13), and with the singers of the Estonian National Opera choir (30). The five-point balanced Likert scale was used in the questionnaire. The collected data were subject to statistical analysis. Cluster analysis was applied to those correlations in the obtained data, which were statistically significant (p<0.05). Analysis of interviews and answers to the questionnaire demonstrated that besides to the training of technical skills, attention must be paid to the psychological training of classical singers. Results demonstrate that younger students tend to expect more care from their teachers than their older counterparts. Almost all of the respondents are willing to obtain more knowledge about how to learn to cope with stress. The voice teachers admitted that the majority of their students have problems with performance anxiety. Educational institutions which prepare music performers, including classical singers, have to ensure that their students achieve a high level of technical skills and that they have the necessary mental skills to deal with the performance situation.

109-117

Authors: Marzena Okrasa

Investing in human capital, in knowledge and skills, impacts the economy’s development - similarly as investing in new technology. A good and effective employee, who as an adult will be capable of adjusting his or her qualifications to changes in technology, should as a child have access to pre-school education. It should be emphasized that the period of early education is very rarely linked to human capital development. Research has shown that the childhood period is crucial to the subsequent development of intellectual potential and social skills. Preschools and schools, where children are taught social skills, determine – in a broad perspective – how a person’s life chances will be utilized. Early care and education should, thus, be the main target of investments in the field of education and innovations. Poland has the lowest indicator of access to pre-school education (38.2% for children between 3-5 years of age). As it is necessary for more children to access pre-school education, alternative forms of pre-school education should be taken under consideration. The article outlines chosen forms of alternative pre-school education developing in Poland.

135-145

Authors: Anne Uusen

Reading skills, reading interest, understanding of text and other aspects connected with reading have been researched quite a lot during the last decades in Estonia. A number of studies have reached the conclusion that basic school students in Estonia are rather good readers. However, teachers often claim that teenagers tend to read less and less and also in newspapers there are complaints about bad reading skills of youngsters. One of the reasons of the above mentioned attitude is that we tend to define the concept of reading differently and if somebody complains because of students' low reading interest, he/she mostly refers to reading belles-lettres or fiction. Living in the 21st century demands much more from teenagers as readers than it did in the past century and many well-known reading researchers stress the need to be able to properly do our jobs, and simply, to live and manage an everyday life. In these two areas we need to be able to understand what all kinds of written messages are about. The content of the broader meaning of reading and the concept of reading literacy is discussed in the current article. Also an overview of the results of the study about reading activeness and reading preferences, the goal of which was to find out what kind of texts are authentic for the students and to start a larger study for analyzing the amount of time teenagers spend with reading, what they read etc., is given in this article. Based on the results of the study it became evident that students read quite a lot, but they rather read newspapers and magazines than belles-lettres or fiction. The most frequent texts that students read in the newspapers are news. Also comic strips, TV-programs and book reviews are read rather often. A positive finding was that a large proportion of students read belles-lettres quite often. The results of the conducted questionnaire provided the basis for improving and completing the questionnaire for a larger study as well as food for thought about broadening the assortment of reading materials for students and for making Estonian language lessons more pragmatic as well.

156-169

Authors: Albert Ziegler, Diana Schimke, Heidrun Stoeger, Peter Merrotsy

It is often not possible to realize ideal evaluation standards when it comes to evaluating modifications to educational settings. In this article theoretical and practical problems in the evaluation of modifications in educational settings are discussed. Based on these considerations the ENDIT model of evaluation is presented. It comprises five minimal standards necessary for a convincing evaluation: 1) effect establishment, 2) control of the novelty effect, 3) discriminant validation, 4) superiority over compared to implicit control groups, and 5) time-delayed control group. The five standards are explained and their utility for research is demonstrated, by way of an example, through the evaluation of a visualization tool that was introduced in order to increase participation in an e-mentoring community. Participants in the investigation comprised 231 female high-school students participating in the e-mentoring community CyberMentor that aims at increasing interest and participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

182-190

Authors: Nada Bizova

The report shows on current problem of inclusive approach to leisure time education of children with special educational needs. The inclusion represents educational paradigm, which caused changes in traditional educational system. As it is signed in UNESCO 2006, it is inevitable to create inclusive environment, in order to bring opportunities for active connection into educational process for all children, gain education with appropriate quality level and successful integration in society. In report, we analyzed functions and principles of inclusive education in leisure time and some particularities of inclusive education in chosen organizations. There are also pointed out current problems and perspectives, based on inclusive education analysis in Europe.

199-205

Authors: Olga Kravchenko

The object of this study is educational literature, which forms the profile of a graduate (bachelors program focusing on the “Advertising and PR”). The subject are the principles and methods of organization of educational content, that increase the efficiency of interaction of students with educational literature. The aim of the research – to prepare a comprehensive description of the model-scheme profile of a textbook on socio-humanitarian disciplines. Problems that are solved: 1) identification of the relevant parameters of the methamodel of a modern active high school textbook, 2) development of a model-construct of the textbook, preparing future advertising specialists for project work, and 3) an experimental realization of the model-construct in the format of the training manual for a specific contingent. The purpose of the article – for the model constructs to reveal the potential of modularity in the organization of content in an interactive traditional format textbook. We believe that the developed model-scheme of a modular textbook will allow using its informational and didactic components optimally. Methodology of the Research. As a methodological framework for the creation of the model-construction we used the recommendations in optimization of textbook as a carrier of information, developing “mental activity” of student, his professional and personal competence, motivation, personal activities and communicative reflection (Antonova, 2004; Buga, 1987; Kanke 2007; and others). Results of the Research. The model of the textbook is developed on the basis of an approved modular training manual on the working-out of an advertising product (Kravchenko 2004, 2006; Kravchenko, Novikova 2008). The use of modules allows providing a wide range of multi-level training information. We highlight four content levels: two structurally indicative (1, 2), informative (3) and referential (4). The first level deals with the means of navigation in the structure of the textbook – headings and subheadings. The second level is represented by operators – the system of “keywords”, which follow in a particular order and have the orienting function: clarify the concept, authoritative opinion, research, interesting facts, trends, discussion, master-class etc. A certain mini-module stands behind each operator – the actual information (the third level). The function of the fourth level is references to various sources for further independent work (referential part of the textbook). Discussion. A modular textbook is chosen as an optimal model of a new-generation secondary school textbook. The main attention is focused on the principles of clarity and fixed format. In this article the idea of modularity has been developed further in the aspect of optimization of the content of the high school interactive textbook. Conclusions. The main advantages of the developed model-constructor of a modular textbook are: compactness, optionality, interactiveness, regulated access to informational resources, and a possibility of developing an individual cognitive style, student’s mobility and adaptability.