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This paper makes available to the broader educational community the instruments which have been originally designed and validated within the European project "CLIL for all: Attention to diversity in bilingual education" ("ADiBE") to determine how diversity is being catered to across a broad array of CLIL contexts in European Secondary Education (Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom). They include three sets of questionnaires, interviews, and observation protocols and are qualitative and quantitative instruments whose design has been based on the latest research and which have undergone a carefully controlled double-fold pilot process for their validation (external ratings approach and pilot phase with a representative sample of 264 subjects). The questions included in the three sets of instruments are initially characterized, together with their format and main categories. The paper then details the steps undertaken for their research-based design and the double-fold pilot process followed for their validation. The questionnaires and interview and observation protocols are then presented in a format which is directly applicable in any CLIL classroom in order to determine the accessibility of bilingual programs for all types of achievers and to identify the chief difficulties and best practices in promoting inclusion in bilingual education.

The growing numbers of mobile students over the years made the provision of student services a key topic of interest for higher education institutions. In order to offer a better experience for international students, it is important to be aware of and assess their needs in relation to different sets of support services. The data used in this paper were gathered through the ESNsurvey 2016 project, a research venture focused on the experiences of participants in short-term student mobility in Europe. Responses were collected from 12,365 international students, who have participated in a short-term (3-12 months) study period abroad mostly through Europe's most promoted mobility program called ERASMUS+. For the purpose of this paper, the focus was only on the aspect of host university support services. The comments of 2,012 students about their experiences were analyzed using a probabilistic methodology known as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The findings reveal that some international students' concerns are not fully addressed by higher education institutions. The main problem areas identified with respect to host support services were admission, living costs, including accommodation and money concerns, and IT and bank issues. It is strongly recommended that universities address the problematic areas through student support services by assessing international students' opinions and needs.

Introduction: A number of theoretical works focus on the potential revolutionary impact of the Internet and other Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) upon Competitive Intelligence, but only a few empirical research papers can be found on it. Is the real impact still unknown, or is it too insignificant to talk about? The present paper searches for the answers to this question both in literature and on the field, focusing on the point where the impact is expected to be the greatest: Information Gathering. Method: Important empirical essays in academic literature were overviewed, including American and also French surveys. Based on literature, hypotheses were established and tested on an existing database, containing information on more than 500 firms collected over two consecutive years. The sample was constructed through telephone interviews and was destined to test the effect of information and communication technologies on several aspects of management. Analysis: Hypotheses were classed into seven groups with respect to the influence of external environment, internal structure and development of IT on the information acquisition activities of firms. Quantitative methods were used to carry out tests on the sample. Results: Internal structure shows only partial influence, but for IT and external environment, the correlation was high. On the other hand, firms are still underdeveloped. Conclusion: The presented results provide better understanding of the level of development of Information Gathering in firms and of the factors influencing it, and suggest new ways for further research in order to understand why firms are still underdeveloped.

Although well researched in educational studies, inquiry-based learning, a student-centred way of teaching, is far away from being implemented in day-to-day science and mathematics teaching on a large scale. It is a challenge for teachers to adopt this new way of teaching in an often not supportive school context. Therefore it is important to provide high-quality professional development (PD) at a large scale. However, there is little empirical evidence about the effects of scaled-up professional development initiatives. Therefore, this paper presents an international research study for which long-term PD courses have been designed. These courses have been implemented across Europe in twelve different countries at scale by using the so-called "Cascade Model." Here, course leaders are educated, who in turn educate other teachers. The research study aimed at evaluating the overall impact the scaled-up PD had on teachers and at also identifying variables influencing this impact.

The ECO European Project funded by the European Commission is dedicated to bringing MOOCs to a new dimension by taking advantage of the new possibilities offered by the Social Web (O'Reilly, 2005). This paper focuses on the intercreative aspects of MOOCs. It takes a look at the characteristics of the new ECO MOOCs to see if they are designed and implemented within an intercreative environment. The methodology is quantitative and data collection was conducted using self-administered questionnaires with closed or semi-closed questions. This study includes the so-called sMOOCs, which stress intercreativity to work towards collective intelligence.

The CEFR encourages teachers to resort to task-based activities in the language classroom. However, some resistance has been offered to this approach, due to lack of appropriate training and difficulty in meeting some basic practical conditions, as well as in finding resources and examples of good practices, as shown in a survey conducted within the scope of ETALAGE. PETALL (Pan European Task-based Activities in Language Learning [2013-2016]) seeks to construct a transnational strategy for ICT-based task design management and aims to design tasks that can be implemented in different educational contexts. This paper offers an overview of the internal evaluation procedures to be followed at different levels and stages of the project, and discusses the objectives, underlying principles and criteria applied.

This paper has as its aim to analyze how CityVille, a videogame hosted on Facebook and oriented to the construction of a virtual city, can favor collaboration between gamers along with the exchange of strategies, equally contributing to learning transfer and skill acquisition. The first step consists in identifying the opportunities which the said game can offer in order to develop skills and promote learning formats linked with planning and resource management, after which a presentation is made of the opinions expressed by a sample of gamers (N = 105)--belonging to the Fans-CityVille community--about the priorities established by them to communicate with their neighbors and the skills that they believe to have acquired playing this game. 85.7% of them state that they communicate with others to share strategies and expand their city. Unlike women, who value collaboration, men prioritize competition. Designing their city has enhanced a number of gamer skills in different proportions: creative skills (71.4%); organizational ones (68.0%); skills associated with decision-making and problem-solving (67.0%); and interpersonal skills through interaction with others (61.9%). The CityVille game mode favors skill development and helps to create a ludic atmosphere of collaboration and optimal strategy exchange through communication between neighbors by strengthening their mutual relationships. Its formula moves away from the often-criticized competitive practices of other games.

With the current growth of the Internet, we expect significant changes in how and to what extent companies acquire business information. By comparing two studies on information seeking by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) carried out in 1982 and 2003 respectively, and comparing the results with other studies, this paper indicates that the reality is rather to the contrary. SMEs remain remarkably stable in their information seeking behaviour, in the sources they use and in the problems they face. The paper concludes with a discussion on the likely causes of this consistency and its consequences for online intermediaries. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

This paper presents the main results of a recent survey of private higher education institutions from twelve selected European countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia) [in the framework of the UNESCO-CEPES project on "Private Higher Education in Europe and Quality Assurance and Accreditation from the Perspectives of the Bologna process Objectives," designed and implemented in collaboration with "Leon Kozminski Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management (LKAEM) and the World Bank"]. After a brief review of the current incidence of private education in the selected European countries, the authors give a description of the survey. Then the main findings are structured according to the nine goals of the Bologna Process and their corresponding level of implementation in private higher education institutions, and also to provide comparisons with public higher education institutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and with some general remarks about the role of private higher education institutions in building the EHEA. (Contains 14 tables, 12 footnotes and 3 figures.)

Background: Adolescent depression has been recognized as a complex problem that presents a global public health challenge. Left undetected and untreated, depression can significantly reduce quality of life. Objective: The main purpose of this paper is to re-visit risk and protective factors for depression in adolescents with a specific focus on exploring the individual, familial, and social contexts of depression (especially high and very high depression levels) in a multi-country sample of youth in order to see if these factors are mitigated by cultural location. Methods: Questionnaire data from a cross-sectional study of a randomly selected sample of 5149 middle-school students from four EU-countries (Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Spain) was used. Applying variance analysis, we examined the prediction strength for the observed risk and protective factors. Results: In all participating countries we show that in for both male and female adolescents, depression is linked to a broad range of interactive individual, and social protective and risk factors, such that even if the contribution of a single factor is low but still significant and this factor's prediction strength is low or moderate, taken together, the cumulative prediction strength of these factors yields a remarkably similar coefficient of determination of 42-49% in all samples. Conclusions: We have established a significant and relevant combination of the individual and social multifactorial risk and protective factors that characterize depression in adolescents of both genders, no matter their country of location and with that, we call for a multifaceted and comprehensive approach to mental health assessment, prevention and intervention.

The aim of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of higher education and the graduate labour markets in selected European countries (France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) in the context of the expectations of graduates and prospective employers, and respective recruitment and selection practices. Expectations of graduating students from a number of European collaborating universities are sought and analysed in order to find out about a match between the knowledge and skills of graduates and the needs of European employers. The study examines the process of graduate recruitment, employee and employer expectations, and the role of higher education institutions in meeting such expectations. Primary data was gathered from 252 employers and 485 final year (graduating) students through the use of questionnaires. The analysis of the data collected has revealed different approaches to but similar methods of graduate recruitment between the four countries. Despite the current differences in higher education systems and labour market trends, the expectations of employers and graduating students are more similar than different. It is concluded that EU graduates will have good employment prospects in an integrated labour market.

Introduction: In this paper, Spanish future primary teachers' pedagogical knowledge of numbers and operation, as revealed through their results in the TEDS-M ("Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics"), is compared with that of two other groups. The first group are the future primary teachers of other OECD countries that also participated in the study: Norway, Germany, Chile and Poland. The second group are the future primary teachers of participating countries where preservice teachers receive training similar to Spain's teacher training, namely, China-Taipei, Singapore, United States, Philippines and Switzerland. Method: To meet this objective, data was analyzed and parameters were calculated based on categories that characterize the pedagogical knowledge required to correctly answer the questions in this conceptual domain, using response assessment criteria. Results: We found that Spanish prospective teachers have lower results, in general, than those of the other OECD countries and of countries in the group with similar training programs. The Spanish scores are lower than Norwegian, Swiss and Singaporean scores in all aspects considered. For most categories, Spain obtained higher scores than Philippines and Chile, and similar scores to the U.S.A. Discussion: When comparing the results from the OECD countries that participated in the two international studies, TEDS-M and TIMSS 2011 (Spain, Poland, USA, Norway, Germany and Chile), we find that their relative positions are maintained in the ranking of assessed mathematical knowledge of numbers and operations, whether in preservice teachers or in primary students. Spanish results in the TIMSS are just above Poland and Chile and below the rest. The results obtained in this study may be useful in the current syllabus design process for subjects in the Elementary Teacher Education degree.

In this paper an analysis is carried out whether objective tests and subjective self-assessments in international large-scale studies yield similar results when looking at cross-national differences in the effects of skills on earnings, and skills patterns across countries, fields of study and gender. The findings indicate that subjective skills measures do not correlate well with objective measures of similar constructs when looking at cross-national differences. Countrywise associations between subjective skills measures and earnings do not correlate well with those found using objective skills measures. Moreover, cross-national differences in the level of subjective skills measures do not correlate well with cross-national differences in skill levels based on objective tests. Nor do gender differences found using subjective skills measures correlate with those found using objective skills measures. This does not mean that self-assessments cannot be used, but they need to be restricted to analysing within-country differences. Within countries, self-assessments do a good job in predicting skills differences across fields of study and also in predicting the effect of skills on earnings. When comparing gender differences in skills levels within countries, however, one needs to be aware that females tend to overestimate their skills levels in typical "female" domains like literacy.

This paper presents findings from a study carried out between May and October 2013. Based on a survey, which was developed by the MoGaBa VET project partners, the study aimed at understanding the factors that influence the way vocational instructors perceive and use game-based learning. A total of 267 trainers from eight European countries took part in the survey. Results indicated that even though educational games were regarded effective and useful with regard to motivational aspects or learning to use ICT; however, it also revealed that the integration and widespread use of mobile GBL solutions faced several challenges linked to technical, institutional and also organizational aspects.

Positioned against the background of the Council of Europe's interest in developing intercultural competence through education, the study presented in this paper investigates the impact on intercultural visual literacy of the Council of Europe's "Images of Others--An Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media" ("AIEVM"). In our study, the "AIEVM" was used within the context of an online intercultural exchange between pre-service language teachers. Findings indicate increased intercultural awareness as students at universities in Germany and Spain engaged with the visually "mediated other" through working systematically with the "AIEVM". Multiperspectivity and critical cultural awareness in particular were shown to be enhanced through discussing "images of others" in culturally diverse tandem teams.

This empirical study investigates the environmental awareness of school children in Bavaria and Asturias. The analysis was based on a data-set (Bavaria, 900 students; Asturias, 182 students) that was collected in spring 2007. Students aged between 14 and 15 years responded to a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. The theoretical concept follows the premise that environmental awareness could be divided into three dimensions: environmental knowledge, attitudes and actions. The results show that there are cultural influences in the scales of knowledge, attitudes and actions. Also, different independent variables have a significant bearing on the Bavarian and Asturian students' levels of environmental knowledge, readiness to act and personal environmental action. (Contains 12 tables.)

Purpose: To explore the strategic role of human resource management (HRM) in Turkey by comparing Turkish companies to Spanish and German companies. Design/methodology/approach: The questionnaire form of the Cranet-G 1999-2000 Survey (Cranfield Network on Strategic International Human Resource Management) has been used to collect the data. The indicators of the strategic role of HRM for this study are the existence of an HR department and manager, representation of HR on the board of directors, the existence of an HR strategy, measurement of the HR department's performance, and the existence of several HR policies. Findings: The variables indicating the strategic role of HRM are evaluated for the companies in the three countries via correspondence analysis. Overall, a broad conclusion can be drawn that a strategic role for HRM is widespread in Turkish companies. Moreover, there are signs of convergence between the companies in Turkey, Germany, and Spain on the strategic role of HRM. Research limitations/implications: This research, designed to explore the strategic role of HRM in Turkish companies, is limited to the variables in the Cranet-G questionnaire. Originality/value: This paper is about the strategic role of HRM in Turkey as a developing country and as a European Union candidate country where published research on HRM is relatively limited. It contributes to the growing literature on the changing role of HRM in Turkey by reporting an empirical study of the strategic role for HRM in Turkish companies. (Contains 9 tables.)

In order to respond to learners' need for more flexible speaking opportunities and to overcome the geographical challenge of students spread over the United Kingdom and continental Western Europe, the Open University recently introduced Internet-based, real-time audio conferencing, thus making a groundbreaking move in the distance learning and teaching of languages. Since February 2002, online tutorials for language courses have been offered using Lyceum, an Internet-based audio-graphics conferencing tool developed in house. Our research is based on the first Open University course ever to deliver tutorials solely online, a level 2 German course, and this article considers some of the challenges of implementing online tuition. As a starting point, we present the pedagogical rationale underpinning the virtual learning and teaching environment. Then we examine the process of development and implementation of online tuition in terms of activity design, tutor training, and student support. A number of methodological tools such as logbooks, questionnaires, and observations were used to gather data. The findings of this paper highlight the complexity of the organisational as well as the pedagogical framework that contributes to the effective use of online tuition via audio conferencing systems in a distance education setting.

Aims To report a systematic review of the psychometric properties of self-report instruments to identify the symptoms of anxiety in pregnancy to help clinicians and researchers select the most suitable instrument. Background Excessive anxiety in pregnancy is associated with adverse birth outcomes, developmental and behavioural problems in infants and postnatal depression. Despite recommendations for routine psychological assessment in pregnancy, the optimal methods to identify anxiety in pregnancy have not been confirmed. Design Psychometric systematic review. Data sources A systematic literature search of the multiple databases (1990-September 2014). Review methods Identification of self-report instruments to measure anxiety in pregnancy using COSMIN guidelines to assess studies reporting a psychometric evaluation of validity and reliability. Results Thirty-two studies were included. Studies took place in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, Spain and the Netherlands. Seventeen different instruments were identified. Measures of validity were reported in 19 papers and reliability in 16. The overall quality of the papers was rated as fair to excellent using the COSMIN checklist. Only one paper scored excellent in more than one category. Conclusion Many instruments have been adapted for use in different populations to those for which they were designed. The State Trait Anxiety Inventory, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale have been tested more frequently than other instruments, yet require further assessment to confirm their value for use in pregnancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to understand how the public's beliefs in five countries may change as more families have direct experience with Alzheimer's disease. The data are derived from a questionnaire survey conducted by telephone (landline and cell) with 2678 randomly selected adults in France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and the United States. The paper analyzes the beliefs and anticipated behavior of those in each country who report having had a family member with Alzheimer's disease versus those who do not. In one or more countries, differences were found between the two groups in their concern about getting Alzheimer's disease, knowledge that the disease is fatal, awareness of certain symptoms, and support for increased public spending. The results suggest that as more people have experience with a family member who has Alzheimer's disease, the public will generally become more concerned about Alzheimer's disease and more likely to recognize that Alzheimer's disease is a fatal disease. The findings suggest that other beliefs may only be affected if there are future major educational campaigns about the disease. The publics in individual countries, with differing cultures and health systems, are likely to respond in different ways as more families have experience with Alzheimer's disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Adolescent depression has been recognized as a complex problem that presents a global public health challenge. Left undetected and untreated, depression can significantly reduce quality of life. Objective: The main purpose of this paper is to re-visit risk and protective factors for depression in adolescents with a specific focus on exploring the individual, familial, and social contexts of depression (especially high and very high depression levels) in a multi-country sample of youth in order to see if these factors are mitigated by cultural location. Methods: Questionnaire data from a cross-sectional study of a randomly selected sample of 5149 middle-school students from four EU-countries (Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Spain) was used. Applying variance analysis, we examined the prediction strength for the observed risk and protective factors. Results: In all participating countries we show that in for both male and female adolescents, depression is linked to a broad range of interactive individual, and social protective and risk factors, such that even if the contribution of a single factor is low but still significant and this factor's prediction strength is low or moderate, taken together, the cumulative prediction strength of these factors yields a remarkably similar coefficient of determination of 42-49% in all samples. Conclusions: We have established a significant and relevant combination of the individual and social multifactorial risk and protective factors that characterize depression in adolescents of both genders, no matter their country of location and with that, we call for a multifaceted and comprehensive approach to mental health assessment, prevention and intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focusses on coping strategies employed by children and adolescents with diagnosed short stature, assesses the impact of socio-demographic and clinical characteristics on coping, examines the relationship between coping and health related quality of life (QoL) and investigates the role of coping strategies in mediating the relationship between height and QoL. Coping with a disease (CODI) and quality of life in short stature youth (QoLISSY-QoL) questionnaires were completed by 137 short-statured children and adolescents between 8 and 18 years, participating in the crosssectional European QoLISSY study. Clinical and socio-demographic data were collected to examine differences in coping via variance and regression analyses, associations between CODI and QoLISSY were inspected using correlation and mediation analyses. Most frequently employed coping strategies in the CODI were 'Acceptance' and 'Wishful Thinking', with 'Emotional Reaction' used least. Significant effects of age, diagnosis and treatment status on coping strategies were detected. CODI scales 'Acceptance' and 'Distance' were associated with higher QoLISSY-QoL scores, 'Emotional Reaction' and 'Wishful Thinking' with lower scores. Coping strategies predicted 60 % of the QoLISSY-QoL variance. Relationships between height deviation and QoLISSY-QoL were mediated by the coping strategies of 'Wishful Thinking' and 'Distance'. Findings suggest that coping efforts vary with socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, that protective coping strategies in terms of QoL can be identified and that coping mediates the relationship between short stature and QoL. Future longitudinal research should focus on the adaptive function of coping in relation to QoL over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Service robots may offer an innovative assistive solution to improve the quality of life of frail elderly people, by assisting them in specific situations identified as relevant to maintain independence. Objective: This paper describes the results of a qualitative and quantitative research based on a user-centered methodology carried out within the EU-funded project "Multi-Role Shadow Robotic System for Independent Living" (SRS), aiming to generate user requirements and realistic usage scenarios maximizing the alignment with users' needs, perceptions, feelings and rights. Methods: A qualitative and quantitative research - based on focus groups (59 participants) and questionnaires (129 respondents) - was carried out in three countries: Italy, Spain and Germany. The survey involved prospective end-users (elderly people and family members who care for them), caregivers, and geriatric experts. Results: Results show that despite elderly people encounter difficulties in many activities of daily life, a semi-autonomous remotely-controlled and self-learning service robot has been judged an interesting solution only in some circumstances. Monitoring and managing emergency situations, helping with reaching, fetching and carrying objects that are too heavy or positioned in unreachable places: these are tasks for which robotic support has been widely accepted, while tasks involving direct physical contact between the person and the robot are not appreciated instead. Relatives of the elderly could act as remote operators; however, family psychological burden and time restrictions should be considered too. Conclusions: A tele-operated robotic system may be of help for frail elderly people. In certain cases this solution may be effective only in conjunction with a 24-hour professional Service Centre able to manage tele-operation when relatives are not available. This survey adds further tokens of knowledge to previous literature studies on this subject; it compares the potential users' and the professionals' views; it helps identifying potentially successful applications of tele-operated robots in the care of elderly people living at home. The results obtained by the present study, generated specific requirements and the first versions of concrete usage scenarios, enabling designers and technologists to start with a first development phase of the SRS concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]