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Strengthening family–school partnerships through research, training and innovation: Reflections from the MTA‑DE‑PARTNERED program
71-84Views:132This study presents the comprehensive findings of the MTA-DE-PARTNERED research and development program, which ran from 2021 to 2025, and aimed to explore and develop the theoretical, empirical, and practical dimensions of family-school partnerships. Within the framework of Epstein’s model of parental involvement, the research examined parents’ educational and learning-support activities at home, school–parent communication, volunteering, participation in decision-making, and community building. Analyses based on a review of the literature, large-scale questionnaire surveys, interviews, and case studies show that patterns of parental involvement are influenced by the child’s achievement, school type, school sector, and social background. The MTA-DE-PARTNERED program placed a strong emphasis on improving teacher training, recognizing that teachers’ preparedness and attitudes play a key role in the quality of the partnership. During the development phase, we created an evidence-based collection of best practices, a university toolkit, and an innovative educational board game based on cooperative. The board game aimed to support the positive development of asset-based attitudes among students and teachers through the simulation of various parental involvement scenarios. The results of the impact assessments suggest that the board game significantly contributes to the development of reflective thinking, a multi-perspective approach, and partnership-centered attitudes. This study shows that strengthening family-school collaboration requires systemic, research-based, and training-related innovations that will, in the long term, contribute to the improvement of student achievement and the development of pedagogical culture.
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Characteristics of Teaching Community Capital - Focus on Teachers in Reformed Public Education Institutions
48-55Views:543The issue of the effectiveness of teaching is constantly at the center of research. "Teachers count", presents the OECD report (2005), which confirms the research of the day that the work of the teacher contributes significantly to the performance of students. The question is how to capture the factors that influence school performance. The focus of the examination of the theoretical background is on the professional capital theory, with the emphasis on the examination of social / teaching capital in addition to the human capital and decision capital components. Our research is based on a secondary analysis of a questionnaire among teachers working in Calvinist institutions in 2017. The focus of our interest is on identifying the characteristics (frequency) and content (agreeing with norms) of staff capital and the need for teachers to develop collaborative networking opportunities for future professional development.
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Evaluation of Indexation Consistency in Publisher Subject Metadata
28-34Views:287This work aims at evaluating the indexing of subject metadata published on the MercadoEditorial.org platform. The goal: to verify if the indexing is consistent. First, analysis was done of the tools available on the platform for assigning keywords, and, afterwards, publishers on the platform were documented and verified by running intrinsic evaluation for interconsistency. This was all done to compare the indexing of one work by four authors. The authors were Ciranda Cultural, IBEP, Excelsior Editora, and Via Leitura. The chosen book was “The Alienist” by Machado de Assis, a classic in Brazilian literature. The result of the indexing analysis was that publishers gave keywords such as title, author’s name, characters’ names, names of other books, and excessively used and repeated words. The last category was further broken down being with or without accentuation, being in the singular or plural form. Other terms were assigned that were related to university entrance exams. Thus, it can be concluded that an absence of vocabulary control can make retrieval of a work difficult, simply by assigning terms that inadequately define the subject of the book, and by lacking semantic, syntactic, and morphological standardization among the terms.
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Students’ Motivations to Study Abroad: The Case of International Students at the University of Debrecen
76-81Views:2287Today there is a growing demand among international students to study in Hungary, more specifically with the launching of Stipendium Hungaricum program in 2013. The number of international scholarship holders increases each year, but till now, we have no significant research results about their study motivations, research has focused only on institutional perspectives (Kasza, & Hangyál 2018). The motivation of students is an important research field in higher education, particularly because there could be various factors to motivate students studying abroad. The motives can be categorised as intrinsic and extrinsic. Our research question is, what are the main intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors that encourage students to study in Hungary? We performed 15 qualitative interviews among international scholarship holders on postgraduate levels. We gathered semi-structured interviews with the help of an interview scheme with five main questions. The investigated dimensions include the following: 1. introduction and context of interviewees, 2. Reasons for leaving the country of origin, 3. Reasons for country choice, 4. Preliminary knowledge about Hungary, 5. Personal expectations. After the data collection, we analysed texts with open coding process in which line by line and word for word was analysed (Khandkar, 2009). Then we were able to form a typology of motivations and we found subcategories within the intrinsic and extrinsic classification.
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Playing Purposefully with Students in Courses – a Concept, an Implementation, and an Evaluation of a University Module
76-86Views:241Playing as a method of learning is predominantly applied in preschool and primary education. However, in the context of higher education, the method of playing is only sporadically used. The novelty of this topic lies in its application at the tertiary level, particularly in teacher education, where the aim is for students to plan and support learning processes for pupils from deep structures. This study investigates how playful learning methodologies can be effectively integrated into higher education and examines the impact on student attitudes and teaching practices. The module 'Playful Learning in Primary Education' was evaluated during the autumn semester of 2023 at the Institute for Primary Education of the PH FHNW in Switzerland. Initially, the topic of play is defined from multiple theoretical perspectives. The module description outlines the research questions addressed in the study. A central component of the evaluation is the students' certificates of achievement, which were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results highlight the attitudes toward playful methodology that students had at the beginning of the module and the attitudes and experiences they acquired by the end of the module. The evaluation results are presented in summative fashion in tables and interpreted in the discussion. The article aims to motivate university teachers to offer playful learning methods in higher education and to experience the positive impacts of this methodology with the students. The results clearly show that this methodology can lead to changes in teaching practice.
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The International Comparison of the Educational Systems of Iran, Myanmar and Ethiopia
84-94Views:463Education systems usually fall into two main types: the Continental and Atlantic systems of education. Countries
belonging to the third world often follow after the characteristics of the continental system, however, the
specificities of the country may overwrite some characteristics of the original concept. This article aims to
introduce some specific aspects of the educational systems of Iran, Ethiopia and Myanmar through the
comparison of these systems. According to the data analysis, centralisation is relevant, but decentralisation
tends to be strengthened in each country. Concerning their structure, similarities in the division of levels were
identified, along with differences in duration and focus. Unsurprisingly, the curriculums are different in each
country; however, the basic subjects are almost the same. Finally, the grading systems use similar categories,
although the underlying points providing the basis for the grades significantly differ. Comparing them can
contribute to their evaluation and further development. -
Dropped-out Students and the Decision to Drop-out in Hungary
31-40Views:1207The interpretation of the phenomenon of student dropout, which represents a waste of a relatively large proportion of human and material capital in the social, individual and institutional domain, is impossible without examining dropout students. In this study, we analysed the DEPART 2018 database, which contains data from 605 Hungarian dropout students. We tried to identify higher education dropout scenarios and pointed out that higher educational dropout is a complex phenomenon. Based on the students' reports on their interpretation and evaluation of their dropouts, four student clusters were created. We compared the groups with their socio-cultural background and their decision to drop out from higher education, and their assessment of that decision. The most important result of the study is that it identifies a new group in addition to the international dropout types, and provides a detailed picture that calls our attention to the diversity of dropout groups, thereby moving beyond the over-generalised image of the dropout student.
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For the Sake of the Cause – Persistence of Romanian Higher Education Students in Finishing their Studies
22-30Views:393As a consequence of the expansion in higher education, the number of students has increased and the academic population has diversified but at the same time the university dropout has become a general problem since the last century (Trow, 2005; Kozma, 2010; Barro & Jong, 2013; Stanciu, 2014; Berei, 2018). In this paper, I proposed to analyze the persistence of students from 5 universities from Romania. We examine at institutional and individual level the perspective of their willingness to finish their studies. In partnership with the Center for Higher Education Research and Development - Hungary, named CHERD – H, from the University of Debrecen, was collected dates among students in 2012 (N=1323) and in 2014 - 2015 (N=323). Through a quantitative analysis, on a longitudinal perspective, I used SPSS statistical program to analyze data. The question of the research was: is there any difference between students` intentions to graduate on private and state institutions? Who is intending to finish and who is preparing to abandon his study? I concluded that students with unfavorable family background have nearly two times lower chance to enroll at state university and in private institutions students intention to enter into possesion of diploma was significant lower. With logistic regression I found also, that low financial status or low schooling of parents is not a significant obstacle on student academic path if they make every effort to participate in educational programs, submit assignments on time and are able to prepare for exams.
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Physical Activity and Workplace Stress: Influences on Health Perception Among Academics in Central and Eastern Europe
1-13Views:339Several studies have drawn attention to the unhealthy lifestyles of academic staff (lack of physical activity, unhealthy diet, high levels of stress, etc.). However, few studies have addressed the physical activity (PA) of academics, the problem of inactivity as compared to the average population or university students. Our study aims to determine the role of PA and participation in university sports, as well as other health behaviours and sources and resources of stress at work, on the self-assessed health (SAH) status of academics in five Central and Eastern European countries (Hungary, Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia and Romania). To answer our research question, we used the database of our international survey (CEETHE 2023, N=821). According to our results, SAH is mainly and positively influenced by PA and health-conscious eating, as well as work engagement, and negatively correlated with age, burnout, work-life conflicts and workplace bullying as work stressors. Based on our findings, workplace interventions including sports and time management programmes are recommended for universities, and a safe working environment is essential to improve academics' subjective health status.
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The interaction of meso and macro contexts with students’ careers. Three applied analysis
10-21Views:333This paper presents three applied analysis. Our principal interest is to understand how meso (university level) and macro (national level) contexts interact with micro phenomena such as students’ careers. To achieve this aim, the paper shows a secondary analysis of longitudinal administrative data by means of Sequence Analysis and Event History Models. Furthermore, it shows the results of an additional analysis using a quasi-experimental research on longitudinal data.
The paper examines typical pathways of Italian students, by means of administrative information’s on student enrollment from Sapienza University of Rome. The aim of this paper is triple: 1. describe students’ careers in higher education by building a typology of pathways using Sequence Analysis. 2. Identify how socio-economic and macro level characteristics affect students’ careers by multinomial logistic regression model where clusters are used as dependent variables and focus on the study of the “event” by using Event History analysis. 3. Evaluate the Italian Higher Education reform policies and their main outcomes throughout a quasi-experimental research.
Mainly, the outcomes show the importance of the warming-up period, the individual choice and the exogenous events after enrolment in determining the success/failure of each career. Our outcomes suggest that Italian universities should rethink the mechanisms available to manage failure and guide student choices.
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The Mentoring’s Role among Alumni Students of István Wáli Roma College for Advanced Studies of the Reformed Church
36-52Views:420Colleges for Advanced Studies (CASs) are the oldest institutionalized talent development initiatives of higher education in Hungary (since 1895). The Act CCIV of 2011 on National Higher Education initiated the creation of a national network of denominational Roma CASs. In a CAS, students live in a dormitory, build a strong community, get scholarships and support from tutors and mentors. Important elements of Roma CASs are the following: religious education, social responsibility for society, and Roma identity empowerment (Godó et al., 2019; Kardos, 2013; Charta, 2011). In this study, we examined alumni (ex-university students) of a Roma CAS in Debrecen. Among other things, we were interested in how they relate to the mentoring process, how they feel about it, and how mentoring is perceived in their own lives. We are also interested in what types of mentors are mentioned and whether there is any form of mentoring in their current activities. Method of our research: qualitative interview analysis. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2018 with 17 alumni selected by snowball method. According to our results, the former students named 2 types of mentors who were next to them: layman and professional mentors, or they themselves can be typed as mentors on the basis of the following: layman mentors (layman persons involved in mentoring activities) and professional mentors. We consider it important to emphasize the role of the pastor in a Reformed institution, who has also been promoted to the professional mentoring category. In addition, our goal is to investigate the characteristics of networking patterns that emerge around specialist college students.
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The Profile of Children Diagnosed with ADHD in Bihor County. Descriptive Data
98-111Views:452Although the topic of the profile of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is important for those involved in therapy or teaching, we found very few studies focusing on Romanian populations, and those targeting the North-Western region (Bihor County) are even fewer. ADHD is the most common childhood disorder (Aman et al., 1998), and it is important not only to know and understand the symptoms, but also to pay attention to the cultural specificity of the ADHD diagnosis, if it is possible. We conducted a documentary analysis, aiming to identify the profile of children diagnosed with ADHD in Bihor County and in this regard, we analyzed 196 files registered at the Municipal Hospital from Oradea in 2015. We focused on the demographic data, the symptoms, the comorbid disorders, the treatments, the school environment and type. Our findings confirmed that boys diagnosed with ADHD are more numerous than girls, and we also found significant differences between children depending on their ADHD core symptoms.
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The perspectives of the doctoral students of the University of Debrecen related to migration
103-111Views:419Research on migration processes in recent years has highlighted the fact that migration is becoming more common among younger and more educated people. We believe that it is worth meeting the (self)selection of (potential) migrants at the beginning of the process, and also, measuring the willingness to migrate is important. During our research, we investigated the migration plans of PhD students at the University of Debrecen through paper-based questionnaires. In our study, we seek to determine the extent to which PhD students in Debrecen are willing to migrate. Also, we investigate what the fundamental difference is between PhD students with the intent of migration and those without. 53.4% of the responding doctoral students intend to stay in Hungary after completing their doctoral training, while 46.6% consider it possible to settle abroad. It has been observed that strong and weak bonds of those who wish to stay in the country of residence are significant, while those who wish to stay abroad own migration shells.
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Higher Education Research on the Issue of Dropout
90-94Views:395Book review on Pusztai, G., Szigeti, F. (eds.): Dropout and Persistence in Higher Education. Debrecen University Press, University of Debrecen, 2018.
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The Implementation of Music in Teaching Persian Heritage Speaking Students in International Schools: The Case of Persian Students in Dubai
Views:225It is widely acknowledged that music plays an important role in education as a powerful tool for identity formation. Within the educational sphere, there is limited empirical evidence to show how heritage language learners do engage with music as a resource for learning and to maintain linguistic knowledge. This research is a step towards achieving a deeper understanding of how Persian students residing in the United Arab Emirates connect with their mother tongue in the multicultural society of the country. The aim is to investigate whether integration of music into the Persian literature classroom of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme can enhance the students’ comprehension and cultural understanding among Persian students. Therefore, the study addresses three central questions: (1) Does using music in the classroom improve students’ understanding of classic Persian literature? (2) How does using music affect their motivation and emotional engagement if used in the classroom? (3) What impact does using music have on students staying connected to their heritage language and culture? This study was conducted in 2023 in the UAE and using a two-phase within-subject design. There were twelve IBDP students between 16 to 19 years old participating in the research answering questionnaires after reading ghazals by Rumi and again after listening to the musical adaptations of the same poems. A Google Form was used to analyse the data through descriptive statistics and thematic coding. Findings show that listening to music significantly improved understanding Persian poetry and detecting literary devices and comprehension was easier.
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Dual Career through the Analysis of Policy Documents: A Case Study Focusing on Athletics
86-96Views:565Careers can be influenced by several factor groups: opportunities provided by (1) the environment, (2) ambition, and (3) personal aptitude (Juhász & Matiscsákné Lizák, 2014). In the case of a dual career in sports, an athlete’s career is not limited to sports only, but also can include education. It is worthwhile for sportsmen to learn alongside their athletic career. For, a sporting career can come to an end at any time due to any unexpected event (Baráth et al., 2014). This dual career’s success depends heavily on the people in the athlete’s immediate environment. In our research, we used a qualitative method to conduct a content analysis of policy documents and semi-structured interviews with Olympians of three countries, one from Slovenia, one from Germany, and one from Hungary. We divided up our investigation into questions related to funding, professional background and studies. Their opinions showed that all three athletes are satisfied with the support they receive for their current dual careers, with only the Slovenian athlete feeling a slight deficiency. They have successfully combined their studies and sport, and all three have attended or are currently attending higher education. It can be concluded that all sport policy efforts show the potential for dual career assistance with a focus on self-efficacy. No differences can be found in the expectations of these elite athletes, and all feel the need to continue their studies in addition to sporting, regardless of whether or not it coincides with their previous studies. As regards the need to continue studying, the Slovenian athlete felt the least need. This degree of “need” does not affect the performance of the athletes in their respective sports, as all of them love sports. All receive adequate funding as well. In all three countries studied, we found such a level of support for the athlete that ought to be held up as ‘good practice’. The German competitor in particular possesses such professional staff that we would highlight and recommend it as good practice to follow.
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The Concept and Practice of Family Life Education
55-61Views:473This theorethical article outlines the development of family life education in Hungary. In the early 20th century, as a result of civic initiatives, this specific educational area as an independent professional and scientific field was organized in the United States and Western Europe. In Hungary, however, much like other Central and Eastern European states, institutional education became available much later. A government decree issued in the early seventies draws attention to the fact that "the biological, health, ethical, moral knowledge necessary for harmonious, desirable human relations is not sufficiently widespread among the general public, especially among young people, to create a well-balanced family life and to achieve a broad range of modern family planning. Therefore, measures should be taken to prepare for family life in all forms of public education and in the dissemination of information to the general public” (Mihalec et al 2011, 90) Komlósi points out, however, that despite the first governmental initiative on family life education, for decades there has been no significant change in practice. (Komlósi 1995) ” In Hungarian secondary education, the pedagogical knowledge that can be chosen as subject matter for graduation examinations in pedagogical vocational secondary schools includes a growing proportion of topics related to education for family life.
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Institutional Repository Keyword Analysis with Web Crawler
54-59Views:451This study aims at investigating procedures of semantic and linguistic extraction of keywords from metadata of documents indexed in the Institutional Repository Unesp. For that purpose, a web crawler was developed, that collected 325.181 keywords from authors, in all fields of knowledge, from February 28th, 2013 to November 10th, 2021. The preparation of the collection, extraction and analysis environment used the Python programming language, composed of three program libraries: library requests, which allows manipulation of hyperlinks of webpages visited through web crawler; BeautifulSoup library, used to extract HTML data through webpage analysis; and Pandas library, which has an open code (free software) and stands for providing tools for high performance data manipulation and analysis. The final listing consisted of 273,485 keywords, which represents 15.9% of the listing initially collected. Results indicated that the most recurring problem was the duplication of keywords, with 51,696 duplicated keywords, representing indicators of inconsistencies in the search for documents. It is concluded that the refinement of keywords assigned by authors eliminates the incorporation of a set of symbols that do not represent the authors’ keywords with the same spelling, but with upper/lower case variations or lexical variations indexing different documents.
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An International Comparison of Educational Systems: the Columbian, Iraqi and Kurdish cases
110-120Views:666As developing countries aim to improve their education to address the challenges of globalisation's economic and social demands, comparative education can provide references for reforms and changes. Through studying the educational systems of other countries, we can discover which reforms are possible and desirable. This article attempts to demonstrate some specific aspects of the educational systems of Columbia, Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan and to compare them. It shows the decentralisation process and challenges of the systems. It also reveals the structure of education of the three systems and their differences related to duration and organisation of primary and secondary schools. Following that, the curriculum provision and their orientations are explained. Finally, the article also tries to find the differences in teacher training in terms of duration and training types, occurring before / during service. The obtained results show that the decentralisation process and its challenges are very similar in these educational systems while there are differences in the duration, structure, and curriculum subjects.
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The Connection between Extracurricular, Leisure Time Activities, Religiosity and the Reasons for Drop-out
55-67Views:657The interruption of tertiary education and the reduction in the dropout rate have been a central issue in educational sociology and education research. Exploring the possible reasons for dropping out can significantly contribute to reducing the trend. Our aim is to map the links between students dropping out and individual factors. Consequently, we investigate the connection between extracurricular and leisure-time activities, health behaviour and religiosity in relation to dropout. This is explained by the fact that one of the axioms of the literature on dropout is that belonging to civil networks usually strengthens the commitment to the successful completion of studies. In our analysis, we used the database created during the research carried out in 2018 by the Center for Higher Education Research and Development (CHERD-H) in the framework of project No. 123847 of the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund of Hungary, entitled The Role of Social and Organisational Factors in Student Dropout (DEPART 2018, N=605). Our results show that the neglect of study obligations among those who are disappointed in the course and further education is closely related to the shift in value preferences and an increase in the time spent with entertainment activities and partying. It can also be stated that students take part indifferent types of extracurricular activities only to a limited extent, and the different forms of participation in activities and religiosity are not related to the causes of dropout.
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The Effect of Psychological Capital on Academic Success of College Students Mediated Through Student Engagement
64-80Views:701Although psychological capital is theorized to enhance academic success of college students, there is a lack of sufficient empirical evidence supporting this claim. Given this gap, the present study was conducted to explore the role of psychological capital in academic success of college students, mediated through student engagement. Undergraduate and postgraduate diploma students (N=502) were selected using a convenience sampling technique. The participants completed self-reported questionnaires assessing their psychological capital, student engagement, and academic success. To determine the statistical significance of the prediction, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed. PROCESS macro for SPSS was utilized for analyzing the mediation effect. Results obtained from the regression analyses revealed that psychological capital was positively and significantly related to both engagement and academic success. Notably, the mediation results also demonstrated that student engagement partially mediated the relationship between psychological capital and academic success. The results of the present study might contribute to the existing literature related to the importance of positive psychology in education by providing insight into the complicated relationship between psychological capital, student engagement, and academic success.
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A Test of the Effect of Denominational Schools in Romania
38-47Views:473Studies in sociology of education in recent decades have consistently found an advantage for students in denominational schools - those with religious subordination - in terms of educational performance, compared with those in secular schools. Although in Romania a large part of the students from pre-university education attend confessional schools this advantage has not been investigated for the Romanian case. Taking advantage of the increased validity of the Romanian baccalaureate exam, following the measures from 2011-2012 and the availability of the statistical data regarding the schools in Oradea (Bihor county), we checked whether the hypothesis of such an advantage is confirmed in the Romanian case. Applying bivariate analyzes by type of schools (secular vs. confessional) and by types of tracks of the net pass rates (from the total of the graduates) we find that, although the promotion rates are higher for denominational schools, the support for the hypothesis of an advantage of denominational schools is fragile as much of the difference can be attributed to the academic orientation of denominational schools and to the fact that they succeed, probably, in selecting students with better educational skills.
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A treasury of tools: Navigating the complexities of international higher education
164–167Views:54Bibliography of the reviewed book: Dabney-Fekete, I. D. (Eds.) (2024). International higher education. Debrecen University Press.
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Exploring the ethical awareness of using artificial intelligence in Algerian tertiary education: Case of undergraduate and graduate EFL students at Souk-Ahras University
71–86Views:117Ethical awareness is a pivotal component of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ identity in that it allows them to scrutinize their approach to learning which ensures their autonomy. Therefore, this study explores the ethical awareness of EFL students at Souk-Ahras University, Algeria. This study focuses on the use of Artificial Intelligence by students for their learning. It investigates their variating perceptions on and reactions towards AI for study and whether those views fit into the universal ethical code of conduct. This study employed a quantitative research approach with a descriptive research design. The sample studied consisted of 62 EFL students, selected through a random sampling technique. The collection of relevant data was done through a comprehensive survey. Data analysis was done using statistical analysis. The findings showed that students utilize AI tools for multiple learning purposes while being cognizant of its ethical drawbacks. However, students expressed a shallow approach to ethical reflection and did not rely on an authentic ethical framework upon which their decisions should be made. The study suggests that the development and employment of such a framework should start with teachers, by not merely disseminating charters but also delivering ethical scrutiny through their teaching and counselling.
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English Language Learning Using Literary Texts in the Virtual 3D Space of the MaxWhere Seminar System
18-27Views:261Through this paper, we will provide a brief overview of the 3D virtual library project and a more detailed review of its current application for English language learning. The implementation of the library project makes use of the innovative 3D presentation features of the MaxWhere Seminar System. As an innovative application of the project, we compiled a bilingual learning material for Hungarian students to improve their language skills and competence in English at an advanced level. The complex structure and organization of the learning material is based partially on the hypertextual relationships between entries of selected keywords containing various contexts from different works of world literature. We developed the learning material taking into careful consideration the appropriate characteristics of the hyperlink structure. Our basic hypothesis was that if the bilingual learning material is organized as a more or less scale-free network of interconnected nodes, this might or would result in an optimized and efficient knowledge transfer in the learning process. After the first version of the material had been completed, we wanted to evaluate the overall difficulty of the material. As such, we were using the Google Translate (GT) service to check the proper understanding of a set of selected English language phrases and sentences through their Hungarian translations provided by GT. As a result, we created a more or less scale-free learning material whose linguistic content has been properly checked.