Problems of Education in the 21st Century

5-7

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

An international cooperation is undoubtedly an important issue. Science is science and it has an international character. Moreover, such cooperation is crucially important for scientists from former Soviet Union countries, because they had no possibility to communicate with colleagues from abroad or such cooperation was strongly limited. It is obvious if we want to obtain the necessary scientific information about different things, to enlarge technological possibilities of societies and so on, generally speaking, to make our world more safe and better, international cooperation among scientists is essential. Only all together we will be able to meet a broad range of global challenges today and tommorow.

16-24

Authors: Yordanka Dimova, Margarita Panayotova, Darina Uzova

The article aims to introduce the reader with the results from the second part of a survey on the concept of “Nature” in the minds of 13-year-old Bulgarian students. This time, we focus on the question: What biological objects and knowledge are reflected in the verbal associations of the students? The method of study used is a chain associative experiment carried out following the S (stimulus) – Ri (reactions) pattern. Each participant is required to write down the first 7 words that come to their mind when the word "nature" is pronounced. 1400 reactions are used to reconstruct the associative fields objectifying the conscious and unconscious layers of the cultural concept of ‘nature’ in the linguistic consciousness of the participants (100 students in the 6th and 100 students in the 7th grade). We analyze 988 words-reactions that have connection to the biological aspects of the concept of “Nature”. We have also described how the associative experiment became a stimulus for organizing a competition for best painting and essay on the subject of “Me and Nature” at a school in Sliven.

33-44

Authors: Janis Gedrovics, Jari Lavonen, Jekabs Raipulis

In the last few decades the analysis of data, obtained from different science and technology education related international surveys, has produced some new viewpoints such as the diversity of cultures, the trends of globalization, different theories such as postmodernism, self-determination. Within those researches different reference factors have been investigated to obtain results, possible to explain different phenomena observed in the society. In our research some indexes such as Human Development Index (HDI) and Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) normally used in sociological research have been used with the aim to find correlations with the international ROSE (The Relevance of Science Education) project data. The items in the ROSE questionnaire are measuring students’ general interest in science and technology and their interest in different content and contexts of science and technology as well as students’ science and technology related experiences. Based on our analysis, there were relatively high correlation between the mean values of different national ROSE variables and responding HDI index.

54-63

Authors: Tuula Keinonen, Sirpa Kärkkäinen

In science and environmental education, one of the objectives is to prepare students for participation in the decision making. To be able as an informed citizen to make decisions, it is important to learn to present an argued point of view. The everyday sense of argumentation suggests that participants present claims, defend their claims, and rebut the claims of their opponents. The study focuses on practising university students’ argumentation in an authentic situation and also the way students argue. University students familiarized themselves with a proposal to change a provincial plan. After reading the plan, they assumed to the role of a resident of the area in question and wrote to the planners starting their opinion. We had two different cases: the first case was in science education course and the other case in environmental education course. In the second case students wrote to the Wiki-environment and the opponent commented on the argumentation. These writings (N=17) were analysed by content analysis. Although the students used scientific knowledge, especially ecology, in their argumentation, it often consisted of personal feelings about the effect of the plan on their own lives.

76-86

Authors: Simeon Mbewe, Vivien Mweene Chabalengula, Frackson Mumba

This study explored pre-service teachers’ familiarity, interest, and conceptual understanding of science process skills. A sample comprised ninety one primary school pre-service teachers at a university in the Midwest of the USA. Participants were enrolled in two science education courses; introductory science teaching methods course and advanced science methods course. The introductory science methods course is mainly focused on developing science process skills among pre-service teachers while the advanced science methods course is focused on content and pedagogical knowledge. Data were collected through a questionnaire. Results showed that pre-service teachers had higher familiarity and interest levels in science process skills, but very poor conceptual understanding of the science process skills. Their incorrect definitions of science processes ranged from not having any idea to tautology. Moreover, most participants interchanged definitions of some science processes notably measuring and quantification; and predicting and inferring. The findings have implications for science teaching, learning and teacher education.

99-108

Authors: Sławomir Postek, Maria Ledzińska, Jakub Czarkowski

Our main focus is to highlight the most important challenges in distance education aimed at adults: specific psychological challenges coming from adult development, the problems of quality and evaluation, and the effect particular distance education forms and their content (interactivity, salience, and multimedia additions) have on adult learning. In the opening section, theoretical grounds for how adults learn, treat learning, how they function in informational stress and in the role of a pupil are presented. This is than followed by the discussion of pedagogical aspects (motivation, self esteem etc) of results evaluation and didactical difficulties of planning high quality distance learning. Finally, a review of research results into how different types of material content affects adults’ perception and comprehension and how retention and transfer and influenced in effect. In the summary, we move on to discuss how b-learning (blended) and c-learning (complementary) could be employed in order to facilitate adult distance learning and propose research fields to explore in this area.

117-129

Authors: Tiina Tambaum

In summer 2009, a qualitative study among the late middle-aged and older people in Estonia was carried out in order to find out the functions of the Internet for the older generation and the expectations and fears of the elderly for the Internet. By this study, it was tried to find out what are the needs of the elderly for which they prefer to use the Internet; what kind of contents or functions do the elderly miss in the Internet; what kind of role-taking and contents are unpleasant or scaring for the elderly Internet user. Semi-structured interview was used, 34 elderly Internet users were interviewed during seven interviews. The study indicated that the interviewed elderly find the Internet primarily as an environment for everyday practical operations and it is not perceived as an entertainer. Of the contents available in the Internet, the elderly are disturbed by the negativism, superficiality, obscenities, humiliation and excessive concentration on the topics of private lives. The waste of time and the risk to express itself incorrectly or wrongly are felt as dangers of the Internet usage among the elderly. The article gives recommendations for carrying out the Internet training for the elderly and explains which Internet functions and contents could be chosen as the content of the Internet skills training in order to create and maintain the interest and satisfaction of elderly learners. The results referred to the need to continue the study on the expectations of the elderly Internet users and to study thoroughly the attitude especially of the elderly men to the Internet as a tool of communication and the role of the Internet games in the lives of the elderly and Internet training.