Problems of Education in the 21st Century

6-18

Authors: Agustín Freiberg-Hoffmann, Juliana Beatriz Stover, Natalia Donis

Frequently, college students have issues to learn academic contents included in the subjects of their courses. Such low quality learning is reflected in failures and academic dropout, therefore being matters of concern for teachers and governments. Learning processes in college depend, in part, on the coincidence between teaching methods and students’ learning styles. They are defined as the preference of students when they have to deal with information, particularly the way to perceive it and process it. Learning styles can be trained by the repeated use of specific learning strategies. In such cases, when learning styles coincide with the learning context in order to facilitate the acquisition of new knowledge and its integration with previous information, academic success can be achieved more naturally. To get this match it is required from teachers to adapt their styles and strategies to their students’ learning preferences. Other alternative rests on the design of actions to train students in the use of the appropriate learning styles able to enhance learning. Focused on the second option, the present study aims at: 1) the description of the influence of different learning strategies on each learning style, and 2) the analysis of the way each style explains students’ academic achievement. A transversal, non-experimental, explicative design was employed. 763 college students from Buenos Aires with ages ranging from 17 to 36 years were included in the sample. Locally adapted versions of the Honey-Alonso Questionnaire of Learning Styles -CHAEA as its Spanish acronym-, and Learning and Study Strategies Inventory –LASSI- were used for data gathering. Results showed that the Accommodating style is explained positively and significantly by the Collaborative Learning, Resources for Learning and Information 2.0 Management Competence strategies. Besides, it is observed that the strategies Collaborative Learning, Resources for Learning and Motivation explain to the Assimilating style in a significant and positive way. The Pragmatist and Converging styles are explained significantly but negatively by the Motivation and Information 2.0 Management Competence strategies respectively. Finally, Converging style explained Academic Achievement in a significant and negative way. These findings led to the possibility to plan specific actions to train students' learning styles. Furthermore, this information could be useful for different actors in higher education, such as -institutions, teachers, educational psychologists, students, etc., in order to design academic activities which require the repeated use of the specific learning strategies which each student needs to train, aiming at the improvement of particular learning styles able to facilitate learning. At this point, it seems important to discourage the use of Converging style given the negative effect it would have on the students’ performance. Results and limitations of the study are discussed and future research lines are proposed.

34-53

Authors: Bisera S. Jevtić

Analyzing the significance and the role of school and teachers in the encouragement of prosocial behaviour of the learners in secondary schools, the following problem appeared: the connection between the teachers’ encouragement of prosocial behaviour and the academic achievement in the secondary schools in Serbia through the following segments: procedures and activities used by teachers, and the interrelatedness of prosocial behaviour and academic achievement. A review of theoretical findings and a study conducted on the sample of 695 respondents are presented. The method of theoretical analysis and synthesis, the causal non-experimental method and the descriptive method are applied. The applied techniques include content analysis, scaling and evaluation. The results showed that teachers’ activities partly promoted prosocial behaviour. The results of the research pointed to certain pedagogical implications: the reform of the educational system in Serbia; a change of educational objectives and tasks; establishing a continuity between all levels of the educational system and raising cooperation with parents; educational professional services to teachers in the area of raising their interest in acquiring and applying strategies and skills directed at educating prosocially oriented personalities and improving the quality of their work.

72-91

Authors: Md. Mamun-ur-Rashid, Md. Zillur Rhman

Progressive importance, swelling investment, and mounting national and global competition necessitate evaluation of the service quality of higher education. Quantifiable indicators such as student teacher ratio, student number, women participation, establishing new departments, and increase in the number of universities are no longer enough unless the student’s stand point is considered. This research probed the service quality of higher education in a public university in southern Bangladesh utilizing modified SERVQUAL gap model. The t-test results suggest that there is a significant service gap in all the selected service dimensions such as learning, teaching, recognition, assessment system, internet and library facilities, campus life, and non-academic administration. The results also mirror that little more than half (54.1%) students are satisfied with the service quality of the selected university and almost similar proportion (52.1 %) of the students have future interest in studying in the same university. Regression analysis reveals that learning and recognition are two important determinants of client’s overall satisfaction with the service of selected university. Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) advocates that the university should take immediate step in improving internet and library facilities, campus life, and non-academic administration. Factor analysis output confirms that slight modification of the proposed seven set model into six set factors can be employed by the management as off-the-rack service quality measurement tool.

102-111

Authors: Leida Talts, Sirje Piht, Maia Muldma

This research focused on the most important topics areas in parents` communication with the teachers and their assessments of the values prevailing in the classroom of second grade children using the programme “Free of Bullying”. The Free of Bullying methodology is fostering the development of children`s social skills, where family-teacher partnership plays essential role. The bullying prevention programme, initiated in the Kingdom of Denmark in 2007 and implemented in kindergartens in Estonia since 2010 and in schools since 2013. The main goal of the Free of Bullying methodology is to develop a behavioural culture that fosters respect toward oneself, fellow-pupils and adults, and works through mutual consideration. Creating a trusting relationship with parents and attaching importance to their role in creating a safe classroom atmosphere is essential for preventing the situation where parents are integrated in this process only when painful and negative problem situations occur. The current research sample consists of the parents of second grade children attending the “Free from bullying” pilot schools. The research revealed that from the bullying prevention point of view parents highly appreciate care, tolerance and respect. The most frequent topics of parent-teacher discussion are joint activities of the class and bullying between children. Thus it appears that parents who have been more actively involved through the measures of “Bullying-free school” project more frequently discuss aspects of the social structure of classroom climate with the teacher.