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Due to its impact on all human activity, the new virus has therefore aroused increased interest in research. A large number of medical papers related to COVID-19 have been published as a result of the scientific community response to this emerging infectious disease. All measures that combat the spread of the disease came at a cost and the people had to add one more hardship which contributed to the rise in social inequality. Moreover, the costs for internet access, proper equipment to support online education, private healthcare, facemasks, and disinfectants have become a burden for a segment of Romanian society. In this study, 18 Romanian universities a Medicine bachelor specialisation, both public and private, were analysed to determine the dataset query from Web of Science. Our research aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 papers written by authors affiliated with Romanian universities with a medicine specialisation, which are the factors that influence the likelihood of a paper being cited and how the number of citations varies by university type. The obtained results reveal that University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila" from Bucharest records the highest number of published papers, while "APOL-LONIA" University of Iași has the highest number of citations in both WOS Core Collection and in all WOS Databases per research. Furthermore, there is a significant difference in the number of citations between papers with and without a PUB MED ID. Logistic models show that neither the type of university nor the property type of the university (public or private) are determinants of the likelihood of an article being cited in the WOS core collection or in all WOS databases. As a consequence, a research paper with PUB MED ID and a higher number of pages, has a higher chance to be cited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, self-report measures are the primary assessment tool for anxiety disorders. Since they have some limitations, alternative measurements, such as language-based measures, are worth investigating. This paper explores which language markers signal anxiety in fictitious stories written in response to four Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) cards. Participants (n = 492) from a non-probabilistic convenience sample were asked to write a short story next to each TAT card after completing the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7. We used RoLIWC2015 to conduct the text analysis and applied the LASSO method to identify which language markers predict anxiety. The results showed that the respondents scoring high on anxiety also tend to use more words expressing negative emotions, and fewer words expressing positive emotions. Moreover, their language contained a higher frequency of words that implied semantic differentiation (i.e., but, else) and a lower frequency of words indicating leisure. In conclusion, this paper aims to shed new light on the multimethod assessment of anxiety, mainly focused on specific language signatures as reliable predictors of anxiety symptoms. Further research using more extensive text data is recommended to discover more linguistic markers and improve prediction accuracy.

This article presents the author's address at the 2007 "Journal of Applied Quantitative Methods" ("JAQM") prize awarding festivity. The festivity was included in the opening of the 4th International Conference on Applied Statistics, November 22, 2008, Bucharest, Romania. In the address, the author reflects on three theses that question the gnoseological and operational efficiency of quantitative methods in the social domain. The first refers to symbolical analysis, where the connections between different qualitative categories are transposed into equation systems, including different types of inequalities or existence conditions. The second refers to empirical research. The third thesis upon which the author reflects refers to the skepticism concerning the predictive capacity of quantitative analysis. Here, the author cites several causal factors contributing to the recent global crisis in the context of these theories. (Contains 1 note.)

The educational environment, in its entirety (ethos, environment, educational offer, teacher-pupil relations, pedagogical actions) is oriented towards meeting formally established quality standards in line with the educational needs of the direct and indirect educational beneficiaries. Ensuring the quality of teaching is a concern of teachers, and they are therefore interested in increasing the degree of professional efficiency and, implicitly, their perception and self-perception. This paper, based on qualitative educational research, presents a comparative analysis of ten case studies, based on specific teaching actions undertaken and self-monitored by primary school teachers in Romania, through the practice of self-analysis of teaching activity. In this paper we aimed to explore the triggers of teachers' higher-quality professional performance generated by the practice of self-analysis of teaching activity. As relevant aspects of teaching effectiveness, perceived by the participants in a focus group, following the practice of self-analysis of the teaching activity, we mention the following formative valences of it: use of critical thinking, knowledge of personal and professional identity, identification of answers to self-reflective questions, teaching self-regulation and awareness of dysfunctions in the educational process.

Immigrant minority (IM) languages have a significant presence in certain European regions. Nonetheless, these languages are not usually included in the school curriculum. This paper aims to analyse the studies published between 2010 and 2020 considering IM languages in multilingual European education contexts. The method included a search of academic papers published in the databases ERIC, Web of Science and Scopus, which yielded 42 studies. The studies were analysed by considering: (1) the demographic characteristics of the countries where the studies were conducted, (2) the sociolinguistic or psycholinguistic focus of the papers in relation to the European country, and (3) the characteristics of the bi-multilingual education programme including IM languages. The results indicate that: (1) the demographic characteristics of the country are not strictly related to the number of studies published, (2) most studies have a sociolinguistic approach even though many studies analyse both sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic factors, and (3) only seven multilingual education programmes including IM languages were described in these papers. We conclude that there is a lack of research focusing on IM languages in educational settings and discuss how addressing these gaps could create opportunities for building equitable multilingual communities in Europe.

This study was designed considering the necessity of a questionnaire (validated on Romanian population and built after consulting the available papers on the subject) for evaluating the resilience of adolescents. It was focused on further developing the ARES ("Adolescents' Resilience Evaluation Scale", built in 2018 as a pilot-study, with 62 subjects). This new form (ARES-i25) includes new theoretical aspects, new items and it was completed by 423 subjects. Using factorial exploratory analysis, five factors (which explained 72,1% of the variance of resilience) were identified: tenacity and self-efficiency; self-confidence; learn from life experiences; rapid recovery after trauma; social and familial resources. The reliability was proven by its internal consistency ([alpha]= 0.83 on a general level, and subscales 0.71<[alpha]> 0.89), while its concurrent validity was proven by 0.05 0.75 (comparing the results to those of BRS - Smith et al., 2008) thus proving the adequate psychometric qualities of the new form of ARES-i25. Future studies will focus on extending the sample and on applying ARES-i25 in other countries and creating programs for developing resilience.

School managers, teachers, students, as well as their parents are faced with increasingly frequent attempts to integrate the diversity of pupils as a result of integration policies at national and European level. Educational needs of impaired persons require special attention. Is necessary to make steps should be taken to ensure access to education for each category of disabled person as part of the education system. Legislative framework in the field of special education Romania takes into account the legislation created by the international bodies on the education of persons with special educational needs, to which Romania has adhered. This paper presents aspects regarding the organization of educational support services dedicated to children, students and young people with special educational needs in mainstream schools in accordance with Romanian law; it also underlines the international legal framework of reference. This paper is part of a wider project that focuses on teacher training to optimize the integration of SEN pupils into the mainstream school; we used data collection methods, such as social document study and focus-group. An integrated and tailored approach is needed for children with SEN (special educational needs); focus-groups organized with primary school and gymnasium children, as well as with support teachers, revealed a number of adaptation issues from both sides (pupils with SEN and students with no problems). On the other hand, the itinerant teachers are assaulted by a series organization problems and it becomes impossible to provide support and assistance to children with special needs who are growing in numbers. Training of teachers is one of the most important pillars in the integration of all those involved in education, it is the way to optimize service organizations. Teacher training must respond to the real and complex needs of the beneficiaries, based on exploratory learning. In the final, will be presented and analyzed the main important problems faced by both teachers and pupils in the current educational context.

Although aspects of sustainability in communication such as nonviolence are discussed from time to time, hardly any theoretical basement with an empirical validation can be found. In the broadest sense, sustainability refers to the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. This paper asks for the theoretical approach that helps to understand the challenges of teaching in schools of diverse societies (2) and explains some core aspects of the ongoing research on sustainability and communication (3). After that, this paper presents the research question this project tried to answer (4) and explains the used instruments, the data, and some of the most relevant outcomes of this study (5). Finally, some conclusions describe the opportunities and threats of sustainable communication for teacher education. The outcome of this paper is that a specific theory of sustainable communication is missing. Furthermore, the results of the empirical investigation show that intercultural communication, nonviolent communication, cooperation, problem solving and, reflection are statistically related as constructs and predictors of sustainable communication. Also, the teaching experience of the participants in the sample is a significant predictor of the sustainable communication.

This paper discusses language use and identity patterns in ethnic minority/ethnically heterogeneous multigenerational deaf families in Romania, where at least one of the family members belongs to the ethnic Hungarian minority. Early childhood and school linguistic socialization, language use within the family, and cross-generational transmission of identity to children are explored. The research is based on five ethnic minority/ethnically heterogeneous multigenerational deaf family case studies. The research results show that within ethnic-national minority/ethnically heterogeneous multigenerational deaf families, complex identity patterns may develop and multifaceted linguistic communication models may prevail, including the use of national oral languages and national sign languages of the parties involved. At the same time, a kind of special linguistic and cultural enrichment, a striving for cultural-linguistic balance, may occur.

During voluntary work, volunteers acquire valuable new knowledge and skills, but they often do not recognize these newly developed competencies, cannot apply them in further education, and fail to make others, including potential employers, aware of them. The classification and validation of these competencies can help to facilitate the transfer of volunteers' competencies within the volunteer and labor markets; however, the required steps for validation of the acquired competencies are frequently complicated or unclear for volunteers. Additionally, accepted ways of validating are lacking in labor market. This paper starts by presenting the value and benefits of volunteering, especially in a business education context. Thereafter, the authors present a European partnership project--the Grundtvig Learning Partnership's Volunteering Validation Highway (VVH). The partnership aimed to facilitate the validation and transfer of volunteers' experience. The following paper discuss volunteering as important part of society and a business education approach integrating volunteering. To support the idea of integration, the authors present a study concerning volunteers' competencies, the benefits of volunteering, and the usefulness in business education of competencies gained through volunteering. The study used data from a questionnaire and group discussions. Regarding different countries, the partners expected different understandings of volunteering; therefore, the researchers conducted mixed-nationality group discussions to develop a mutual understanding of volunteering. The researchers also developed a questionnaire according to the group discussion categories (inductive) and included both open-ended and multiple-choice questions. The results support the idea of integrating volunteering experiences in business education. First, the results showed benefits for society and for the volunteers themselves. Second, the volunteers gain on the one hand professional competencies that were relevant to the labor market, like delegating tasks to other people. On the other hand, the volunteers mentioned social and process-oriented competencies, including communication and technical skills. Third, the researchers identified two major advantages of volunteering: volunteers learn networking and communicating, and volunteers experience opened new occupational fields. The authors presented in a fourth step opportunities to integrate volunteering into business education. Business education can therefore be a service learning or a social entrepreneurship education course.

Globally, there is considerable investment in education technologies leading to increased attention from stakeholders (Trucano, 2017). For a deeper understanding about the implementation of various technologies, research is needed to examine how teachers are incorporating them in teaching and learning. This study focused on eight countries to examine how teachers used ICT in mathematics instruction and factors that contributed to ICT use. Results show that teachers' education levels and cooperation amongst educators are associated with ICT use in instruction. The paper includes recommendations and implications for practice and future research.

In the last two years, a growing number of studies have focused on the promotion of students' mental health to address the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, less studies have been conducted on sustaining teachers' mental health which has been affected by the sudden changes in online teaching and the difficulties in keeping and building relationship with students. Even before the pandemic, teaching has long been recognised as one of the most challenging occupations characterized by high levels of stress. Although the research highlighted the key role of mental health promotion among teachers, there is still a lack of programs enhancing teachers' wellbeing. This study examined the impact of the PROMEHS program, a school-based curriculum, on teachers' mental health. A total of 687 teachers participated in the study. Applying a pre- and post-training study design with experimental and waiting list groups, teachers were evaluated in social and emotional learning, resilience, and self-efficacy. The results showed that there was a significant improvement in all competences of the teachers in the experimental group compared to those in the waiting list group. The paper discusses the implications of the findings with recommendations for further studies in the area.

The usage of games in the process of teaching and learning is always advantageous, because children prefer to learn playfully. Board-games are particularly enjoyable for children. They do not learn consciously, but they enjoy playing together with their parents and siblings, because board-games bring together both family and friends. Playing board-games is not only a joyful activity, it also develops different skills of the player, as communication skills, strategy creating and problem solving competency, cooperation, etc. Nowadays there are many boardgames on sale, active board-game playing communities organize events, and a culture of playing board-games is developing. Thus integrating board-games in educational activities seems to be a natural process to follow. But this integration has many obstacles, as time and curriculum constrains, the lack of methodological knowledge of the teachers, inadequate choose of educational board-games for some subjects, etc. The aim of this research is to study primary school teachers' attitude to playing board-games and their board-game playing practice. The results show that majority of the participating elementary school teachers love playing boardgames, almost half of them also play board games in their private life. Most of them bring these games to the classroom as well. Teachers love these games, because they are fun, teach logical thinking, make students creative, help them to relax, are team builders, motivate students to learn, get used to speed, develop attention, teach strategies, and are childhood favorites. [This paper was presented at the TDID Doctoral Students' Conference, 14-16 May 2020.]

Gamification is a rather new method in education and unfortunately is not a widely known method among Hungarian primary school teachers in Romania. This paper presents the knowledge and opinion of pre-service preschool and primary school teachers about gamification and its use in education. In this study 81 Primary and Preschool Pedagogy students from Babe?-Bolyai University were participated, 80 of them were female and 1 male. 40 students are in first year and 41 in second year of their studies. The research was carried out during February-March 2020 at Babe?-Bolyai University, Romania. To get to know their point of view and knowledge about gamification, an online questionnaire was developed by the authors. The obtained data was quantitatively (closed questions) and qualitatively (open questions) analyzed. According to the results, half of the students think that there is no difference between gamification and game-based learning and for three quarter it is difficult to see the differences. This is surprising as students were taught about gamification before filling in the questionnaire. Students perceive a high level of utility of gamification in education. The most frequently mentioned benefits by the participants are that gamification motivates and actively involves students. Even if participants gave many advantages of integrating gamification in education, the biggest disadvantage is related with the time necessary for preparation of a gamified lesson and for the time-allocation during the lesson. As obstacles of using gamification, they mentioned the negative attitude or/and lack of methodological knowledge of some teachers and the constrains of the curriculum. Most of the preservice teachers prefer both paper-pencil based and technology-aid gamification. They consider solving exercises the most suitable for gamification.

The number of young people around the world, sanctioned with an educational measure depriving them of their liberty is increasing, which is also found in the statistics of educational centers in Romania. Custodial measures are those which punish juvenile offenders by depriving them of their liberty after they have been convicted of an offense. By being internment in the center, they are prevented from committing new offenses and, at least in theory, are allowed to be rehabilitated during the period of internment. In the custodial environment, education for minors and young people has been and remains different in many ways from that in the community. In this, beyond the architecture of the custodial environment, the profile of this type of criminals obviously has a significant role. In this paper, we aimed to highlight the particularities of education for minors and young people in the custody environment in general and in educational centers in Romania in particular, and how the pandemic period COVID-19 influences programs in educational centers. 27 interviews were applied to professionals from two educational centers in Romania (Buzias Educational Center and Târgu Ocna Educational Center). The interview guide for professionals and management staff totaled 22 questions. In this paper we have focused only on the questions that refer to the social reintegration of minors and young people interned in the centers. Our analysis shows us that young offenders faces several issues specific to custodial environments to which are added the restrictions imposed by the pandemic period. This restriction takes on specific forms, adapted to the custodial environment. Educators, psychologists, and schoolteachers can play an important role together with parents in social reintegration and defining and establishing their life projects.

Digital communication is a great facilitator of human connection, positively contributing to life satisfaction and prosocial behavior. However, the existing findings also insist on the drawbacks of the digital communication, as low levels of wellbeing satisfaction, or happiness. Thus, aiming to reconciliate the two sets of assumptions and relying on the reality that textual communication is preferred to voice interaction, the present paper investigates the impact of using messaging apps on the emotional state. More specifically, the study explores if time spent texting, the general affinity towards technology, the perceived ease of use, the perceived usefulness, and the intentional behavior to use messaging applications are correlated with self-esteem, loneliness, anxiety, and wellbeing. An online opinion survey (N=147) with Romanian emerging adults is conducted between February and May 2022. The results show that a positive attitude towards technology is negatively correlated with the feelings of loneliness and anxiety. Moreover, a positive perception on the ease of use and usefulness of the messaging applications is linked with an increased wellbeing.

In contemporary society, the problem of population aging and, related to it, the problem of human resources aging is raised more and more frequently. As documented by many researchers, it has been found that the aging changes occur at both physiological and psychosocial levels and affect each employee differently. When it comes to the educational environment, the aging of teaching staff represents an increased interest at the moment, especially in Romania, even more so in the context of a possible voluntary increase in the retirement age in education. In the first part of this paper, we will carry out a review of the most relevant academic findings in relation to the challenges that arise with the aging of human resources in general and those in education, in particular. Afterwards, we will present possible openings for future research, such as those on the impact of the proposed voluntary extension of the retirement age in the education system in Romania. We will conclude with a series of practical considerations related to the challenges that the management of human resources in education will likely face under the pressure of the mentioned impact.