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In the last 30 years, 4 distinct theoretical approaches have been described for early childhood science education. The approaches are, empiricist, Piagetian, socio-cognitive and socio-cultural. Drawing on the differences among these approaches regarding the theoretical framework adopted in teaching, the role that is assigned to the teacher during the activity and the actions that are expected from the children, we aimed to serve 2 purposes with this research. Firstly, to elicit the in-service pre-school teachers' beliefs about teaching practices for natural sciences and to record the approaches that these beliefs match. To fulfil this purpose, a new instrument was developed. Secondly, to examine the instrument's validity and reliability. The participants in the study were 94 pre-school teachers who served in public schools in 2 prefectures in Greece. Research findings suggest that pre-school teachers tend to state that they mainly adopt practices that fit the empiricist approach while practices that fit the socio-cognitive approach are not used so often. Finally, they seem to rarely follow practices that fit the socio-cultural and Piagetian approaches.

Background/purpose: Investigation into the misconceptions of preschool students in mathematics and their differences between the ages of 4-5 and 5-6 years old helps form appropriate developmental mathematics teaching programs. However, although several studies have been conducted examining preschoolers' previous knowledge and misconceptions about mathematics, no corresponding research has been found in Greece. This study aims to investigate preschoolers' misconceptions about numbers and operations and to reveal differences between preschoolers aged 4-5 and 5-6 years old. Materials/methods: Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed according to content analysis methodology. Results: The study's results showed that 5-6-year-old preschoolers perform better than those aged 4-5 years old. Most misconceptions of the latter group appeared to be related to reverse counting, identifying arithmetic symbols and their matching quantities, adding and removing numbers without using auxiliary objects and multiplication. On the contrary, some preschoolers aged 5-6 years old needed help adding or subtracting two-digit numbers without the use of auxiliary objects. There were also a few cases where cardinality, division, and multiplication were observed. Conclusion: The misconceptions identified in the two groups of students regarding numbers and operations and their distinct needs that emerged through the research will allow teachers to offer differentiated instruction and personalize teaching support.

Background/purpose: This study investigates how the teaching intervention and familiarity with the search topic enhance Greek students' behaviour while solving information problems. Materials/methods: Seven university students solved three information problems on the same search topic during an academic semester. After the first and before the last two information problems, a didactic intervention was implemented to familiarize the undergraduate students with the information problem-solving process based on the Big6 model of Eisenberg & Berkowitz (1990) and the use of essential online search tools. Qualitative data was collected via observation as well with the think-aloud protocol. Results: The results indicated that after the didactic intervention and familiarity with the search topic, the participants could realize a greater variety of actions to locate the required information. Conclusion: The findings deepen the comprehension of how the students' information behaviours evolve and indicate suitable interventions that could support students in performing effective internet searches.

This study explores the factors that influence experts' regular contribution to educational community question-answering (CQA) platforms. Providing answers is essential for sharing knowledge on CQA platforms, but it also affects learners' progressive inquiry. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop and test a theoretical model that aims to explain which factors influence whether experts answer questions on educational CQA platforms and how these factors correlate with each other to form a "map" of experts' respective behavior. We examined experts' perceptions of three dimensions: the CQA platform's usability, the quality of questions asked, and the added value of answering these questions. We examined the factors involved in these dimensions from the perspective of the Theory of Planned Behavior to connect them with the experts' perceptions, intentions, and actions on a CQA platform. As our case study, we took the 100mentors web and mobile app, a small-scale platform that addresses learning communities around the world, and we conducted a survey for their registered experts (N=126). The factorial structure indicated that experts first perceived the question quality mostly based on its relevance to their expertise or experience (question quality); secondly, that their intention to answer was mainly set by their motives to make a difference for the learner and partially by the user-friendliness of the platform (added value of answering and CQA platform's usability); and finally, that their actions were connected to the regular use of the platform for answer-sharing (CQA platform's usability). A future research challenge is to test the factorial structure in large-scale educational CQA platforms. The further confirmation of the expert behavior pattern can have a practical implication for the platforms to guide their expert community more efficiently and for the learners to pursue their learning through progressive inquiry.

The purpose of this study was to adapt the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS) for a Greek student population. The STARS was administered to 890 Tertiary Education students in two Greek universities. It was performed a cross-validation study to examine the factorial structure and the psychometric properties with a series of confirmatory factor analyses. Results revealed a correlated six first-order factor model which provided the best fit to the data compared to a six-factor model with one superordinate factor. All six factors of the Greek version of the STARS presented convergent and discriminant validity and were internally consistent. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Nowadays there is a growing research interest in the developments in the domain of Educational Robotics. The present paper is a systematic review of recently published Greek research pertaining to teaching interventions using robotic devices in order to present: a) a synthesis of the available results and the benefits from the utilization of educational robotics and b) a synthesis of research prospects for the educational utilization of robots. After a systematic online search, 54 relevant articles on Greek research approaches and published in conference proceedings were found and their content was analyzed by level of education (i.e., early childhood, primary, secondary). According to the findings of the published research, Educational Robotics appears to support the development of 21st century skills and can be utilized in teaching various subjects at the three levels of education. The conclusions of the present review could be used as reference for future research.

The aim of the current paper is to investigate the traces of socio-cognitive influences in kindergarten teachers' representations about the practices they tend to follow when they develop Natural Sciences activities in kindergarten. A quantitative approach was used, with the research tool being an electronic questionnaire that was completed online by 94 kindergarten teachers served in public Kindergartens. The questionnaire was firstly used in a pilot survey where receiving feedback it was further developed for the main research. Research analysis showed that kindergarten teachers' representations concerning their teaching choices and actions of their students are characterized by practices that are influenced by the socio-cognitive teaching strategy. These practices are followed from both teachers and their students from moderate to large extent.

Teachers' Professional Development Massive Open Online Courses (TPD-MOOCs) are a new form of MOOCs and have influenced an intense research interest. This study reports on the design and implementation of a TPD-MOOC which utilizes digital educational content and Open Educational Recourses (OER) and supports in-service elementary school teachers to enhance their self-efficacy beliefs. In the design framework we take into consideration the findings of previous research and the educational needs of the participants. We conducted an experimental design research and compared the teachers' self-efficacy beliefs before and after their participation in a TPD-MOOC. A total of 251 teachers enrolled in this course and 142 of them completed it. We used quantitative data to measure the enhancement of teachers' self-efficacy beliefs and the effectiveness of the course. The results provide evidence that our TPD-MOOC improved in service elementary school teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in teaching biological concepts. Recommendations are made for future research.

Despite the significant growth and capabilities of mobile technologies, there is limited empirical evidence on teachers' perceived mobile technology-learning barriers. This study investigated Greek teachers' perceptions of barriers to using mobile technology in school classrooms. A 28-item questionnaire was administered to 557 teachers and six barrier-factors were extracted: 'lack of resources', 'lack of support', 'lack of time', 'lack of teacher confidence', 'class conditions' and 'concerns about students'. The questionnaire was a valid and reliable tool for the investigation of various dimensions of teachers' perceived barriers. Gender, school level, age and ICT training had significant but small effects on specific barrier-factors. The order of importance of barrier-factors was similar for users and non-users ('lack of resources', 'support' and 'class conditions') independently of the type of mobile device used in class. 'Concerns about students' was identified as a major barrier only by non-users. Implications for educational policy and professional training are discussed.

Only a limited number of research has examined preservice preschool teachers' attitudes toward and beliefs about teaching mathematics, likely because there are no instruments aimed at preschool settings that have appropriately established psychometric properties. In the current study, we addressed this deficit and aimed to adapt the Preschool Teacher Attitudes and Beliefs toward Science (P-TABS) instrument in a sample of 164 Greek preservice preschool teachers and test its validity and reliability. Using a version of the P-TABS that had been adapted to mathematics, we investigated participants' beliefs about and attitudes toward teaching mathematics and the impact of their previous experiences with mathematics, as well as their math anxiety, on their beliefs about and attitudes toward mathematics teaching. The results showed that this adapted version of the P-TABS was valid and reliable, and therefore it can be useful in the assessment of preservice preschool teachers' beliefs about and attitudes toward teaching mathematics. The results also showed that teachers' math anxiety and their previous experience with mathematics explained their beliefs about and attitudes toward teaching mathematics. This suggests that introducing courses on mathematics into teacher education programs could have a positive effect on preservice teachers' beliefs about teaching mathematics.

Teaching and learning introductory thermodynamics has drawn considerable research attention over the last two decades, especially in several disciplines of higher education. Under particular investigation is the First Law of Thermodynamics (FLT), which offers an expression of energy conservation in thermodynamic systems, as the evidence shows that students struggle with this fundamental principle. At the upper secondary education level, existing research on this issue is rather limited. This study is concerned with the above, presenting epistemological and cognitive perspectives on the FLT and, based on these, proposes a constructivist approach for its teaching and learning. We place a special focus on the meaningful bridging between thermodynamic processes and a suitable constructivist model (Energy Chain Model) that can accurately describe the mathematical expressions of the First Law. To accomplish this, we implemented a teaching and learning sequence (12 45-min lessons) in the second year of the upper secondary school (ages 16-17). A significant part of the sequence (six lessons in 2 weeks) employed a model-based educational simulation (Ideal Gas Educational Simulation), which was designed and developed for this particular purpose. In this study (N = 19), the results indicated gradual improvement in students' representations of thermodynamic processes, wherein they were able to more accurately describe these processes in terms of energy chains and mathematical expressions of the First Law. Some barriers that students could not seamlessly bypass were detected, which are in line with the findings of the existing literature for tertiary education students.

Mobile devices have become a learning tool with great potential in both formal and informal learning; however, mobile learning readiness research in school education is relatively limited. This study investigated teachers' readiness to adopt mobile learning in K-12 classrooms. A questionnaire was administered to 920 teachers in Greece and four factors were extracted, "Possibilities," "Benefits," "Preferences" and "External influences." Teachers, in general, expressed positive perceptions on mobile learning readiness. The highest percentage of agreement regarded the possibilities of mobile learning (over 60%). ICT training and attendance of ICT conferences, both affected positively teachers' perceptions on mobile learning benefits and preferences. Teachers who use mobile devices in class reported significantly more positive perceptions on all factors, while gender or age had no impact on perceptions. There was a higher probability of mobile devices' usage in class among teachers working in elementary schools (in comparison with those working in high schools or general/vocational lyceums). Stronger perceptions on mobile learning benefits, preferences and external influences were associated with an increased likelihood of using mobile devices in the classroom. Teachers' readiness perceptions can be explored from a multi-dimensional perspective, and also be associated with mobile technology use in classrooms. Implications for teacher professional development, methodology and pedagogical practice are discussed.

In the present study, we investigated the grouping of Greek parents of preschool children according to their beliefs about literacy by using a mixed-method approach. The sample included 147 parents of preschool children attending the 13 public kindergartens in the town of Pyrgos, in Greece. The participants completed a paper survey and 20 of them participated in semi-structured interviews, as well. The results revealed that parents could be categorized into two groups according to their beliefs about literacy: "Facilitative" and "Conventional." Facilitative parents have a more holistic orientation, concerning literacy acquisition, while Conventional parents have a more skills-based orientation. The findings give an insight into parents' beliefs about literacy and emphasize the importance of the congruence between home and school literacy. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Mobile phone is increasingly widespread among University students, while different factors can affect students' behavior towards the use and acceptance of mobile technology. One of the methods to measure these factors is the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Behavioral Intention of University students for acceptance and use of mobile phone in their studies. The study employed the extended UTAUT2 model (Venkatesh et al. 2012) which was adapted to the Greek context. The participants were 540 students of different Universities across Greece, who completed an online questionnaire. The most important predictors for students' Behavioral Intention to use mobile phones in their studies were Habit (the strongest one), Performance Expectancy and Hedonic Motivation. The most important predictor for actual mobile phone use was Behavioral Intention. Gender, age and experience did not have any moderating effect. The findings of this study enhance the evidence on mobile phone acceptance among University students, and have implications for students' training.

Teaching empirical educational research in higher education involves implementing a very useful web tool for bibliography/scientific literature research, a search engine specifically employed for scientific papers, such as "Google Scholar". The aim of this study is to examine undergraduate students' acceptance of technology, through their intention to adopt and use a specific search engine for research purposes. To accomplish this goal, a questionnaire was administered to 225 students from two Universities in Greece. The study was based on TAM (Technology Acceptance Model), reinforced by four external determinants (perceived self-efficacy, subjective norms, facilitating conditions and technological complexity), that contributed to the indirect prediction of the behavioral intention to use the particular search engine. The results of the survey confirm that the main factors of TAM, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are significant determinants of students' behavioral intention to use Google Scholar. Moreover, perceived self-efficacy, subjective norms, facilitating conditions and technological complexity have an indirect significant effect on behavioral intention. All these factors explain almost 60% of students' behavioral intention to use this search engine. The results of this survey could be beneficial to the enrichment of good educational practices for the additional training of teachers, as well as to the improvement of the students' skills in the implementation of this specific research tool. Besides, more stakeholders, such as librarians, or even human resources of big companies that construct and support similar systems, such as search engines, could also benefit from the present research.

Low enrolment in undergraduate level physics programmes has drawn the attention of the relevant disciplines, education policy-makers, and researchers worldwide. Many reports released during the previous decades attempt to identify the factors that attract young people to study science, but only few of them focus explicitly on physics. In Greece, in contrast to many other countries, physics departments are overflowing with young students. However, there are two categories of students: those for whom physics was the optimal choice of a programme ("choosers") and those for whom physics was an alternative choice that they had to settle for. We suggest that the latter category be called "nearly-choosers," in order to be differentiated from choosers as well as from "non-choosers," namely those candidates that did not apply to a physics programme at all. We are interested in the factors that attract high school students to study physics and the differences (if any) between choosers and nearly-choosers. A newly formed questionnaire was distributed within a Greek physics department (University of Patras), and the students' responses (n = 105) were analysed with exploratory factor analysis and specifically principal component analysis so as to extract broad factors. Three broad factors have arisen: school-based, career, and informal learning. The first two factors proved to be motivating for pursuing a degree in physics, while the third factor appeared to have a rather indifferent association. "t" tests and Pearson correlations indicated mild differentiations between choosers and nearly-choosers that pertain to school-based influences and informal learning.

Research in the field of statistics teaching has gained momentum, with numerous studies reporting that attitudes towards statistics are related to student performance in a statistics course. The aim of this study was to explore the effects of students' attitudes toward statistics, students' perceived competence at mathematics, and students' engagement in the learning process on their overall performance in a tertiary statistics course. The Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS-28) was administered to 170 tertiary Early Childhood Education students in a large university in Greece. A Structural Equation Model was generated, and a confirmatory factor analysis was performed resulting in a three-component structure being accepted. Path analysis revealed direct links between perceived competence at mathematics and the three attitudes components, as well as a direct effect of perceived competence at mathematics on students' performance in the statistics course. Engagement in the learning process also had a direct impact on students' performance.

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly prevalent, it has become a topic of interest in education. The use of AI in education poses complex issues, not only in terms of its impact on teaching and learning outcomes but also in terms of the ethical considerations regarding personal data and the individual needs of each student. Our study systematically analyzed empirical research on the use of AI in primary education, specifically for children aged 4–12 years old. We reviewed 35 articles indexed in SCOPUS, filtered them according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, analyzed them, and categorized the findings. The research focused on the studies' objectives, learning content, learning outcomes, learning activities, and the pedagogy of activities or the AI tools. Our categorization resulted in three main categories of research objectives regarding the creation, implementation, and evaluation of AI tools and five categories for learning content: AI and ML (machine learning) concepts in STEM and STEAM, language learning, mathematics, arts, and various other subjects. The learning activities were split into four categories: apply, engage, interact, use; project-based learning with multiple activities; experience and practice; and students as tutors. The learning outcomes were split into three levels: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor. The pedagogy of AI tools falls into four categories: constructivism, experiential learning, AI-assisted learning, and project-based learning. The implications for teacher professional development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the relationship between different views of teaching and dimensions that differentiate academic disciplines. A total of 114 academics within Greece and 127 academics from similar disciplines but other countries were compared using the Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI). Distinctions among disciplines for both groups were based on Biglan's 3-dimensional classification (Pure/Applied; Hard/Soft; Life/non-Life). The objective of this study was to examine to what extent the teaching perspectives of the academics differ from one classification category to another. Greek academics represented participants in 15 departments across 9 universities throughout Greece, while the international sample was drawn from the TPI database. Statistical analysis indicated better differentiation of Biglan's classification for its Life/non-Life dimension than for Pure/Applied or Hard/Soft between the combined samples for four Teaching Perspectives: Transmission, Developmental, Nurturing and Social Reform. No perspectives differences existed for Biglan's Hard/Soft categorisation, although Greek professors were significantly higher in Soft rather than Hard disciplines in the Developmental, Nurturing and Social Reform perspectives compared to their global counterparts. They also demonstrated overall higher 'Transmission' scores. The authors conclude that disciplinary differences are real, but that they are small compared to the interpersonal ones or even to the international ones. The relationships between the teaching perspectives and Biglan's classifications are further discussed.