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Self-efficacy is an important variable that explains students? behavior of engaging in school activities and persevering in the face of academic challenges. High confidence in personal competencies and in the ability to successfully accomplish a particular task or a certain goal, acts as a stimulating factor of mental resources (cognitive, affective, motivational, volitional), contributing to students? success. In an educational context, the development of self-efficacy can be both a means of facilitating high achievement, but also an end in itself, a prospective goal of education. Perceived self-efficacy plays a major role in understanding how students perceive and experience academic courses. This research aims to identify the extent to which perceived self-efficacy with the course influences students' satisfaction with the class as a prerequisite for learning and academic performance. A structural model was developed and tested on two samples of students enrolled in the Psychoeducational Training Program, to prepare for the teaching career. The research results show that there is a significant relationship between perceived self-efficacy with the course and satisfaction with the class. Understanding this relationship, several educational implications can be formulated for the development of students' academic self-efficacy; by recognizing the main indicators of low self-efficacy, teachers can implement specific strategies and interventions to optimize students' self-confidence and performance.

With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic period, the need to continue the educational process imposed the exclusive move to the online environment - a new and insufficiently prepared experience, which generated controversies, but also reflections, and adaptation for teachers, students, decision-makers, and even parents. The major concern of the academic community was related to the quality of the educational process and how the student-centered education paradigm can be introduced in the online environment. The students and teachers of the post-pandemic generation are no longer the same, this period has strongly impacted society, mentalities, and the school's future. Analyzing online education from multiple perspectives, the advantages, and opportunities generated by the integration of ICT in the teaching process are obvious. However, many variables have an impact on the effectiveness of e-learning, and many unanswered questions, yet. This research aims to analyze the key drivers of technology acceptance and the role played by three external variables: content adaptation, facilitating conditions, and ease of access in the context of exclusive online education. For this purpose, an extended technology acceptance model has been conceptualized and tested on a sample of Romanian university students. The results illustrate that content adaptation represents an important predictor of both the perceived ease of use and usefulness. The model explained a lot of variance in the continuance intention which is due to the positive attitude towards using the online learning platform in the future.

With the unprecedented crisis created by the Coronavirus pandemic, online teaching and learning became a global solution - embraced by the whole world - that tried to cover, at least in part, in part the problems encountered by the educational systems. An exclusively online format of teaching and learning proved to be a challenge for both the didactic and the learning process. Although the extant research during the pandemic is very abundant, there are few approaches addressing the different perceptions reported by university students enrolled in various programs. This research aims to explore the usefulness of online learning as perceived by civil engineering students, from a multidimensional perspective. A multidimensional model has been developed that manifests on four dimensions: social usefulness of online lectures, the usefulness of online learning platform, learning effectiveness, and, usefulness for school performance. The results show a relatively low perception of the online learning usefulness in an exclusively online educational context, which disables active learning through hands-on experience in laboratory and real-life building sites (considering the regular study process). The model has been cross-validated on a sample of students enrolled in various educational programs then the differences between samples have been analyzed and discussed.

With the explosion of mobile technologies, mobile teaching and learning became an important educational challenge. Since both teachers and students are increasingly using mobile devices in their everyday life, the question is why so little progress has been made in this direction. Clearly, the initiative of introducing mobile technology in class should come from teachers. Existing research shows a large diversity of factors that are influencing their perception as regards the usefulness and opportunity of mobile teaching and learning. This research aims to understand the extent to which the expectancy of increased students' motivation and better understanding are influencing the perception of mobile teaching usefulness. A structural model has been developed and tested on two samples of science education teachers, one from Romania and the other from Lithuania. The results show that the expectancy of a better understanding of lessons by students has an important effect on the teachers' perception of mobile teaching and learning.

Academic self-efficacy and engagement are closely related to successful results in exams. On the other hand, test anxiety may negatively affect students' success. The negative effects of test anxiety are stronger at exams in fundamental disciplines, like mechanics for civil engineering students. In this case, passing the exam may be difficult and require a three-step trial. This research explores the relationship between success at exams and the students' perceptions as regards their academic self-efficacy, learning engagement, and test anxiety. The approach is based on a comparison between students' perceptions and multiple regression analysis. The findings show that students who passed this exam reported higher self-efficacy and engagement, and lower test anxiety. The regression analysis revealed that keeping up with academic work, getting involved in class discussions, and nervousness during the exam were the main predictors of test results. Gender analysis showed that male students reported higher involvement in class discussions and female students reported more time spent on their studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic resilience represents a critical variable in educational success, reflecting students’ ability to adapt and thrive in the face of academic challenges. Numerous studies have addressed the issue of academic resilience, as understanding the mechanisms underlying academic resilience as essential for the development of effective interventions to support students. Academic resilience is a multifactorial construct, influenced by personal, social and contextual factors, which needs a complex approach. Being an essential competence for the entire life, the academic environment provides the fertile ground for its development. The present research investigates the extent to which perceived self-efficacy and motivation - both intrinsic and extrinsic - impact students’ academic resilience. The study aims to explore how those psychological constructs interact to support adaptive responses in demanding academic environments. A structural equation model was developed and tested on a sample of university students. The findings reveal that academic self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation has a significant and direct positive effect on academic resilience. At the same time, even extrinsic motivation seems to influence negatively the academic resilience, it resulted that it has no direct significant influence on academic resilience. The results underscore the importance of fostering self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation in educational settings, offering critical psycho-pedagogical insights for enhancing students’ adaptive capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augmented reality (AR) technologies could enhance learning in several ways. The quality of an AR-based educational platform is a combination of key features that manifests in usability, usefulness, and enjoyment for the learner. In this paper, we present a multidimensional model to measure the quality of an AR-based application as perceived by students. The model is specified by a second-order factor (perceived quality) and three dimensions: ergonomic quality, learning quality, and hedonic quality. The purpose of this model is to embody previous research into a coherent framework for the evaluation of AR-based educational platforms and to provide guidance for researchers and practitioners. The model was empirically validated on a Chemistry learning scenario and the results confirm the importance of both the learning and hedonic quality.

In the context of the pandemic generated by the COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), the global education system is currently facing an unprecedented situation which has proven to be difficult to be managed - closing schools and identifying alternative on-line methods in order to continue the educational process. Therefore, teachers, students and parents have become actors playing new roles to which they have to adapt as well and fast as possible. Innovative solutions, good practices, teaching staff creativity and a receptive attitude are fully used and exploited. The way in which the lessons, the strategies and the instruments used in teaching, learning and assessment are developed has to relate to a series of variables: digital skills - competences of teachers and students, their attitude toward modern available technological means, ways for customizing the instructive process and learning conditions. The teachers have to turn students into trustworthy and responsible parties, as active partners in the process of their own formation. The proposed research aims to identify - from the psychological point of view - the perceived self-efficacy among teachers in relation to the use of mobile technology in education, in the context of working just from home. The sample of the research consisted on 125 teachers, having different ages and background in Science and Technology, who carry out educational activities both in urban and rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract--The model-based approach to user interface design relies on developing separate models that are capturing various aspects about users, tasks, application domain, presentation and dialog representations. This paper presents a [...]

Poor web accessibility has negative social and economic effects as regards the inclusion of citizen and customers in the provision of online services. In this respect, accessible university websites is a precondition to ensure fair access to education to all young people. In this work, the focus is on the web accessibility for people with visual impairment. The objective of the paper is to present the results of a study exploring the website accessibility of 18 top-ranked universities in Romania. Evaluation has been done against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2. 0 (WCAG2) in a tool-based approach The evaluation results show that overall, the web accessibility of university websites is low. None of the websites passed the first accessibility level. Most of the accessibility errors are related to the compliance with the first WCAG2 guideline: alternative text for non-text content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]