Original research. Рубрика в журнале - International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
Trust as a cognitive base of social cohesion in the university communities
Статья научная
The present article continues the cycle of the cognitive researches of the phenomenon of social cohesion in education, in particular, in the university communities. It contains the cognitive research of trust and its foundation as the central focus of social cohesion. The purpose of the study is to identify the level of trust which is connected with the social cohesion in university communities, to test the author’s questionnaire and to determinate the further steps for the trust enhancement in the educational community. Methods that were used in the study are the author’s questionnaire, math analytics etc. There were 196 people interviewed in both universities, among them 31 employees and 85 students of the National Pedagogical Dragomanov University and 33 employees and 47 students of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine. According to the research results, the level of trust in each university community (as well as in common) was average, excluding some indicators. Although there were some differences between levels of trust of employees of these universities. We can assume that the quite sufficient average level or trust positively characterizes the attitude of employees and students to each other, reflects their readiness for mutual respect and support, acceptance of differences and tolerance etc. Also, the research highlights weak points of social interactions that form the base for further investigations and actions on the social cohesion development.
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The scientific and psychological validity of the a priori attitude of practicing psychologists and parents in solving the urgent problem of adolescent distrust has been verified that the trusting attitude of adolescents towards parents exists only in the form of opposition; trust or distrust based on a previously developed model for studying ambivalent trust. The aim of the research was to study the features of the classified ratios of trust/distrust to a mother in adolescents from single-parent families and the role of order in the structure of predictors of trust in a mother in these ratios. The study involved adolescent boys and girls, in the number of 177 people aged 15 years, raised in families where the only parent living with a teenager is the mother. The following methods were used: content analysis based on expert assessments; subjective scaling according to specified parameters; statistical technology for developing the construct classification of the trust/distrust ratio; approximation by hyperbolic rank parametric distribution; nonparametric statistics. It was found that 1) only 19% of the respondents have “absolute trust” and “absolute distrust”, and the rest have different variants of ambivalent trust (p<0.01). 2) significant predictors of adolescents trust in the mother are: a) “trust in me”; b) honesty; c) reliability; d) fairness; e) commitment to fulfilling promises; f) an unappreciative attitude. 3) the average value of the β coefficient is higher in the “positive” variant of ambivalent trust, when adolescents from single-parent families have both trust and distrust of their mother, but trust significantly prevails over distrust.
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Understanding Student Attitudes toward GenAI Tools: A Comparative Study of Serbia and Austria
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This study explores university students’ attitudes toward generative AI technology and tools in two European countries. Driven by the increasing integration of AI in education and the limited research on student perceptions, particularly in European contexts, this study aimed to understand how students view GenAI and its implications for higher education. The study employed a quantitative approach, using surveys to collect data on student attitudes toward AI across different fields of study, genders, and countries. A key innovation of this research is the development of a novel “Attitude toward AI” scale, designed to provide a robust and theoretically grounded instrument for measuring student perceptions of GenAI. The scale offers a valuable tool for evaluating the effectiveness of AI integration in education. The results showed that students’ attitudes toward AI differed significantly based on their field of study and gender. Male students in technical sciences had the most positive attitudes toward AI adoption, indicating their potential to drive positive changes in AI implementation. While the effect size was small, this finding underscores the importance of considering individual factors when designing interventions to promote AI acceptance. The study underscored how prior experience shapes positive attitudes, highlighting the need for resources to familiarize students with GenAI and its ethics. The “Attitude toward AI” scale is a significant contribution addressing the lack of reliable instruments for assessing student perceptions of GenAI, enabling deeper understanding of factors influencing students’ adoption, informing targeted interventions for different student groups. Further research is needed on GenAI’s long-term impact.
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In the contemporary digital era, social media platforms have a big influence on students’ lives. They use these platforms for self-expression, opinion sharing, and experience reporting (writing or sharing videos or photos about personal experiences) in addition to social interaction. Education professionals and academics may get valuable insights into students’ thoughts, sentiments, interests, academic success, and even personalities by studying their writing on social media. We can improve our teaching, enhance students’ social and emotional development, and create a more engaging learning environment if we have a better knowledge of the student. The purpose of this study is to ascertain whether or not students interact with classmates and other participants in learning platforms in a way that accurately represents their personalities. Data from a sample of students at Abdelmalek Essaadi University of Tetouan were collected from various social media learning environments for the experimental investigation presented in this work, and Symanto AI-based personality tool was used to assess the data. The Big Five Questionnaire was then utilized to assess the personalities of the same students, and the findings were compared to the personality traits discovered by the AI-based approach. The study has shown that the AI based tool has correctly predicted the personality traits of 7 students out of 10 with a correlation of about 0,9 which means that social media-based learning environments can be used by institutions to understand the personality of the student. This paper also gives recommendations about data for obtaining good quality in personality prediction.
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Статья научная
Quality of education is comprised in the quality of pre-service teacher education. However, to assess the quality of a teacher training program it is necessary to track some of the non-cognitive parameters. Metacognition is one of these parameters. The present study aimed at the longitudinal trajectory of the development of metacognition in pre-service teachers as an indicator of the quality of the applied teacher training program. The study included 160 pre-service elementary school teachers studying at Teacher Education Faculty at University of Belgrade. The participants’ metacognitive development was measured by Metacognitive Awareness Inventory at three points of time (the beginning of studying, the academic year 2021/22 - T1, the end of the first year - T2, and the end of the second year, 2022/23-T3). The elementary school teacher training program is based on a combination of science and pedagogy related courses that together with school teaching practice start from the first semester. The courses based on problem solving and inquiry-based approach encourage students’ search for adequate strategies and the assessment of their effectiveness. The findings point to a significant increase in total metacognition score between T1 and T2 and somewhat less intense increase between T2 and T3. The findings also point to a significant increase in all metacognitive subcomponents, with Conditional knowledge and Debugging strategies showing a significant increase only between T2 and T3. Between T1 and T2 the largest differences were detected in Declarative knowledge, Comprehension monitoring, and Planning. The results suggest that the teacher training program is metacognitively stimulating.
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Using social media network by special education teachers
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This study aimed at identifying the use of the social media network (Facebook) and its relationship to psychological compatibility of special education teachers by answering four questions that include all the variables of the current study. The study used the descriptive approach and developed a scale to reveal the relationship of Facebook use and psychological compatibility. The psychological scale was applied to a random sample of special education teachers (n=520), who constitute 18% from the study population in Aseer region. The results of the study showed that the period that special education teachers spend using Facebook that received the highest frequency was less than two hours per day. The results revealed that the level of psychological compatibility among special education teachers, who use Facebook was high. There was a negative relationship between the period that special education teachers spend using Facebook and the level of psychological compatibility. The results also indicated that there were no statistically significant differences attributed to the effect of gender on the period of use of Facebook among special education teachers.
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Статья научная
The business culture in the educational system remains conservative, despite the fact that the values of tolerance are wide-spread in the world. This affects the transformation of ideas about the profession of teachers. The article establishes the relationship of ideas about the profession and satisfaction with the profession with the values and meanings of university teachers. It is assumed that in modern conditions of higher education, values and life meanings may differ among teachers with different ideas about the profession. The study sample consists of 270 university teachers aged between 25 and 65 years, work experience from 3 to 25 years, 150 women and 120 men. We used the questionnaire of professional satisfaction (Kissel), the method of measuring values (Schwartz), the semantic differential (Osgood), and the method of identifying life meanings (Kotlyakov). We defined groups of teachers with a neutral view and a positive view of the profession, with varying degrees of satisfaction with the profession. As a result, it was found out that the group of teachers with a neutral attitude to their profession has the most manifested values: conformity, hedonism, security, and meanings: hedonistic, status, and family. The group of teachers with a positive view of the profession, has the values of independence, achievement and security, combined with the meanings: altruistic, self-realization, family and cognitive. It is concluded that university teachers with positive ideas about the profession are more altruistic about their activities, and teachers with neutral ideas about the profession are pragmatic about it.
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Value-semantic scope of personal space of university students
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The analysis of theoretical and empirical works on psychology of the personality and axiological sphere of students' activity of the university has been carried out in this article. During the empirical research of formation of the axiological sphere of students of the second - fourth courses of Pedagogical Institution of the South Federal University they have got the definite results. These results helped to find out not only dynamics of these processes, but also the development of personal space components. The analysis of this problem revealed that a person values have the basic impact on all components of a personal space of the subject. The personal space of a man is at all stages of ontogenetic development. During a person's studentship it is the most noticeable. They have also found some connections between the students' values and their personal space formation and development.
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Verbal-performance activities for optimizing foreign language education
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The modern world, characterized by dynamic changes, rapid development of ICT and globalization processes sets new challenges to present-day education. This research aims at investigating the influence of applying verbal-performance activities in foreign language education. A pedagogical experiment was conducted in authentic environment with the participation of 99 pupils aged 10 to 11 who formed an experimental and a control group. The study combined qualitative and quantitative approach. It measured pupils’ entry and exit levels of practical English knowledge and communicative skills and also traced the effect of the experimental education on the pupils from the experimental group. The interpretative analyses of the results revealed that applying verbal-performance activities in foreign language education led to higher achievements in terms of knowledge and communicative competence for the pupils from the experimental group compared to the progress of the children from the control group. A measurement of the attitude of the pupils from the experimental group towards applying verbal-performance activities in the educational process proved the potential of the method to increase children’s motivation for learning. The findings of this research confirm the need of further studies on the influence of applying verbal-performance activities in a broader context of school education.
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Violence against teachers- rule or exception?
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The objective of this study is to examine the prevalence of violence against teachers by students. The study included 175 teachers, five primary and five secondary schools. The age of respondents (teachers) ranges from 20 to 65, with average age being 44,33 years. The used instrument has assessed violence against teachers and has consisted of data about the characteristics of respondents, frequency and type of violence experienced from students. The results suggest that violence against teachers in primary and secondary schools in Zagreb taken in to sample is very much present. Since 74,3% teachers has experienced violence from their students during the year that kind of behavior is more of a rule than an exception. Students in primary and secondary schools show violent behavior against their teachers at an equal level. Male teachers, as opposed to female teachers, are more frequently victims of violent behavior (posting inappropriate content online) from their students. Also, there is a statistically significant correlation (negative) between age (years of service in school) and frequency of experienced violence from students.
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Virtual Reality as Anxiety Management Tool
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Virtual Reality technologies have been established as an effective tool for the treatment of a variety of mental health disorders. Despite those positive results, it remains unclear whether these findings can generalize to the healthy population. In the current study, we assessed to what degree a virtual scenario consisting of a tropical beach can be successfully applied for the reduction of state anxiety and negative mood in healthy individuals. The study was performed on 50 volunteers aged 18 to 45 that were individually exposed to virtual reality. Before and after the virtual reality session, the emotional state of the participants was measured through questionnaires. Using linear mixed effect models, we obtained evidence for the effectivity of a single virtual reality session for negative state reduction, namely, we observed a decrease in state anxiety and negative mood. Additionally, a positive mood of participants increased after the session, however, no statistical evidence was obtained. The results confirm our hypothesis that state anxiety and negative mood can be decreased using a low-cost virtual reality device. Based on our findings, we suggest that virtual scenarios can improve the emotional well-being and the quality of life of the general population.
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A visual discrete format was developed for use in surveys as an alternative to a Likert-type format to measure changes in a relatively stable construct before and after an intervention. Visitors to a science centre ranging in age from 8 years old upwards were asked to complete surveys that included a seven-item questionnaire scale on self-concept in science using either the Likert-type format (n=446) or the visual discrete format (n=375), before and after their visit. A new set of statements to assess self-concept in science were developed and validated so they could be conducted on either format. Matched responses were used to calculate internal consistency, standard deviation, confidence interval and percentage of missing values; these were all similar for both formats. In the visual discrete format, text labels were replaced by visual labels with a single image of different size for each response option. While a Likert-type format describes a level of agreement/disagreement with a specific item, the visual discrete format relates more to choosing the best reflection of the self in relation to that item. The Likert-type format included a set of emoji in its descriptions to appeal to younger participants. The visual discrete questionnaire scale detected a small increase with medium effect size in self-concept in science after the visit to the science centre while the Likert-type questionnaire scale did not detect any change. This suggests the proposed new format can not only be a viable and useful alternative, but potentially more sensitive under certain conditions.
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War lessons or how social and personal back-ground shapes our perception
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It is well-known that cognitive metaphor can reflect the process of conceptualization of the surrounding world in the human mind. The metaphorical transfer of the source domain's conceptual features to the target domain shows the essence of the reality perception in the consciousness. This study is focused on the intracultural variation of cognitive metaphors, particularly the phenomenon of the implicit-explicit dispersion in metaphors, dependence of their perception on the occupation, gender, and age of members of a culture, and type of metaphors. Based on conceptual metaphors, associated with the target domain WAR in the Russian culture, the researchers elaborate a novel approach to the analysis of conceptual metaphors, providing full-fledged scrutiny of the reflection of the surrounding realm in the minds of native speakers. The study involved 124 people, some of whom have direct professional experience in the military sphere. The obtained differences in the perception of simulated metaphorical models allow us to talk about intracultural variation of the WAR cognitive metaphor and the significant influence of personal experience on the perception of reality.
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The present article is a study of the opportunities and constraints for youth transitions from education to employment vis-a-vi the structural relationships (of compliance and discrepancy) between the sectors of education, training and the labor market. The analysis examines the deficiencies in the coordination of the demand and supply of skills in Bulgaria, which hinder the successful employment integration of the current young generation. The mismatches in the system are highlighted on the national and the regional level where we focus on the contextual cases of Blagoevgrad and Plovdiv functional regions. The paper reveals that there is a discrepancy between labor supply and demand in the skills systems in both regions where less than half of university graduates work in the specialty they have acquired during studies. One of the conclusions of the study is that social changes under way require new strategies and approaches of lifelong learning policies that should go deeper into the regional and local level taking into account both the needs of young people for training throughout their lives and the needs of the regional labor markets.
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