Problems of Education in the 21st Century

567

Authors: Editorial Board

Contents, Vol. 77, No. 5, PEC, 2019

572-583

Authors: Guadalupe de la Iglesia, Alejandro Castro Solano

This research aimed at testing an explicative model of academic achievement of college students. Positive personality traits were hypothesized as the main predictors. Mental health and academic adjustment were tested as mediator variables. This model intended to reflect the main hypothesis that academic achievement is multi-determined and non-intellectual variables play an important role in explaining it. Sample was composed of 256 college students of different majors. The results obtained highlighted the importance of differentiating subjective and objective academic achievement in terms of academic adjustment (AA) and grade point average (GPA), respectively. The explicative model that included positive traits as background variables confirmed the mediating role of mental health and AA in explaining GPA. Sprightliness was the most important predictor of academic achievement in comparison to the other positive traits studied. It is concluded that positive personality traits play an important role in academic outcomes.

598-615

Authors: Nadiia Horishna, Hanna Slozanska, Olha Soroka, Lyudmila Romanovska

The importance of leadership is discussed widely in the social work literature. However, little is known about the leadership skills of social work students and factors affecting their development in the environment specific to higher educational institutions (HEIs). This research aimed to find out what skills pre-service social work students had related to leadership and to determine if significant differences existed in terms of such predictor variables as level and form of study, employment status, and involvement in co-curricular activities. The research employed the quantitative approach based on a descriptive cross-sectional survey involving a sample of 158 social work students from three Ukrainian universities. The research group consisted of 88% female and 12% male respondents, aged between 19 and 31. Data were obtained through the Student Leadership Outcomes Inventory, which contained 60 items measuring skills on 8 scales: (a) self-management, (b) interpersonal communication, (c) problem-solving and decision-making, (e) cognitive development and critical analysis, (f) organization and planning, (g) self-confidence, (h) diversity awareness, and (h) technology which served as outcome variables. All items were rated along a 5-point Likert scale, from poor (1) to excellent (5). The results of the research revealed lower than average levels of leadership skills and existing significant differences by outcome variables for the sample population. The findings suggest the need to strengthen the leadership skills of social work students through the implementation of formal and informal developmental activities and recognition of leadership participation within the social work curriculum.

636-649

Authors: Valentina Piacentini, Ana Raquel Simões, Rui Marques Vieira

The development of meaningful environments at school for the learning of Science as well as of foreign languages is an educational concern. CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), aimed at the students’ acquisition of both the foreign Language and specific subject Content, is an approach that may promote the learning of English in use during subject classes and could result in the improvement of conditions and practices of Science education. Research, actually, reveals that teaching methodologies aware of language – such as CLIL – and other semiotic modes implied in Science are beneficial for the learning of Science. Studying a CLIL programme (“English Plus” project, EP), in which Science is taught/learnt with/in English, is thus relevant. A case study on the EP project and its participants (English and Science teachers, students involved in different school years) in one lower secondary state school in Portugal was carried out. In the present research, qualitative data collected through teacher interviews are presented and discussed, with the goal of understanding the role of Language(s) (verbal language in the mother tongue or English and other representation modalities) in the teaching of Science for EP teachers, both in conventional and project classes. A greater teacher awareness and use of Language(s), when an additional language (English, here) is also present for Science education, results from this work. This contributes to research on CLIL Science studies and teacher reflections on adopting a language-focused approach for Science education, also when the mother tongue is spoken.

667-679

Authors: Mehboob Ul Hassan

School is a subculture of any society having different educational diversity. This diversity affects on teachers and students achievements; pillars of teaching learning process. Teachers have great concerns towards students’ success. They deliver plethora of information to improve students’ achievements. Present quantitative ex-post-facto research was framed to explore the effect of teachers’ self-efficacy on students’ achievement scores applying multilingual instructions for students’ success on sample of randomly selected 1100 male respondents; 300 secondary school teachers and 800 students of District Kasur, of Lahore Division. Data from teachers were collected by administering long form of Teachers’ Self-Efficacy Scale whereas students’ achievement scores were obtained from annual gazette notification of Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Lahore. Cronbach’s Alpha Score was applied to confirm instrument’s reliability .851. Normality of the data were confirmed by calculating Shapiro-Wilk’s test. Findings of regression analysis depict that overall teachers’ self-efficacy has affected 65 % whereas students’ engagement 59 %, educational strategies 60 %, classroom management 59 % and teachers’ medium of education has affected 30 % on students’ achievement scores. Present research recommends that Government structure teachers’ self-efficacious believes through providing training, conducting workshops before joining teaching professions and ensuring certificates; once teachers’ confidence structure, less possible to alter to obtained desired achievements during teaching learning process. Furthermore, it is dire need to implement single medium of instructions; English / Urdu in public sector secondary schools of Punjab as bilingual medium of education have been remaining one of the barrier that lead students towards poor achievements.