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The Effectiveness of the Let’s Teach for Hungary Mentoring Program
150-160Views:152The situation of disadvantaged students has been a problem in the field of education for decades, -so much so that several disadvantage-compensation programs have been set up in an effort to reduce its effect. This includes the mentoring process, the primary purpose of providing support and assistance to younger individuals. The subjects of the research are the 7th grade students participating in the Let’s teach for Hungary mentoring program. The questionnaire survey was conducted in the autumn of 2019 (n=585), during which I focused on the children’s expectations of the mentoring program, their learning difficulties, learning motivations, and their plans for further learning. Classifying students in clusters based on their motivations, highlights the fact that the range of participants is not homogeneous this aspect. The Coronavirus epidemic has posed a significant challenge to traditional education, and the opportunities offered by personal mentoring have been pushed into the background over the past year and a half. Educators and students alike have struggled through the transition to digital education (Kristóf, 2020). Attendance mentoring was forced to continue in the form of distance mentoring. In my current research, I examine the existence of distance mentoring, the exploration of experiences, and the preparedness of the participants in the Teach for Hungary program. Data collection began in December 2021, and the query process is still ongoing. I carry out the survey using a mixed-method. I collect quantitative data among students with the help of questionnaires, which focus on the experiences, opinions and readiness of the children. In addition, I use a qualitative, interview-based research method that provides an understanding of more comprehensive experiences. I conduct interviews with educators, mentors, and mentored students. The subjects of the research are primary school students (8th grade students), mentors and teachers of a small settlement in Hajdú-Bihar county and Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county (n=60 people). The research results can serve as feedback to the participants on the success of work done during distance mentoring. The results obtained can also serve as feedback for the Let’s teach for Hungary program because the program can be developed in the future from interviews.
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Types of Fathers’ Home-based and School-based Involvement in a Hungarian Interview Study
95-103Views:96This study explores the ways that Hungarian fathers are involved, at home and at school, in their children’s
development and achievement. It also identifies the types of fathers that emerge based on this involvement.
According to the literature, paternal involvement at home and at school contributes to academic achievement,
similar to the involvement of mothers, but to a lesser extent and in different ways. The theoretical framework of
the research relies on the types of parental involvement as defined by Epstein. The research was qualitative,
based on 14 semi-structured interviews and the classification of fathers, resulting in three groups of similar size.
The first group comprised fathers who contributed to their child’s achievement at home, often by helping with
school-related activities, while not participating in school events. The second group included fathers who were
involved at home and at school alike. Finally, the third group consisted of four divorced fathers, three of whom
were involved both at home and at school, due to their particular situation. Overall, fathers’ school-based
involvement can be increased by the supportive attitude of wives, fathers’ greater confidence in themselves and
their abilities, and by informal events organized by schools (cooking or sports days), in which fathers are more
likely to participate. -
Parental Assistance with Assignments – Types of Parental Involvement in Homework
25-36.Views:244The present study analyses – using qualitative methods – parental involvement in children’s homework, the forms of parental involvement and the types of parents in the studied area, emphasizing the decisive role of parents in the educational life of their children, using the sample of several rural settlements in Szeklerland. By focusing on the rural context, this research contributes to the existing literature by offering a more nuanced understanding of parental involvement, potentially uncovering challenges and strategies that are unique to rural communities. The literature lacks a parent typology based on qualitative research. The most common types of parents are: “aversive”, “ ambitious “, “partner”, “accountable”, “networking”. The benefits of parental support for children’s learning at home have been widely emphasized by experts in recent research. Active parental involvement has a positive impact on student achievement and learning. It also gives parents a better insight into school life and enables them to develop a partnership with the teachers.
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Students’ Motivations to Study Abroad: The Case of International Students at the University of Debrecen
76-81Views:1401Today 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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Increasing Motivation among Language Learners through Individualized Assessment
1-13Views:270An extensive body of research has shown that motivation is integral to successful and sustained language learning (Carreira, 2005; Cheng & Dornyei, 2007; Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Dornyei, 1994; Ehrman, Leaver, & Oxford, 2003; Gardner, 2005; Matsumoto & Obana, 2001; Yang, 2008; Yu & Watkins, 2008). Maintaining student motivation in all aspects of language instruction, particularly assessment, can be challenging for multiple reasons, including learner differences, access to technology, and, most recently, reactions to pandemic learning. Instructors therefore face the challenge of creating assessments that not only evaluate students’ performance but also promote their ability and desire to learn. Based on the results of an action research project, this article highlights the benefits of two types of individualized assessment used to improve students’ motivation while evaluating their performance: work cycle projects and a course portfolio. Using qualitative data collected from student reflective statements, I argue, first, that the ability to choose assessment topics and types motivates students to focus closely on course content and work creatively; these choices ultimately improve their desire to learn course material more than traditional assessment types. Second, encouraging learners to utilize and reflect on their strengths using a portfolio as a form of assessment allows students to understand their strengths and weaknesses and empowers them as learners, thereby improving their motivation.
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Gender Differences Among Teacher Education Students in Light of a Pilot Study
80-93.Views:70This paper aims to present the measurement tool designed to examine gender differences among teacher education students and the results obtained during the research. The theoretical section of the paper describes teachers’ and parents’ influence on children’s gender role attitudes, gender socialization and career orientation. To prepare the questionnaire, we analyzed the Hungarian and international literature and built on the results of our previous qualitative research. We grouped our questions into three dimensions: (1) gender socialization in the family, (2) parental involvement, (3) gender socialization at school and career orientation. According to our results, gender-neutral toys were more often chosen by male students’ parents, and mothers were more involved in their children’s school activities than fathers, setting higher expectations as well. Teachers and parents, especially mothers, played an important role in students’ career choice. In addition, students perceived that teachers handled them differently depending on their gender in terms of the evaluation of their academic progress and behavior as well as the frequency of compliments and punishment.
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Conflicts in Physical Education Classes - A Systems Theoretical Analysis of the Teacher’s Perspective
11-20Views:193This article presents the results of a systems theoretical analysis of conflicts in physical education classes from the teacher’s perspective. Building on the state of current research, a theoretical model to analyse the development and management of sport related conflicts in the school setting is elaborated. This model is used to examine written assignments collected at university seminars on conflicts in a German sport institute. At these seminars, sport science students submitted 40 detailed descriptions of conflicts in physical education classes, which were either collected through an interview or experienced directly in their role as teachers. The empirical material is analysed using qualitative content analysis. Based on a fictive case that is developed for exemplification purposes, all collected cases are considered against the background of the developed model. It differentiates between trivial, stable, slightly, and highly escalated conflicts and examines suitable management strategies. The study concludes that trivial conflicts are common in physical education classes, that teachers use different strategies to manage them, and that this issue is dealt with differently at the organisational level. This preliminary model can be improved through further empirical research that compares different school forms and levels of education at the national and international level.
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Assessing Language Learners’ Knowledge and Performance during Covid-19
38-46Views:271The new reality created by the COVID-19 caused a lot of changes in the educational sphere. The transition from face-to-face to distance learning was not smooth in Ukraine because distance learning was not a common practice in the country before and teachers were unprepared for teaching online. This unusual situation prompted us to start our qualitative research primarily to get insights into the altered daily routines of teachers and educators. In particular, we were interested in how they assessed their students’ performance online. This article focuses on secondary school language teachers (n=65) and language tutors at the tertiary level (n=18). The research findings have revealed that teachers gave feedback through different digital applications like Google Classroom. Oral performance was evaluated either synchronously or asynchronously. The most crucial implication is that teachers should improve and further develop their digital skills and distance teaching and assessing skills in order to provide quality education in the modern form.
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Big Brother Mentoring in the Let's Teach for Hungary Program
114-141Views:227The number of mentoring programs within the framework of schools is increasing both internationally and domestically (Raufelder & Ittel, 2012; Fejes et. al., 2009). Besides traditional mentoring, the role of peer mentoring (Miller, 2002) has also come to the fore in recent years. In our study, we focus on cross-age peer mentoring (Miller, 2002; Sipe, 2005), where older youth mentor younger youth. One example of this in Hungary is the Let's Teach for Hungary (LTHMP) mentoring program, where undergraduate students mentor primary school students. In our research, we studied mentors at the University of Debrecen who had completed at least two semester-long cycles in the program. We were curious about how the COVID-19 pandemic period affected mentoring, so we examined the transition of a mentoring program based on a personal meeting to online mentoring, and its pivotal points, advantages, and disadvantages. As a method, we used qualitative interview analysis, during which we worked with semi-structured interviews, recorded in the spring of 2020 and 2021 – during the global pandemic situation – with a total of 50 mentors. The content analysis of the interview texts was performed based on the codes formulated based on the theory, and the emic codes emerged in the interviews (Creswell, 2012). Our results show that mentors can be grouped into different types based on their attitudes towards online mentoring. Overall, the digital transition has been a big challenge. The biggest problem was the lack of equipment. The issue of age has been also an important factor in terms of the sense of digital comfort. We noticed the phenomenon of Big Brother Mentoring and the importance of chameleon mentors. Our research, which can fill a gap, highlights both the challenges and benefits of online mentoring. In addition, we can also contribute to the effective and successful operation of the Let's Teach for Hungary Mentoring Program.
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Encouraging Musical Creativity in Montenegrin Primary Education – A Case Study
27-35Views:219The need to change the paradigm of music education, which primarily relies on performing and listening to music, implies a more systematic introduction of activities that would enable the direct involvement of children in the exploration of sounds and the creation of their own music. By analysing the curricula and textbooks for music education in Montenegrin primary schools, as well as examining the attitudes of teachers about the realisation of musical creativity in teaching practice, it was found that these activities are not given enough attention. In order to introduce innovations in practice, an action research study was conducted, during 2017/2018 school year with 30 fifth grade pupils in one primary school, belonging to the Southern region of Montenegro. The obtained results, based on the qualitative findings, showed the connection between the categories that make up musical creativity in the classroom: acquiring musical knowledge, developing musical skills, encouraging problem solving, developing critical thinking, supporting collaborative creativity, motivation and integrative teaching. Hopefully, the conducted research will contribute to a wide range of understanding of musical creativity in the classroom context, as one of the leading topics of contemporary music pedagogy.
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Migrating From Face-To-Face to Online Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Experiences of Psychology Students at a Private Higher Education Institution in Gauteng
11-21Views:449Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an accelerated migration from face-to-face to online learning. This article aims to explore and describe how psychology students experienced the migration from face-to-face to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. It entailed a qualitative research design with an exploratory and descriptive approach. The participants were 28 purposively sampled psychology students from a Private Higher Education Institution in Gauteng. An online survey method was employed to gather the needed information which was then subjected to a thematic analysis. It emerged that the challenges experienced by students were internet connectivity issues, insufficient computer literacy, reduced class time, anxiety, physical impact, and communication issues. Moreover, some benefits related to flexibility, the convenience of online studies and safety from infection with COVID-19 were identified. It was also noted that having certain attributes such as independence, time management skills, having support and being tech savvy improved the online learning process. Some opportunities for Higher Education Institutions to improve the experiences of students included creativity in module delivery as well as providing guidelines on how to use these online platforms.
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An Analytical Review of Cross Cultural Child-Rearing and Care Practices: A Special Reference to India
7-18Views:435Child-rearing is an individualist, social and cultural process. This paper proposes that Child-Rearing has invariable characteristics and huge diversity. It has been considered that cultural perspective may contribute to the understanding of such multiple forms of child-rearing. The present paper provides an analytical account of dominant factors of child-rearing and caring. The factors selection is done by reviewing the articles which have either more than 50 Google scholar citations or are indexed in top-class journals. It also aims to ascertain whether or not Indian child-rearing intrinsically has something different in its practices and which child-rearing patterns are global and common among all the countries. This article took majorly dominating factors in the area of child-rearing and provided a qualitative comparative account of India especially in relation to the world. Some factors are individualistic as parental attitude and the parent-child relationship. But the study found that corporal punishments, socialization and cultural factors have a strong impact on child-rearing. Altogether these factors affect the cognitive skills of children. The study will give a critical overview of child-rearing patterns in India and across the globe, which would be helpful for policymakers to create new policies and act accordingly.
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Dual Career through the Analysis of Policy Documents: A Case Study Focusing on Athletics
86-96Views:206Careers 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 Mentoring’s Role among Alumni Students of István Wáli Roma College for Advanced Studies of the Reformed Church
36-52Views:242Colleges 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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Students with Special Needs and Their Parents – Informal Participation of a Parent in the Education of an Adult Child
44-51Views:82The article presents the issue of participation of adult students’ parents in their academic life. There are many examples in the literature of how important is the support of students’ with disabilities parents at the universites. This determines academic success. Disability (its depth, type, cause, limitations resulting from it) is a determining factor for independence, and consequently for the parent’s participation in the student’s academic life. The parent’s attitude towards their own child’s disability is also related to the parent’s participation in the study. The main questions of presented research is: how do students, parents and university staff see the participation of parents in their adult chilredn higher education? This study was qualitative in nature and the individual in-depth interviews were conducted in the course of the study. Two female students with disabilities and their mothers, as well as a member of staff from the one of Polish university’s disability office, were invited to participate in the study. The results show that students, parents and university’s staff can present different opinions about parental suport. The fact is that parental participation cannot be permanent. Each time this type of support should be considered on an individual basis, with particular regard to the welfare of the the student. The results of the survey are relevant to the university’s process of planning support for students with disabilities so as to work with parents with the students’ consent.
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Children’s Literature in Transcarpathian Schools for Teaching English as a Foreign Language
108-120Views:302Since the origins of formal foreign language teaching, literature has always played an important role. Currently, modern language teaching trends suggest starting foreign language learning as early as possible; thus, the use of children’s literature in foreign language teaching is undergoing a revolution. This situation encouraged us to examine the use of children’s literature and the attitude of foreign language teachers to it. This article focuses on primary and secondary school English language teachers in a western county of Ukraine (N = 118). The results of the qualitative research revealed that the teachers’ general attitude to the use of children’s literature is positive; they are aware of their advantages but still avoid using these materials. Most teachers do not apply children’s literature in their foreign language teaching because the school curriculum is too congested and fast-paced, they do not have access to appropriate authentic children’s literature, or they were not taught how to utilize authentic children’s literature during their university years. Results suggest that teachers should be encouraged to use children’s literature, though there is no universal solution. The first suggestion is for schools themselves to support teachers, but it would be a significant step forward if this approach were also to be taken in in-service training.