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Purpose: This article examines the use of English medium instruction (EMI) for teaching Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) by non-native speakers with a focus on multilingual classrooms. It also explores teachers' positive and negative beliefs about using EMI in classroom settings for JFL instruction. Methods and procedure: 274 non-native Japanese language teachers from around the world (57 countries) voluntarily participated in a survey, answering a questionnaire on Google Forms and Jotform. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed. The research instrument was piloted before the main study and was found to be effective and adequate to elicit the desired data. The research questions aimed to identify whether there were any relationships between the use of EMI and the multilingual classroom. Findings: The results showed a clear correlation between the extensive use of EMI and the multilingual character of JFL classrooms. Translanguaging turned out to be a common practice adopted by non-native Japanese teachers regardless of the primary language of instruction. The article concludes that EMI can be a valuable tool for JFL instruction in multilingual classrooms. Based on the investigation of the teachers' beliefs, the results showed a changing positive attitude towards English employed in JFL classrooms. Implications for research and practice: The findings can be used to further investigate EMI in JFL instructional practices in multilingual classrooms, improve the quality of JFL instruction and facilitate the integration of multilingual education into foreign language teaching. Future research can explore the effectiveness of EMI in different JFL contexts and investigate the impact of EMI on students' language learning outcomes.

In this article I explore how certain pedagogic practices construct students' ability as visible. The concept of ability is viewed as constructed, put into place by specific educational practices, rather than a fixed trait of the students. Conducted in two primary classrooms, this study employs observational methods complemented by audio-video recording. Through the analysis of the recordings and transcripts, I identify and thematize several pedagogical practices, used to organize learning activities. The analysis is framed by Basil Bernstein's concepts of visible pedagogy and framing, complemented by Rosenholtz and Simpson's (1984) view of ability as a socially constructed phenomenon. The findings are organized around two main themes that align with Bernstein's concepts of visible pedagogy: (1) Practices that make visible the means for ability development, and (2) Practices that make visible the rhythm of ability. The study aims to contribute to our understanding of how ability, a central concept in education, can be viewed as socially constructed by pedagogical practices, understood as an alternative to the developmentalist view that sees the same concept as fix, normally dispersed and linearly developed.

The traditional perspective on education, teaching, and learning is no longer sufficient in fluid societies exposed to dramatic and rapid changes. The need for continuous educational reform is evident. However, recent paradigmatic societal shifts, extreme events, and extraordinary scientific and technological advances underscore the urgency of these changes. These developments highlight the necessity for innovation and the reduction of intergenerational gaps in educating new generations. By embracing these changes, we can create a more inclusive, adaptable, and innovative educational environment for all. While the Romanian educational system, like many traditional systems, is extensive in its spatial coverage, material resources, human resources, and the number of beneficiaries served, it also presents an opportunity for positive change. Its highly centralized, over-normative, and strictly structured nature, with a top-down control approach, has fostered systemic inertia and resistance to change. However, this also means that with the right strategies, the system can be transformed into a more dynamic and adaptable one. Effective and sustainable reforms are not just the responsibility of policymakers and educational leaders. They require initial assessments of the status quo to identify genuine needs for change and to determine possible obstacles and available resources. Real change and innovation are promoted and supported by a clear definition and understanding of the factors that generate and maintain inertia and resistance to change. Identifying and understanding these complex mechanisms at both the organizational and individual levels should precede any change plan, emphasizing the crucial role of each individual in the process. To identify individual motivations that can generate opposition or resistance to potential change requests within the educational system, we conducted a study involving 293 in-service and pre-service teachers from the Department of Educational Sciences at the West University of Timisoara. The study utilized the Resistance to Change Scale developed by Oreg (2003), a widely recognized and validated tool, which evaluates the primary factors determining resistance to change: routine seeking, emotional reaction, short-term focus, and cognitive rigidity. This scale was administered through a structured questionnaire and the data was analyzed using statistical methods. This study revealed notable variations in attitudes toward change based on gender, residency, and professional status (in-service and pre-service teachers). These findings underscore the importance of addressing both systemic and individual factors to facilitate meaningful and lasting reforms in education. By understanding and mitigating the sources of resistance, educational leaders can implement strategies such as fostering a culture of innovation, providing professional development opportunities, and involving stakeholders in decision-making, that foster a more adaptable and innovative educational environment.

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.

With more and more literature on international student mobility and migration (ISM), one area of focus has often been overlooked: the impacts of student visas and study permits. Examined through an institutionalist framework highlighting the influences of institutions on individuals and their agency, this study describes how visa and study permit policies pervades international students' lives in a variety of ways. Interview data collected from 40 international students who study in Australia, Canada, and the United States were analyzed to uncover themes from these host countries. Drawing on these interviews to outline the concept of ISM policy pervasion, the findings of this study show that visa policies affect international students in wide ranging ways. In addition to providing empirical evidence for ISM policy pervasion, this article also lays the groundwork for further studies that delve into the practical impacts of student visa and study permit policies around the world.

Context: Adolescence is the training ground for adult life. In a relatively short period, the adolescent will undergo a metamorphosis. During the high school years, the majority of adolescents move from persistent dependence to true independence, from logical thinking to abstract, complex and hypothetical thinking, from impulsivity to consideration and from a diffuse feeling about one's own person to a reasonably defined self-identity. Adolescent's vocational identity formation during high school is an extremely important process in vocational and career counseling, because it helps them to make rational choices regarding the choice of a career gaining an increased level of career maturity. Methods: The present study had as participants 300 Romanian teenagers which belong to the following paths of studies/profiles: formal sciences (specializations: Mathematics-informatics and Natural Sciences), services (specializations: Economics, trade, tourism and food) and humanities (specialization: Philology). The tools used in the adolescent evaluation process were Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy--Short Form Scale (CDMSE-SF), the Vocational Identity Status Assessment (VISA) and the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI-3). Results: After the interpretation of the obtained results, the following aspects were demonstrated: The identity status "career commitment" correlates with the personality traits -- neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience and conscientiousness, and regarding the career decision-making self-efficacy it correlates with the self-evaluation process, obtaining information about self and professions, setting goals, career planning and the problem-solving process. Identity status "identification with career commitment" correlates with personality traits -- extraversion, openness to experience and conscientiousness, and from the perspective of the career decision-making self-efficacy, it correlates with the process of self-evaluation, obtaining information about self and professions, setting goals, solving problems and career planning. The identity status "career commitment flexibility" correlates with the personality traits neuroticism and conscientiousness, and from the perspective of the career decision-making self-efficacy it correlates with the problem-solving process. Identity status "career self-doubt" correlates positively with the personality trait neuroticism and negatively with conscientiousness, the process of self-evaluation, obtaining information about self and professions, setting goals, career planning and problem solving. Conclusion: The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between vocational identity, personality factors and career decision-making self-efficacy. The results demonstrated that certain personality traits, respectively certain components of career decision-making self-efficacy are predictors for the adolescent's vocational identity formation.

There is no relationship more vital than the one a child shares with their primary caregivers early in development. Yet many children worldwide are raised in settings that lack the warmth, connection, and stimulation provided by a responsive primary caregiver. In this study, we used data from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), a longitudinal study of institutionally-reared and family-reared children, to test how caregiving quality during infancy is associated with average EEG power over the first 3.5 years of life in alpha, beta, and theta frequency bands, and associations with later executive function (EF) at age 8 years. The sample comprised 189 children (129 institutionally-reared; 60 family-reared) who contributed data on observed caregiving quality during infancy (baseline; average age of 22 months), resting EEG power at baseline, 30, and 42 months, and performance-based data on a series of EF tasks at 8 years. Using Bayesian estimation, observed caregiving quality at baseline was marginally linked with higher average alpha and beta power, and lower theta power, from baseline to 42 months. In turn, higher average beta power and lower average theta power were marginally associated with higher EF at 8 years. In indirect effects models, higher caregiving quality at baseline was associated with higher EF at 8 years, with a marginal indirect effect through average theta power from baseline to 42 months. Variation in the quality of the early caregiving environment may be associated with later executive function, which is partially underpinned by individual differences in brain activity during early childhood.

Background: This paper investigates multiple antecedents of literacy in children, such as demographics, child reading behaviour, parent reading behaviour and family context. Methods: The study included a Romanian sample of 924 primary schoolers (Grades 1-4) and their parents; children and parents were tested with a standardised measure of literacy, and parents answered a number of self-report questions about their and their child's literacy-related behaviours. Results: Regression analyses and relative predictor weights showed a significant positive association between child literacy and child behaviour (time currently spent by the child reading books), as well as with family context (especially parent literacy), followed by demographics and, to a lesser degree, with parent behaviour. Conclusions: The findings provide a first solid understanding of the children's literacy phenomenon in the less investigated educational and cultural environment of Romania and encourage further research on this important topic.

Sustainability action at universities is complex and requires engaging multiple competences that reside on different levels outside and inside the organisation. In addition to individual competences, social communities also possess collective resources and characteristics that do not translate into a sum of individual abilities. Based on a qualitative small-n comparative study of four universities in Spain, Portugal, Finland and Romania, this paper explores the concept of collective sustainability competences as enablers and constraints of sustainability action at universities. Drawing from institutional theory and nestedness in organisations, the article poses the following research question: How can the collective sustainability competences of universities be conceptualised? The article develops a conceptual understanding of regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements of collective sustainability competences as a nested institutional space. In so doing, the article contributes to the discussion on the capacity of universities to act as key organisations in sustainability transitions.

The aim of this study was to assess the pattern of mutual relations within the Problematic Smartphone Use (PSU) (first network) and between adolescent mental health problems and PSU (second network). The invariance of both networks was investigated across age, gender, and severity of symptoms. The participants were 708 Romanian adolescents (M[subscript age] = 16). Analyses were performed in RStudio. The results indicated that the most central node in the PSU network was a preoccupation symptom. The strongest bridge path laid between a reckless symptom and PSU. The networks were invariant with respect to the gender of the adolescents but were different--both in structure and strength--between the adolescents with low vs. high total difficulties. Furthermore, the networks were significantly different in terms of structure between middle and late adolescents. These findings are further discussed.

Academic procrastination has been a subject of particular interest in research due to its frequent association with heightened levels of anxiety, stress, and the long-term risk of emotional and behavioural vulnerability (Hoge et al., 2013). Our study tests the correlation between motivational persistence as a trait and academic procrastination, as well as the impact of behavioural disengagement on this relation. A total of 426 female students aged 18 to 30 years participated in the study (M = 1.77, SD = 1.39). The results demonstrate a significant and negative correlation between motivational persistence and academic procrastination, and a weak correlation between behavioural disengagement and academic procrastination. Behavioural disengagement has a significant impact on the association between motivational persistence and academic procrastination; academic procrastination decreases irrespective of the level of behavioural disengagement. We discuss the practical implications from a feminine viewpoint and the extent to which coping strategies remain stable or vary depending on the situation.

Online teaching has gained more momentum since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. While this mode offers many benefits, one major concern is maintaining academic integrity, as online instruction can provide more opportunities for cheating. This study aimed to explore students' attitudes toward cheating in online assessments (OAs) and any potential differences based on gender and nationality. Since our purpose was to perform a cross-cultural examination of cheating behaviors in an academic environment, we conducted the study in culturally diverse countries. The participants were 629 university students from Iran, Romania, and Lebanon. They completed a questionnaire about academic integrity in OAs. The results showed that 60% of the participants had no negative views on cheating in OAs, 58.5% admitted to cheating in OAs themselves, and 85% viewed OAs as less reliable than in-person assessments. During OAs, the most common ways of cheating included using notes on paper, relying on course materials, and sharing answers through social media and messaging apps. The main motivations for cheating included stress, time constraints, and the desire to achieve a higher grade, while factors that deterred cheating included moral and social stigma and the rights of other students. The study found no significant difference in attitudes toward cheating in OAs between male and female participants, but there were significant differences between students of different nationalities (p < 0.05).

This study investigates feature acquisition and feature reassembly associated with Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD). The article compares the acquisition of CLLD in second language (L2) Italian to L2 Romanian to examine effects of first language (L1) transfer, construction frequency and the type of interface involved (external vs. internal interface) within the same syntactic construction. The results from an acceptability judgment task and a written elicitation task show that while English near-native speakers of Italian/Romanian acquired the L2 constraints on CLLD, which is [+anaphor] for Italian and [+specific] for Romanian, data from both Romanian L2 learners of Italian and Italian L2 learners of Romanian showed persistent L1 transfer effects. Target-like acquisition for these groups requires both grammatical expansion and retraction; Romanian CLLD requires the addition of an L1-unavailable [+specific] feature and the loss of a [+anaphor] feature, while Italian CLLD requires the addition of an L1-unavailable [+anaphor] and the loss of a [+specific] feature. The reported findings extend evidence in favour of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis to the syntax-discourse interface, as reassembly of interpretational features associated with CLLD proved more difficult than feature acquisition. While learners at the near-native levels were able to broaden the contexts that allow a clitic in the L2 (grammatical expansion), L1 preemption difficulties were attested as well. This was the case regardless of the frequency of the relevant construction in the input and the type of L2 feature that needed to be added/removed.

Parental stress among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is well-documented in the literature. This study used the mediation model to investigate the relationship between the phenomenon of affiliate stigma and parental stress among parents of children diagnosed with ASD. This cross-sectional study involved 196 parents between 22 and 65 years of age with a child diagnosed with ASD whose age was between 2 and 22 years. The correlations between affiliate stigma, shame, and parental stress were confirmed. Therefore, affiliate stigma was positively associated with shame and parental stress. The results also indicated that the relationship between the phenomenon of affiliate stigma and parental stress is mediated by shame. A practical implication of our findings is that parents of children with ASD participating in stress-reducing interventions should be trained on how to cope with feelings of shame.

The present study examined the efficacy of a 6-session Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) career intervention program for high school students in reducing career decision-making difficulties and emotional distress. Nine classes of 11th graders in two Romanian public high schools (N = 233) were randomly assigned to a REBT career intervention and a Regular career course. The data were collected in three waves: before and after the interventions and at a 6-month follow-up. Career decision-making difficulties decreased in both intervention groups post-intervention and at the 6-month follow-up. Worry and irrational beliefs decreased more in the REBT group at the 6-month follow-up. Emotional distress and negative dysfunctional emotions decreased in the REBT group both post-intervention and at the 6-month follow-up, but they increased in the Regular group. The Discussion explores factors that may contribute to the decreased career decision-making difficulties in both groups and the benefits of the REBT career intervention.

Educational identity has been studied increasingly in the past decades since school is a structured context that shapes adolescent identity formation. Across the academic years, adolescents learn to position themselves in terms of their education and schooling, perceiving these entities as more or less relevant for their self-formation. In this article, I analyze educational identity in the context of personal identity formation in adolescence through longitudinal studies from Japan, the Netherlands, and Romania that used the identity process approach. I also examine the role educational systems play in educational identity trajectories, outlining the limits of personal intentionality when adolescents make educational choices. In addition, I address the relations of educational identity development with two important outcomes of education: academic achievement and vocational development. I conclude that educational identity formation reflects the freedom or coercion that country-specific educational systems teach adolescents through educational tracking and the timing of educational transitions.

This study aims to present the extent to which online education influenced the level of empathy displayed by university students. The research relies on a self-evaluated applied survey in two European countries: Portugal and Romania. The participants in this research are 1,085 students enrolled in Communication Studies programs. The purpose of this study is to unfold the connection between gender, exposure to digital technology, empathy level according to the Basic Empathy Scale applied to young adults, and online education self-perception that involves the use of webcams. Empathy can have positive effects on students' satisfaction and increase students' outcomes. The shift from a physical environment to a digital one brought significant challenges that most students and teachers were not ready for. The digital environment influences how empathy is expressed. The present research found evidence of a relationship between exposure to technology usage, emotional contagion, and gender. This suggests that understanding the emotions of others might be inhibited during digital education. Also, the most relevant factor of empathy variation in online education is gender. The findings of the present research may contribute to the design of activities or programs that could foster empathy expression during online education for young adults.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Literature indicates that teachers and students who experience trust and belongingness in their school communities have higher levels of indicators of positive quality of life, such as performance, innovation, and creativity. Also, they are open to creating more authentic relationships and fostering an environment based on psychological safety with implications on their well-being, quality of life, self-efficacy, and their general mental health. This quantitative study aims to investigate the impact of an online training program called "Development of trust and belongingness in interpersonal relationships of school teachers" on several psychological variables related to the individual wellbeing. A number of 475 school teachers participated in the study, from several schools located in different regions of Romania. Data were collected pre- and post-intervention with an online form composed of three different questionnaires addressing the following variables: belongingness, connectedness and teacher's self-efficacy. The findings indicate significant effects of the online intervention program on all the target variables.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, formal education underwent a period of rapid transformation. Beyond this period, the virtual learning environment proposed a reevaluation of curriculum design and didactic strategies. The Classroom Laboratory NTNU-WUT Joint Course (CL) was introduced as a novel learning experience for students at West University of Timisoara (WUT) and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). This experimental course was proposed as part of the Romania-Norway collaboration and incorporates Virtual Project Based Learning (VPBL) in cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary online learning groups. This study aims to describe the learning experiences of Romanian students enrolled at WUT in the CL course during the 2021-2022 academic year. In a quasi-experimental design, 24 Romanian students participated in a seven-week transversal CL course, collaborating with Norwegian peers to develop a solution for a social problem. Students made significant gains in all three dimensions targeted by VPBL: skill development, self-regulation of learning, and group interactions in the online environment. In addition, the learning of students was compared based on the field of science they are pursuing (STEM and non-STEM). The results indicate that students enrolled in STEM disciplines demonstrated greater benefits from this instructional approach, as evident in their progress across the three dimensions of PBL. The qualitative analysis of the students' journals reveals a positive learning experience in terms of knowledge acquisition, skill development, and affective engagement. In conclusion, CL and VBPL are valid strategies for online university-level instruction.

Even though in 2021 many universities have decided to resume teaching activities face to face, we believe that the use of online applications will remain a feature of the educational system due to the flexibility offered and the learning possibilities. We aim to analyze the predictive role of personal factors, such as self-efficacy, technostress creators, technostress inhibitors, and tolerance to uncertainty in the use of e-learning tools for teaching and in the use of these applications in the context of the uncertainty generated by the pandemic. The sample consisted of 1,517 academics. The results showed that technostress creators mediate the relationships between technostress inhibitors, technology self-efficacy, use of applications, and satisfaction with the use of e-learning platforms. Although the current context is dominated by uncertainty, the hypotheses regarding the direct and indirect effects of uncertainty in the use of online applications in education were partially sustained. The most important finding of our study is that, although the current context is characterized by uncertainty, the negative impact of the resulting higher levels of stress can be counteracted by a high level of technology self-efficacy which, in turn, predicts a greater extent the use of platforms and the satisfaction of using these platforms.

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.

According to UNESCO, education for sustainable development (ESD) is characterized by the concern for training the skills necessary for a human individual to relate responsibly to the natural, economic and socio-cultural environment in which he lives, minimizing or completely avoiding the negative effects of actions on the quality of his life and that of others. This finality of education for sustainable development requires the prioritization of moral education and shifts the focus to the development of moral consciousness and the formation of a value system agreed and assumed by all members of a community. Because it essentializes human values, the fairy tale constitutes an ideal learning content in relation to the objectives of moral education. The wide and varied symbolism of the heroes who evolve in the fairy tale world, the situations they go through and the key tools in overcoming some crises turn the fairy tale into a source of learning with a safe and deep impact on the student, both cognitively and affective and volitional. Knowing the interdependence between the professional skills of the teacher and the training of the student's skills (Ceobanu et al., 2020, p. 277), a teacher has the duty to know what are the sources and contents of learning that optimally respond to the educational needs and interests of those whom he guides. Therefore, the teachers' conception of the educational potential of the fairy tale is a determining factor in the application or exclusion of this content from the instructive-educational/school activities. The study we are carrying out aims to determine the level of knowledge of the educational potential of the fairy tale by teachers from schools on both banks of the Prut and provides valuable data about their beliefs regarding the effectiveness of the fairy tale in training and educating the younger generations.

As an integral part of the concept of lifelong learning, non formal learning enables adults to acquire the necessary skills to adapt more easily to the ever-changing social life. Concerned with these values, through the lens of the ODD, with reference to Health and well-being, which indicates "ensuring a healthy life and promoting well-being for all ages", we wanted to investigate a group of teachers who followed a training program aimed at the healthy lifestyle of the educable. Healthy lifestyle education can play a significant role in changing health behaviors and attitudes towards our own health, as well as those we educate. Teachers become not only mentors for children, but also role models. Starting from this concept, we want to find out if the learners are able to include health-promoting behaviors in their daily routine and if they implement strategies that promote health, well-being, for themselves, including the learners. A number of N=63 teaching staff from Ia?i county, located in the north-eastern part of Romania, participated in this study. Of these, a number of N=35 respondents teach at the preschool education level and a number of N=28 at the primary education level. All respondents are female, of whom N=49 teach in urban areas, and N=14 in rural areas. The research tools were applied in electronic version, using Google forms. The obtained data were statistically analyzed using IBM SPSS software. Findings indicate significant effects of the training program on all target variables. The results of this research will be used to add to our knowledge of behavioral change and learning in adulthood.

This study aims at highlighting the relationship between mastery learning models and academic performance in mathematics, moderated by the number of hours allotted to studying mathematics. There are 305 first to eighth-grade students who learn at "Nae A. Ghica Middle School" in Romania. Students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades (n=101) were selected to participate in this research because they study both algebra and geometry. We have used purposive sampling to control certain variables, i.e., mastery learning strategies and academic performance. The data were analyzed in Jamovi (2022). The level of performance was measured according to the progress students made. Data analysis revealed that the moderation effect of the time each student allocated to studying mathematics individually is not statistically significant in the relationship between the mastery learning model and academic performance in mathematics. This study was conducted on a small number of students, so it is recommended to be expanded on a larger scale.

During the 2022 and 2023 school year, a group of eight college professors, 67 university education students, 27 primary school teachers and principals, and 200 primary school students participated together in a project titled, The Caravan of Friendship and Games. During the year, students suggested that they should also work with the elderly. Consequently, the project team added visitation to facilities for the elderly which included 240 elderly people. From the analysis of the survey data, the professor team realized that volunteering was not only beneficial to young students and the elderly people, but the data also revealed that the volunteers (university professors, university students, primary school teachers and principals) benefited from their efforts in the project. Showing once again that when people volunteer, they enter into a reciprocal beneficiary relationship--that one might call the ultimate win-win situation.

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.

The purpose of this article is to validate the relevance of a concept inventory on fractions by measuring the presence and evolution of misconceptions among prospective primary and pre-school teachers, including the overcoming of their misconceptions during and at the end of the instructional intervention. Seven text statements were defined and composed a "Likert scale" concept inventory. This was administered to students at three different stages of the learning process to measure the understanding gain: before the start of the course, after the instructional intervention consisting of a lecture and a seminar on fractions, and finally at the end of the semester. The results from the initial testing confirmed the misconceptions about fractions of the students. Based on the experiment, it is thus obvious the need to allocate a longer time for understanding and fixing the concept of fraction for prospective primary and preschool teachers.

In the rapidly changing atmosphere of the global economy, productivity has become a very important concept for long-term economic growth, development, regional and global competitiveness, raising social living standards and increasing the level of welfare for countries. In the 21st century, when scientific knowledge, technology, innovation, R&D and entrepreneurship manifest themselves in every stage of the production process, human capital has come to the fore as an important and determining factor that increases productivity. In the current study, the effect of human capital, one of the most important outputs of education, on country productivity was analyzed for 24 developing countries, including Turkey, which are in the upper middle income group. In the application part, a panel data set was created for the 24 countries included in the study with the series obtained from the database of PWT10.0 for the period of 1980-2019. The Human Capital Index was used to reveal the human capital status of the countries included in the analysis and the Total Factor Productivity Index was used to reveal the productivity status. The Granger Panel Causality Test was employed to determine whether there is a short-term relationship and the Westerlund Panel Cointegration Test was employed to determine whether there is a long-term relationship between the two variables. As a result of a bilateral causality relationship was found between human capital and productivity in the short-term and a cointegration relationship in the long-term. The study is important and different from other studies in that it focuses on the concepts of human capital and productivity, which have a very limited place in the education literature, although they are directly related to education, and it is grounded on an interdisciplinary approach (bringing together education, sociology and econometrics).

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.

The particularly complex issue of the curriculum for preschool education remains an open one, given the rapid social changes of the current period, but also the results of research in educational sciences and psychology. All of theses force reconsiderations from multiple perspectives, especially related to the cognitive training-development and from the perspective of the child's moral education. The present research aimed to analyze the editions of school programs, the curriculum and methodological benchmarks, official documents approved by the Romanian Ministry of Education, from 2000 to 2022, considering the moral aspects they include. At the same time, a series of comparative analyzes were carried out, at the level of trends, purposes or approach, with similar documents from other countries. The conclusions show that in Romania moral education is not addressed in preschool education as a distinct subject, with its own objectives and contents, some of its own elements are found in other areas addressed by these documents, and the moral model is very little addressed in these documents. Under these conditions, teachers are forced to draw up their own reference documents for the didactic activities they carry out in relation to this classical dimension of education.

In the context of the globalized society where the digital revolution has projected waves of economic, political, cultural, family, etc. dimensions, we are discussing the digital generation which, due to its psychological profile, has been given various names: Generation Z, Wireless Generation, Wi Fi Generation, Facebook Generation, Instant Generation, etc. Considering the common patterns of young people who belong to this generation - of thinking and relating to themselves, to society, to the activity carried out - the purpose of the study is to identify the factors that influence them in their school orientation and professional choice. The sample is made up of 90 students enrolled in the first year of undergraduate university study programs from the faculties of Humanities and Sciences and Economic Sciences of the Petroleum and Gas University of Ploie?ti. In order to collect relevant information regarding the determining factors in the school orientation and professional choice of young people belonging to generation Z, a questionnaire-based survey was used, applied online to first-year students enrolled in various specializations belonging to the two faculties mentioned above. Also, a focus group discussion proved to be useful to identify details about young people's aspirations, expectations and representations regarding school and professional orientation. The analysis of the data obtained following the application of the questionnaire, but also during the focus-group discussion, highlighted the different benchmarks that the young generation Z have in shaping their professional approach, beyond the common patterns impregnated by the digital society. The difference is given by the extent to which they are concerned with looking for answers to the questions "who am I?", "what do I want to become?", based on which they can outline their self identity.

Teachers' language attitudes play a key role in their decision-making, evaluation, and behaviour in the classroom. This is as true in a monolingual environment as it is in a bilingual or multilingual linguistic situation, but it is fair to assume that the two different linguistic environments are associated with the dominance of different attitudes and ideologies. Among the related research, it is hard to find any that examine the difference between monolinguals and multilinguals from the perspective of language bias, especially in the field of education. The present study explores the language ideologies and attitudes of Hungarian language teachers. The study was based on the language attitudes of 502 Hungarian language teachers, of whom 57% teach in a bilingual setting and 43% in a monolingual environment. The research instrument was a tool similar to a verbal guise test. It was used to assess standard and non-standard language variants, the students who use them and their oral presentations to the teachers included in the survey. The primary hypothesis, that bilingual or multilingual teachers are more linguistically tolerant than their monolingual colleagues, was not confirmed. In fact, in some cases, the data revealed the opposite.

There is a sizable Hungarian minority living in Romania, who have the right to learn in their mother-tongue. While most Hungarians are enrolled in Hungarian medium education, there is a small number of families who opt for mainstream Romanian monolingual schools. According to the Law, the latter group can choose to learn Hungarian in an optional manner, but there is no usable curriculum for this kind of education. Given the absence of top-down regulation, without centralized pressure on choosing how to teach, teachers could become real classroom decision-makers; nevertheless, they fail to do so. More exactly, as they emphasize solely the symbolic values of the minority language, they unintendedly reinforce the asymmetry between the majority Romanian and minority Hungarian languages, implicitly legitimizing the dominant languages ideology promoted by the more powerful institutional actors and the policy environment itself.