American Journal of Educational Research

A dropout is considered a student who for any reason other than death leaves school before graduation without transferring to another school. Dropping out of school is a well documented social problem and often present daunting circumstances for adolescents. Dropping out is also associated with delinquency, and low school achievements. The study was conducted in two primary school of Gopiballavpur Circle (west) of Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal. For selection of ‘Schools with lower primary grades only’ within Gopiballavpur Circle (West), Paschim Medinipur, the list of all such schools was first arranged in ascending order on the basis of total enrolment (Grade I-IV). In case the total enrolment in a school was less than 10, it was excluded. With the help of this list, two schools (which are fells into more inaccessible and backward area than other school within circle.) were selected by circular systematic sampling method. However, we have used enrolment records collected from daily attendance book considered for study from both school. The considered data period ranges from 2003 to 2010 (seven academic sessions i.e. 2003-04, 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10) and the data are continuous without any missing data. Reconstructed cohort method and Coefficient of Internal Efficiency are used for this study to estimates of dropout and promotion rates based on academic years and to find out important reasons of their school leaving /dropping out from school, present activity of those who are not in any school. The results of the study revealed that drop out of pupils from school in rural backward area were reluctance of parents and participation in domestic activities. Another major reason was problem of financial constraints. The parent’s educational status was poor and they did not give much importance to the education of girls as they did to their sons. They perceived that sons support them in their old age.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1288-1297. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-25
Pub. Date: January 07, 2015

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Teaching Social Skills Students with Learning Difficulties and Behavioral Problems in the Inclusive Classroom

by Alexandratos George and Alexandratou Varvara

Case Report

Systematic and multiple studies (Hackett, et all, 2010, Schnitzer, Andries, &Lebeer, 2007), have shown that learning disabilities are a complex problem and beyond the effects on the cognitive-learning sector, may adversely affect the emotional and social development of children. Students with learning difficulties feel emotional distress in accordance to particular difficulties. Generally, they tend to have more emotional problems, low self-esteem, depressive symptoms, feelings of loneliness, anxiety, aggression and present social withdrawal compared to peers who do not have learning difficulties (Casserly, 2013). The contribution of education in addressing social adjustment problems faced by children with learning disabilities is essential. The method of intervention that a child may follow (a child) in school or special education, must have the support and active participation of parents (Broomhead, 2014). In our study we intend to present evidence showing the importance of research in the teaching of social skills through a program adressed to a student with learning disabilities and behavioral problems. We will also investigate the relationship between behavioral problems and difficulties in writing. The methodology comprises quantitative and qualitative data. The tools for qualitative data collection are the observation (through informal educational assessment), the intervention (with the form of didactic interaction), the Individual Structured Integrative Program of Special Education and the semi-structured interview. The tools for quantitative data collection are the experiment, the questionnaire with close-type questions which was filled by 20 students and the questionnaire with Likert questions which was filled by 20 adults.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1284-1287. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-24
Pub. Date: January 04, 2015

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Using Traditional / ICT Tools While Teaching Translation to Opera Singers

by Kateřina Štroblová

Original Research

Translation is a type of activity seldom proposed by modern teaching materials which emphasize communicative methods. Yet the needs of opera singers studying Italian as a foreign language differ completely from those of students’ studying Italian for other purposes and must indeed include translation. The process of teaching how to translate opera is influenced by several factors; both linguistic and extralinguistic aspects, such as the quality of used scores or musical texts, specific vocabulary, poetic word order, as well as the specific curriculum and the accessibility of didactic tools, influence the process. The aim of this paper is to summarize the research which has been conducted by the author with the aim of finding out the advantages and disadvantages of using traditional and ICT tools for musical text translation. Comparing both types of tools, examples of their use are given. In accordance with the hypothesis, some of the tools are found to be completely unsuitable for such specific translations. Although it is not obvious at first, the results of this research suggest that in order to become an autonomous user of any kind of tool it is essential to learn how to use it without regard to the type of tool. These results are of significance for teachers and students alike. Finally, the paper suggests that further research into tools used for musical text translation is needed.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1277-1283. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-23
Pub. Date: January 04, 2015

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Leadership Styles and Value Systems of School Principals

by Abu-Hussain. Jamal

Review Article

The reforms conducted in the field of education are directed towards the changing manner of school management. The change is expressed in the transition from external supervision of schoolwork to the empowerment of school’s staff, with a change of the principal's and teacher's roles. It requires accountability from school’s principles and staff inproviding results of teaching and effective functioning of the school. The goal of this paper is to review research literature in order to determine the most effective leadership model in the new conditions of school management. In order to attain this goal, a consistent review of literature was performed on the following subjects: leadership evolution; transformational and transactional leadership styles; the links between a leadership style and organizational variables; the relationship between value systems and leadership styles of school’s principles. Approaches, methods, models, and means are analyzed during the examination of leadership evolution. Many studies reveal that leadership behavior is an important predictor of its effectiveness. A comparative examination of transformational and transactional leadership styles gives evidence for preference of transformational style relative to its influence on organizational variables. The literary review indicates that transformational leadership essentially improves the functioning of school and teaching processes. The effect of a value system on leadership styles of school principals is examined. As a result, it is determined that principals with a moral value system lean more towards a transformational leadership style and principals with a pragmatic value system lean more towards a transactional leadership style. Thereby, the review shows that effective leadership can be provided as a result of searching for correlations between the value systems and leadership styles.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1267-1276. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-22
Pub. Date: January 01, 2015

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The Intervention Program "The Voice of the Other"

by Zahava barkani

Original Research

This study examined the impact of the intervention program "The Voice of the Other" on student teachers and the process that the students undergo throughout the program. This study also examines the impact of the unique tools that influenced the process.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1260-1266. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-21
Pub. Date: December 31, 2014

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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Key Tool for Enhancing Teaching and Learning in Nigeria: A Study of Two Tertiary Institutions in Benin Metropolis

by Kingsley Obahiagbon and Otabor Joseph Osahon

Original Research

Survey method was adopted in this work. Usable data were collected from 200 students and lecturers of University of Benin and Benson Idahosa University through randomly administered questionnaires. Data that relates to the research questions were analyzed using frequency count and percentage, while the Null hypothesis was tested using chi square test. The results showed a strong relationship between the use of ICT tools and enhancement in teaching and learning. Recommendations for more investment in ICT based teaching and learning tools, acquisition of ICT skills and the integration of ICT education in school curriculums were proffered.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1257-1259. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-20
Pub. Date: December 31, 2014

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Qualitative Record Management Skills for Effective Service Delivery in Nigerian Education System

by MODEBELU MELODY. N. and ONYALI LOYCE. C.

Original Research

Record keeping is a strong instrument for keeping an organization alive and healthy. It is the only veritable tool for keeping the government and the nation informed as to the need or otherwise of further investment in education and other subsectors of economy, the direction as well as the dimension of such investment. One of the major reasons educations has not been utilized adequately to achieve national transformation and reconstruction of the third world nations is due to poor record management by educational managers, administrators and teachers. The study examined qualitative record management skills for effective service delivery in Nigerian education system. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The sample size was 1260 respondents (260 Educational Administrators and 1000 classroom teachers), from 260 public secondary schools in Anambra State of Nigeria. A 52-item structured questionnaire built on 4-point scale was used for data collection. Senior lecturers and the deputy registrars in the 36 tertiary institutions in the south east zone of Nigeria consisted of the population of the study.. A 33 – item structured questionnaire built on a 4 – point scale was used for data collection. Three research questions and a null hypothesis guided the study. The instrument was validated by two experts in Educational Management and Policy. Mean and t-test statistic tool at 0.05 level of significance were used for the analysis of the research questions and hypothesis respectively. Findings revealed low extent application e-recording, inadequate lecturers in terms quality/ quantity and administrative officer’s skills.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1250-1256. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-19
Pub. Date: December 31, 2014

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Nigerian Universities Outputs and Their Employability in the Labour Markets in South- South, Nigeria

by Asuquo Austin Effiong and Agboola Bolapeju Mary

Original Research

This study examines Nigerian Universities outputs and their employability in the labour market in South-South, Nigeria. The descriptive design of expost facto type was used and the study population comprised Nigerian Universities graduates in both private and public establishments in South-South, Nigeria. Researcher developed questionnaire tagged “Universities Outputs and their Employability Questionnaire” which was validated by two independent experts in Test and Measurement and was used in data collection. Reliability of this instrument was tested and Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of 0.89 was obtained. Multi-stage sampling was used to select sample of 1200 UNiversities graduates, 600 from private and 600 from public establishments in South-South, Nigeria. Frequencies and percentages were used to analyse the demographics of these employers while both one sample t-test and independent t-test were used to test research hypotheses at 0.05 level of significant. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 20.0) was used to enhance data analysis. Result showed that the employability of Nigerian Universities outputs based on the responses of their employers who rated them was significantly below average. This result was indifference in spite of differences respondents’ sex, organisation type, educational qualification and age. Hence, management of University education in Nigeria should collaborate with the employers of labour in designing the university curriculum. Also, a more robust and proactive steps should be taken by Nigerian government to improve the existing industrial training programme and other programme channeled towards enhancing the employability of Universities outputs in South- South and in Nigeria at large.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1244-1249. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-18
Pub. Date: December 31, 2014

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Creating a Successful Teacher’s Profile as Perceived by Students

by P. SRINIVASAN and M. KAVIPRIYA

Original Research

The present investigation is an attempt to create a successful teacher’s profile as perceived by school students. The successful teachers were identified informally by enquiring the students. Then students of successful teachers are taken as samples. Data was collected by face-to-face interview with every sample. Every student’s response was recorded. The sample’s responses were in a statement. These statements refer a particular character of a teacher. Therefore the investigators have given a particular term for such statements. The terms are treated with percentage analysis. A database of successful teacher’s profile is created in conclusion, which contains 31 characters of a teacher.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1237-1243. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-17
Pub. Date: December 29, 2014

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A Corpus-Based Study on Epistemic Adjectives in Academic English

by Reyhan Ağçam

Original Research

‘Stance is the way academics annotate their texts to comment on the possible accuracy or creditability of a claim, the extent they want to commit themselves to it, or the attitude they want to convey to an entity, a proposition or the reader’ (Hyland, 2005). Recent studies have revealed that researchers, particularly those who study soft sciences, tend to adopt a certain stance while reporting on their research even though they are supposed to use an objective voice in their academic writing. The present study aims to investigate epistemic adjectives used in conveying author stance in Academic English through a corpus-based approach. It reports the results of the Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (Granger, 1996) administered to a total number of 136 doctoral dissertations written by native and non-native academic authors of English. Frequencies of the epistemic adjectives were separately calculated for each corpus and a log-likelihood test was utilized to see whether native and non-native academic authors of English significantly differ with regard to these items. Findings of the study have shown that certainty adjectives were mostly used by non-native academic authors of English whilst likelihood adjectives were mostly employed by native academic authors of English, which leads us to the conclusion that the non-native groups are inclined to use cautious expressions less frequently than the native groups in their academic writing. The study concludes with possible reasons for this particular result, implications of the results to academic writing and a few suggestions for further research.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1230-1236. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-16
Pub. Date: December 28, 2014

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Flipping the Classroom for Pharmacokinetics

by Jennifer Schneider, Irene Munro and Siva Krishnan

Original Research

A flipped classroom approach was implemented in a pharmacokinetics course to encourage active student learning and enable the development of higher level learning skills. Students viewed written and/or audio-visual recordings of content materials prior to active face-to-face engagement where they then applied their learning through the evaluation and analysis of different clinical scenarios, calculation of dosing regimens, and synthesis of information to create resources. Student outcomes for the flipped pharmacokinetics course in 2013 were compared with student outcomes for the traditionally taught pharmacokinetics course in 2012 which acted as control. Student evaluations of the course showed significantly stronger satisfaction with their learning experience by students in the innovative 2013 course compared to students in the traditional 2012 control (P=0.01).Although students in the 2013 cohort strongly agreed that flipping the classroom enabled them to apply their learning and that it had a positive effect on their learning, there was no significant difference in the major assessment results between the 2013 and 2012 cohorts.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1225-1229. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-15
Pub. Date: December 26, 2014

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Beyond Knowledge and Pedagogy: Academic Optimism of Teachers in High Need Schools

by Sheila R. Vaidya

Original Research

The question that drives the research presented in this paper is –why are some teachers in a cohort more effective than others, despite the fact that the academic preparation is the same for all? We find the answers in the teacher academic optimism- teacher beliefs and attitudes of efficacy about the students and themselves. Next, we visit their classrooms, review their journals, question them about how they use mentors. Based on this data, we present five case studies, characterize teacher beliefs and philosophy while observing how their academic optimism plays out in their classroom behavior.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1218-1224. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-14
Pub. Date: December 25, 2014

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The Student Wheels Strategy in Teaching Speaking Skills to Cultivate Politeness at Junior High School

by Nanik Mariani Effendie

Original Research

The English Course is one of the foreign language courses that must be taught as a compulsory subject at school, especially in the Junior High School. It is more stressed on knowledge of the four standards of competence or the four language skills, without considering the ethical values contained in that four language skills. It means that the teaching and learning English, especially in speaking skills, should be taught not only in the cognitive skills, but also in the affective skills as well. The education regarding how language-speaking politely, considering the value of tolerance, sympathy, and empathy. So implementing politeness in the process of teaching English speaking skills is important. Politeness is the rules of conduct established and agreed upon jointly by a particular community so that politeness as well as be concluded by the prerequisite of social behavior. To cultivate politeness in English speaking class, the English teachers at Junior High Schools (SMP) can use the teaching strategy, such as Student wheels strategy. Student Wheels is adopted from Hadfield (in Sulistiyowati, 2009: 72-73) to get the students more active in speaking class and accustomed in using polite language. Using Student wheels, all students can get their roles in speaking because they have to interact each other by standing in two circles formed as wheels. In this strategy, all students use the expressions of English speaking thought by the teacher and they can accustom by themselves in implementing politeness in the classroom.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1211-1217. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-13
Pub. Date: December 22, 2014

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Transformative Learning in the Discipline of Nursing

by Ruta Renigere

Original Research

Transformative education in nursing is a manifestation of the complementarity of nursing and the ecology of education with an aim to base learning and learning outcomes – knowledge, skills and competences in the ecological paradigm. The author of the research has approbated the principles of the ecology of education in the curricula and study courses of several medical colleges, as well as in the curricula of informal education. A student survey was performed to clarify how participants of different nursing study programs understand the concept of ecology and transformative education, and its connection with education and health care.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1207-1210. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-12
Pub. Date: December 21, 2014

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Promote the Process of Internationalization of Universities in China through the Spread of Chinese Learning

by Liu Yan, Benjamin Heisler and Xu Lu

Original Research

This paper, mainly in the context of internationalization of education, investigates the emergence of the institute responsible for the promotion of Chinese learning internationally, compared to other language promoting institutes, it has its own special characteristics and advantages. At the same time, the spread of Chinese Learning has played a very important role in the process of internationalization of China's higher education. The spreading of languages is an important basis for the internationalization of education.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1203-1206. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-11
Pub. Date: December 17, 2014

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Research on Assessment of Children Educational Products

by Aiying Liang and Wenbin Xiao

Original Research

Children’s educational products play an important role in enhancing children’s thinking, analytical and judgment abilities, flexibilities and creativity. However, so far there have been no effective assessment criteria for such products. The article proposes an innovative 3-level index system to assess educational products, which comprises 3 first-level indices, 9 second-level indices and some corresponding third-level indices on the basis of pedagogic, psychological and socialogical theories. The system puts forth specific requirements for qualified educational products in terms of educational effects and operating rules, etc., and incorporates the dimension of “age” to make assessment more operable and accurate.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1199-1202. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-10
Pub. Date: December 15, 2014

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Addressing Pedagogical Training Needs of Teaching Staff: Lessons from Makerere University Short Professional Development Programs 2006 - 2010

by Betty Akullu Ezati, Charles Opolot-Okurut and Proscovia Namubiru Ssentamu

Original Research

In Uganda, university teachers are recruited on the strength of their class of degree rather than pedagogical content knowledge and skill. Given the frequent changes in technology with resultant paradigm shifts from teacher to learner-centered education and competence-based approaches, increasing demand of accountability from society, and demand for quality, among others, university teaching can no longer be left to subject expertise alone. Effective teaching and quality graduates requires university teachers to possess a combination of content and pedagogical knowledge. Using data collected through an interview guide and end-of-workshop evaluation questionnaire for a four-year training period (2006 – 2010), this article focused on the lessons learnt from a series of pedagogical training workshops offered by Makerere University management to her teaching staff. Findings show that the main training needs among the teaching staff include assessment and grading of students, managing large classes, and using ICT in teaching and learning. Overall, the staff appreciated the workshop methodology, the co-teaching approach and the sharing of experiences. However, there were concerns about the timing of the trainings and inability to implement what is learned due to institutional constraints. The study underpins the importance of undertaking needs assessment before designing any staff training program. Rather than claim that addressing individual training needs will improve quality, staff pedagogical training should be combined with institutional changes so that institutional constraints that hinder utilization of knowledge and skills acquired during training are concurrently addressed. In addition, training approaches should transcend the deficit model of continuous professional development commonly used to the use of a variety of models including the cascaded model. Through the cascade model the capacity of academic staff could be built, these would continue to learn from each other, thereby developing a critical mass at faculty or academic unit level.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1190-1198. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-9
Pub. Date: December 15, 2014

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Test Tool Creation and Examination of Selected Cognitive Skills of Students at the Slovak University of Technology

by Mária Bednáriková and Karol Kováč

Case Report

In the article we analyze the possibility of testing critical thinking using a self-compiled questionnaire: "A test of selected critical thinking skills." There are four main dimensions of critical thinking studied in the test. In the first dimension, we tested the ability to identify relations between two terms. In the second dimension, we tested the ability of the formal - logical analysis combined with logical operations such as implication, conjunction, negation, and equivalence. In the third dimension we tested the ability of determining relations or contradictions in more extensive text units. The importance lies in the ability to differentiate own interpretation of statements from statements that have been shown and proven in the text. The fourth dimension focuses on the ability to interpret the text in order to identify causality and formulate logically consistent arguments. It was very important to understand the text and identify the tacit explicit information (such as the main idea of the text). The research questions and hypotheses were drawn to validate the parameters of a specific instrument. Results of the analyses showed the existence of statistically significant links between the first and second dimensions of the test.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1182-1189. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-8
Pub. Date: December 14, 2014

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The Relationship between Commitment to the Organization, Perceived Organizational Support, Job Satisfaction, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior of Teachers

by Rachel Holsblat

Original Research

The study examines the relationship between teachers' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and their attitudes to work, including commitment to the organization, affective commitment and value congruence commitment, perceived organizational support and job satisfaction. The data were collected through the use of a questionnaire, distributed to a sample of 314 elementary school teachers from the center of Israel. The results of the study, obtained through Pearson correlations and multiple regressions, indicate that organizational citizenship behavior is a multidimensional variable directed to different parties in the school – students, teachers, and the organization. In addition, all the variables examined have a significant positive correlation with the teacher's behavior. The variable with the most significant correlation is commitment to the organization, which derives from the congruence between the values of the individual and the organization. The findings of the present study have theoretical and applied value for educators and educational policy makers.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1175-1181. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-7
Pub. Date: December 11, 2014

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Formal Multiple Intelligences Assessment Instruments for 4-6 Years Old Children

by MARTINI JAMARIS and EDWITA

Original Research

This two years research was done in the form of research and development. The selection of the research method was because the research developed valid and reliable instruments which be used to assess eight types of the multiple-intelligences of the 4-6 years old children. They were eight types of multiple intelligences namely verbal/linguistics intelligence, logical mathematical intelligence, visual spatial intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, bodily/kinesthetic intelligence, music/rythmic intelligence and naturalist intelligence. The two years research and development was done in three stages. By doing literature research, the first stage was to analyze concepts, principles, and theories aimed to construct multiple intelligences conceptual frame work of the 4-6 years old children. The second stage was to develop valid and reliable eight types of formal multiple intelligences assessment instruments for the 4-6 years old children, in which, the validity and reliability of the assessment instruments were confirmed by field test. First field test was carried out on a small group consisted of 20 children, and the second field test included 40 children. Both field tests revealed that the eight types of multiple intelligences assessment instruments were valid and reliable. The third stage was to assess the improvement of the 4-6 years old children’s multiple intelligences after participating the instructional model focused on the improvement of multiple intelligences. The third stage was done by implementing mix method research and revealed that the children’s multiple intelligences were improved. The improvement of the children’s multiple intelligences assessed accurately. To decide the level of multiple intelligences improvement of the children, therefore, the assessment instruments equipped by measured standard used.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1164-1174. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-6
Pub. Date: December 10, 2014

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M-Learning and Technological Literacy: Analyzing Benefits for Apprenticeship

by Carlos Manuel Pacheco Cortés and Adriana Margarita Pacheco Cortés

Original Research

The following study consists on comparative literature review conducted by several researchers and instructional designers; for a wide comprehension of Mobile-Learning (abbreviated M-Learning) as an educational platform to provide 'anytime-anywhere’ access to interactions and resources on-line, and Technological Literacy (TL), as a potential outcome of Technology Education (the study of Technology). The similarity between M-Learning and ‘M-Education’ might be confusing, in another way, here is explained the difference regarding both. Most of the theory developed on M-Learning was conceived in English, as digital resources of public dominion; however, there is a mention for skills applied by students to use mobile devices, originally conducted in Spanish. The method implemented is deductive/inductive reasoning: Boolean data type. The purpose for this study is to merge it with subsequent investigations, and linking the most outstanding concern with a common dissertation.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1160-1163. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-5
Pub. Date: December 08, 2014

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Empirical Study on Students and their Attitudes toward Statistics Course and Statistical Field

by Arturo García-Santillán, Milka E. Escalera-Chávez, Carlos A. Rojas-Kramer and Felipe J. Pozos-Texon

Original Research

The aim of this study was to verify whether there are significant differences between the profiles of the mean score students from a sample of three universities, regarding attitude toward the statistics’ course and attitude toward the statistical field. The universities were: Universidad Cristóbal Colón (UCC), Universidad Politécnica de Aguascalientes (UPA) and Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí (UASLP). The Attitudes toward Statistics (ATS) scale -proposed by Wise in 1985- was utilized for this purpose. The survey was conducted among 672 students enrolled in mathematics courses, and data were processed through discriminant analysis. The results suggest that the ATS of students at UPA are distinct from the attitude observed on students at UCC, and the ATS of students at UASLP are different from students at UCC and UPA.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1151-1159. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-4
Pub. Date: December 08, 2014

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A Trapezoidal Fuzzy Method for Assessing Students’ Mathematical Modeling Skills

by Michael Gr. Voskoglou

Original Research

Fuzzy logic due to its nature of characterizing each case with multiple values offers a rich field of resources covering the assessment of situations characterized by a degree of vagueness and/or uncertainty. In this paper, we apply a new trapezoidal fuzzy assessment model (TRFAM) for measuring students’ mathematical modeling (MM) skills. TRFAM is actually a variation of the commonly used in fuzzy logic centre of gravity (COG) defuzzification technique, which we have properly adapted and utilized in earlier papers as an assessment model. Our COG and TRFAM models focus on students’ quality performance by assigning greater coefficients to the higher scores. A classroom experiment is also presented, illustrating our results in practice. Through this experiment the above two models are compared to each other and also with two traditional assessment methods based on principles of bivalent logic (the calculation of means and of the GPA index) and some useful conclusions are drawn.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1144-1150. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-3
Pub. Date: December 08, 2014

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Adjustment of Secondary School Students with Respect to Gender and Residence

by Joymalya Paramanik, Birbal Saha and Bhim Chandra Mondal

Original Research

The present work aims at studying the adjustment ability among secondary school students in relation to gender and residence. The sample consists of 471 class X students with 234 boys and 237 girls which were drawn randomly from different schools of Purulia districts, WB. The investigators have constructed and validate an Adjustment Inventory (AI) for school students to collect the necessary data. The study revealed that there is no significant difference between adjustments of students residing either at urban or rural area. But on the other hand the mean adjustment score of girls is higher than those from boys which indicate that the girls are better adjusted as compared to their boys counterpart.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1138-1143. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-2
Pub. Date: December 08, 2014

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Teachers Professional Induction in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

by Miluse Viteckova and Zdenka Gadusova

Original Research

The paper presents partial results of research carried out among novice teachers and mentors with a special focus on teachers’ professional induction in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The aim of this research was to identify problematic areas novice teachers face, opportunities for novice support in the form of appointed mentors and, furthermore, the research has relevance also because of its impact on the higher education training of future teachers. Another aim of this Czech and Slovak research was to find out the differences in the area of CPD of teachers between these two countries which used to form one common country before the year 1993 and, consequently, had a common history. In both countries mixed research has been carried out, using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. In the Czech Republic 148 novice teachers and 67 mentors have been involved in the questionnaire research. In Slovakia it has been 132 novices and 127 mentors. The semi-structured interviews have recorded the opinions of 30 novices and 8 mentors in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia 17 novices and 26 mentors. The research was supported by the Slovak National Research Agency VEGA under the project number 1/0677/12 (in the years 2012 - 2014), but Czech and Slovak cooperation continues within a new mobility project Personal and Professional Needs of Novice Teachers which is supported by the research agency APVV.

American Journal of Educational Research. 2014, 2(12), 1131-1137. DOI: 10.12691/education-2-12-1
Pub. Date: December 08, 2014

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