The study examines the sensation seeking tendency – Zuckerman’s concept (1978) and student’s learning style – Dunn’s concept (2000). The study is of descriptive character and uses quantitative methods. To collect data, two standardized questionnaires are combined into one – Learning styles, Interests and Hobbies Inventory. Students of Czech grammar schools with extended physical education and sports training were observed. Analysis of Variance has found that boys seek sensation extensively more than girls regardless of their class type; furthermore, students from classes with P.E. and sports specialization do not seek sensation more extensively in comparison with students from general classes. Statistically significant differences in preferred learning styles have been identified between both types of classes.

In the article, the question is raised whether human knowledge, abilities, emotions and socialization are capable of shaping social structures according to the idea of multiculturalism (which faces a critical situation), introducing the humanistic quality to the principles of coherence and integration. With my own research results in the background (diagnostic polling and individual interviews), integration and identity are presented as strategies determined by aims, subjects (players) and profits (rewards). What has been indicated is the idea worth promoting in the field of pedagogy, in educational institutions and in whole societies, i.e., shaping the culture which re-builds the real power of group life. The postulate to shape such culture in multicultural communities is very hard to implement, but not impossible. The presented results of the studies conducted on a specific group of young Europeans – the participants of a short-term international voluntary workcamp – indicate and illustrate the development of cognitive functions, motivation and interactive activity of kindness- based character.
The interpretative tracks and motifs for the obtained results are sought in K. Illeris’s holistic concept of learning and in other theories of various origin, not much known in the field of pedagogy: H. Simon’s concept of bounded rationality and R. Aumann’s theory of repeated games (otherwise called the theory of “conflict and cooperation” or “interactive decisions”). Applying two different approaches into the discussed issues – the theoretical and empirical, detailed and partially generalized approach – is cognitively interesting and useful in the practical dimension. This might help both to specify the stimuli which cause the evolution of human attitudes and strategies of acting and to design and organize education.

This study examines factors involving the acceptance of social networks for academic purposes. A survey was applied to 290 graduate students as a quantitative methodological design. The main finding is that students thought that greater use of social networks for academic purposes would improve interaction and feedback among peers and also would improve teaching-learning processes. Also, students considered their skills as sufficient to use social networks for academic purposes, expressing their intention to incorporate them into the subjects dynamics.

Children’s game makes a part of children’s lives. The paper provides partial results of empirical research focused on children’s game in the home and school environment. The character of the empirical research was diagnostic and quantitative. The subject of the research was children’s game and its implementation for children under 12 years of age. There were 218 individual respondents from all over Slovakia who participated in the individual interviews. They gave oral answer to questions about the game in their childhood and the way it way realized. Here we also present the approach of teachers and psychologists. Due to political-pedagogical character, we divided the game and the respondents into three categories according to the age and childhood.

The presented paper is based on extensive multivariate studies conducted in some academic centres of Poland which differ in location (the centre - the borderland) and socio-economic potential. What prevails in the theoretical sphere are references to studies in the area of social psychology of development and to the idea of constructivism. The research results provide a lot of information on teacher education. On the basis of the conducted diagnoses, four dimensions of learning are indicated by the author (identity of the professional role, experiences in relations with the Other, practice, social participation) as well as the process of cogeneration. This constitutes a thought provoking material, which encourages changes in contents and methods (in the current model) of training teachers. Such an approach to teacher education seems appropriate and needed, in compliance with the critical-creative view on educational reality and striving for positive solutions to social (thus also educational) problems. The study enriches knowledge in the field of pedeutology, intercultural education, and some other areas of pedagogy (as a scientific discipline) and education (as a space of social life).

The article presents the issue of patriotic discourse in school textbooks for teaching Polish for grades 4–8 of primary schools. At the same time, this issue is placed in the aspect of recent changes in education made and announced by the minister of science and education. The analysis of the textbooks carried out using the KAD method shows that, although we constantly deal with a romantic vision of patriotism due to the canon of reading, it is sometimes broken through reflection on historical events and the past. The martyrdom tendency, formed in the period of Romanticism, is still the dominant one, the presence of which is part of the paradigm of the long duration of Romanticism. The article also addresses what patriotic education at school should be today. Not only today, but for a long time now, we have been dealing with a tendency to produce and reproduce a conservative discourse and be closed within a martyrological narrative. This way of understanding patriotism today may lead young people to consider any form of patriotism as anachronistic and inadequate to our times.

This paper aims to shed some light on the correlation between teacher stress, on the one hand, and motivation of teachers and students, on the other hand – observed in an EFL environment. The data sample comprising responses given by EFL teachers and students from the primary education cycle was collected via the teacher stress measurement scale and motivation for learning scale, applied for teachers and students, respectively. Apart from the basic descriptive statistics used to describe the relationship between the variables, the paper’s methodology is also characterised by applying the Pearson correlation coefficient. The results led to interesting conclusions; while, as expected, workload directly affects stress levels of teachers, who, following the results, are highly motivated to work with teenagers, contrary to what could be believed, teacher motivation is not directly related to student motivation, what could be further analysed in the future studies.

Technological developments in the 4.0 revolution affect aspects of life, including the educational aspect. Currently, the learning components are technology-based, such as podcasts as learning media. So that it becomes an opportunity for students to understand digital literacy through podcasts as a learning media in the classroom with social studies subjects. This study aims to describe the creation of podcast-based social studies learning media model to improve students’ digital literacy. The research uses Research and Development with qualitative and quantitative approaches, data collection techniques using observation, interviews, document studies, focus group discussions, and data analysis techniques using regression correlation. The research subjects are students at Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia. The results from these studies showed that using digital-based learning media, namely podcasts in social studies subjects, had a good impact and a significant effect on students’ digital literacy skills. The application of podcast-based learning media products will work well if they are supported by several funding elements, namely: 1) the involved issues are contemporary; 2) the use of the latest design; 3) in the design of materials, there is a collaboration between lecturers and students.

The paper deals with learning styles and their initial diagnostics in the process of the student’s learning. It is focused on a method of learning styles recognition with the support of modern information technologies. The paper analyses different methods of the learning styles diagnostics, incorporating this issue into the scientific field of artificial intelligence and presents an idea on how to diagnose a learning style by using an unconventional fuzzy logic linguistic expert system. The expert system was designed to diagnose learning styles of university students in adaptive computer aided learning systems. A significant benefit is continuous numerical evaluation of the student’s degree of affiliation to all learning categories (types of student) with a possibility of simple determination of dominant and subdominant types, the use of a linguistic rule-based decision-making model, which is completely transparent and open, and the use of a decision-making procedure corresponding to the process of human consideration. The paper is an example of an application of modern information technologies in education.

This paper examines the styles and approaches to learning in contemporary higher education students. These individual characteristics are seen as results of the interaction between student individuality and the learning environment stimuli. The presented research is based on the assumption of existing interactions among the nature of study environment, the student’s approach to learning and his/her study effectiveness. Research results confirm this assumption and enable to analyze findings in the context of a specific learning environment.

Our study examined the differences between students with special educational needs (SEN) and other students in vocational and technical schools in different areas of self-regulation: learning motivation, cognitive and metacognitive strategies and emotional regulation in learning. The sample consisted of 140 students, of whom 20 were students with SEN. Differences between students were most often expressed in the area of lower perceptions of self-efficacy. With respect to the regulation of time and study environment, the students with SEN had greater problems with following the study schedule than other students; in the area of taking responsibility for learning, the students with SEN gave up faster and did not persevere in studying the more difficult subject matter. The students with SEN also expressed less positive beliefs about themselves and their abilities; they sought study support later or not at all compared to other students and gave up on studying more difficult course material. In inclusive classes with the students with SEN, the teachers should dedicate more time to develop self-regulated learning skills and strategies and thus increase students’ feeling of control over the learning process.

Towards Empowerment

The primary goal of this paper is to introduce the concept of empowerment, its sources, definitions and various ways to comprehend it. The author’s professional interest lies in the field of scientific research. But the topic was primarily chosen due to the fact that the concept of empowerment has not only been increasingly recognized and studied by social sciences but also widely applied in everyday life. The concept of empowerment has been utilized in many different contexts. It can be categorized as a scientific phenomenon that in spite of being popular and widely used does not have a uniform definition. Empowerment is not only a theory but also an idea, a model or a research. Empowerment is also both a process and the outcome of a process. It may be understood by any one of the mentioned meanings or all of them together. The paper is based on the assumption that empowerment is a multidimensional concept. There are two important consequences of this assumption. First of all, as already mentioned, the concept does not have one uniform definition (the definition depends on different socio-cultural and political contexts the concept operates in). Second of all, the nature of its many dimensions derives from its many levels. There are three levels of empowerment – individual, organizational and community. The paper postulates that the levels are interconnected and interact. So any change on any level influences the other levels. The levels are connected by mediating structures that are essential to find the answer to the question this paper raises – whether an individual can influence a social change? The deliberations presented in this paper are set in the educational context. The author’s reflections on the social and educational intervention models are also set in that context. The paper concludes with the thesis that the empowerment (resources) model needs to be included in the academic curriculum.

Designing and running training schemes for farmers are critical steps to support a global strategy to foster sound cooperation between research centres and rural entrepreneurs to improve overall competitiveness of a rural area. This paper outlines the problematic environment of planning and implementing these schemes with a specific emphasis on the great number of difficulties and critical knots hampering the effectiveness of these initiatives: a “paradigm shift ”, and updated approaches and tools, are required firstly to convince decision makers to adopt a renewed and a more participatory approach in training to improve and increase impacts of these schemes and make the involved public and private investments more effective and efficient.

This paper examines various analyses of the relationship between citizenship and rights, drawing on the work of T H Marshal, Karl Vasak and John Urry, and relates these to citizenship education. It is argued that citizenship can be defined around conceptions of human rights, and that these have developed in civil, political and social phases. Rights are consequent on membership of a community, but we have seen, particularly in the development of the European Union, a decoupling of rights from territory. As we have multiple identities, we also may have multiple citizenships. The paper moves to analyse how communities are constructed, and identifies iconic, symbolic and enactive aspects in the formation of a community. Relating these to citizenship education, it is argued that Jerome Bruner’s model of learning is particularly appropriate. While citizenship education has traditionally focused on the iconic and symbolic, it is necessary for young people to engage inactively with citizenship in order to learn civic participation, and such active learning is best focussed on the extension of human rights into new domains.

Current library instructions, textbooks do not adequately address children, because they do not consider children’s (pre)conceptions about information literacy. Using qualitative methods this research tries to describe conceptual frameworks, distinctions to support a more efficient and constructivist library instruction. In our opinion research does not result in adaptive information about conceptions, if the research subject does not investigate relationships from the point of view of information and information literacy generally and in terms of some preferred resources. This study emphasizes a relationship between libraries and learning in children’s conceptions. Four types of conceptions were revealed in this specific sub-field, which influence preparing for autonomous learning and lifelong learning.