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Background and Study Purpose. The majority of the population prefers nature activities, trips, and hiking in mountain areas due to the attractiveness of the trails and the beneficial effects. Material and Methods. The investigated group included 647 students from secondary school/336 cases and high school/311 cases. A questionnaire consisting of 23 closed-ended items (Likert scale in 5 levels) was applied between March and May 2024 to study the opinions about trips and hiking in mountain areas. Parametric ANOVA procedures (defining gender-independent variables, area variables, and training level) were applied to identify differences between the resulting groups. Results. Factor analysis with PCA identified a distribution of items on three distinct components: Attractiveness, Usefulness, and Effects/ /Financial Accessibility. The F values for the three independent variables and the interaction between them correspond to statistically significant thresholds (P < 0.05), so there are differences between the opinions of the surveyed students for the items of the applied questionnaire. Conclusions. The spirit of adventure and escape from everyday life show the highest mean score of all the component items, followed by the attraction to trips and hiking. Females are more interested in trips and hiking than males. High school students are more attracted to these activities than secondary school students. We noted the statistically significant superiority of rural vs. urban students for all items of the Attractiveness component. Recommendation. These differences require identifying different ways to motivate the groups analysed in the future to be more involved in this kind of activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Study Purpose. Basketball is an important worldwide sport and is frequently included in the school curriculum at various levels and in leisure activities. This study aims to determine the attractiveness and interest in basketball among high school students, as well as to compare it with other youth sports. Material and Methods. The investigated group consists of 259 high school students (16.97 years), with 135 males and 124 females, 156 urban and 103 rural. All students participated in physical education lessons with basketball topics. Questioning of the students for the component of the attractiveness of playing basketball was done by questionnaire with 14 items and closed answers at the level of this factor. The items were designed using a 5-level Likert scale. The completion of the questionnaires was carried out between November 2023 and January 2024. Results. The mean item values indicate high scores related to the spectacularity of basketball, as well as higher scores compared to track and field and gymnastics. The F values indicate strong influences of gender, but especially of background on students' choices. Males are significantly happier than females when they have basketball topics in their lessons. For almost all items of the attractiveness factor, those from rural areas give significantly lower mean scores than those from urban areas (P < 0.05), so there is a clear perception gap between these groups. The Gender *Area variables interaction generates significant differences (P < 0.05), but these are only evident for men. Conclusions. Across the entire group, even though basketball scores relatively better on average in terms of attractiveness than the rest of the team games, athletics and gymnastics, soccer remains at the top of high school students' preferences (47%). We found low values for playing basketball as a leisure activity, as well as for concerns about watching basketball competitions. However, men play basketball in their free time and watch competitions more than women. For men, soccer is the only sport more attractive than basketball, but basketball is more interesting than volleyball, handball, gymnastics and track and field. For women, soccer has a low attractiveness, while basketball, volleyball and gymnastics are more interesting. The differences between urban and rural (the whole group) for the attractiveness dimension are significant and entirely in favour of urban students. Urban students are more attracted, prefer, get involved, practice, and look forward more to basketball topics in curricular and extracurricular activities. The interaction between variables shows much larger differences between urban boys vs rural boys, but more balanced scores are found for urban girls vs rural girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental education studies emphasize the importance of this type of education since small ages as a basis for developing appropriate attitudes and behaviour towards the long-term environment, increasing accountability and motivation to take action to protect the environment. Geography has an essential role in environmental education, given the interdisciplinary character of this science, which aims at the interaction between man and environment, so that many studies are devoted to how this discipline contributes to forming of this type of education. The present paper focuses on applying a questionnaire among teachers, they being discipline holders of some schools in Dâmboviţa County (Romania), to highlight their perceptions, with the main reference to the concept of environmental education in primary school. Perceptual studies will therefore be useful in understanding the importance that respondents place on these issues, how the concepts of environmental education and sustainable development are focused to students, methods and techniques used predominantly in the undertaken activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need to cope with the raising expectations which the society has from the education, compels the teachers to enlarge the limitations of the traditional education system in order to discover, filter and implement new teaching and assessment methods by which it could harness the cognitive and emotional potential of all the children they work with. By applying the multiple intelligence theory, the teachers meet the pupils’ needs to benefit from the opportunity of learning in ways that match each one’s unique way of thinking. The study is based on applying a questionnaire which studies the satisfaction degree of the pupils within the Romanian traditional educational system and the ways to attract them to school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]