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Relationship between reading fluency and external factors of slovenian year 6 students of English as a foreign language
Get PDFReading fluency is a topic explored within reading research and is specifically related to acquiring initial reading competence. The importance of fluency in L1 reading has been confirmed by many researchers, yet there has been little research on fluency in reading in a foreign language, since it is assumed that this will develop in parallel (and automatically) with general foreign language reading skills. Several researchers have presented research results that confirm that fluency in reading is a reliable and valid way to monitor the reading progress of a student. Little is known about any potential relationships between the sixth graders' reading fluency in English as L2 in Slovenia and the factors such as the onset of formal learning in English, foreign language exposure, reading volume in general, self-assessment of reading and propensity to read in Slovene and English, frequency of reading by parents and the final grade in English in the 5th grade of primary school. In the theoretical part the fluency of reading, the differences between reading in L1 and in L2 and their interaction have been discussed. We have also studied several selected external factors that may affect reading fluency and/or how these could be related with each other. Finally, Running Records method which measures reading fluency was presented. In the empirical part of the research, a sample of 121 students from two different primary schools were selected to determine how fluently Slovene sixth-graders read in English as a foreign language and whether the above factors affect reading fluency in English as a foreign language
Do tick-borne diseases affect outdoor teaching in Slovenian preschools?
Get PDFChildhood experiences with nature are decisive for children’s wellbeing. The need for outdoor activities has been
duly recognized in the preschool curriculum in Slovenia. However, there are some obstacles to this approach—specifically, tick-borne diseases. This study examines the views and experiences of Slovenian preschool
teachers (n = 158) with ticks and tick-borne diseases in order to create a safer environment for the further
development of outdoor education. The majority of the respondents engage in outdoor teaching once or several
times a week. They have very frequent contact with ticks and tick-borne diseases in their professional lives. More
than four-fifths of the respondents carry out some tick-prevention measures in preschools, but room for
improvement remains. The respondents report rare cases in which parents or guardians have tried to prohibit
them from visiting outdoor areas because of tick-borne diseases, and they explain how they dealt with the situation. The attitude of preschool teachers toward ticks and tick-borne diseases did not correlate significantly
with the frequency with which they went outdoors in preschools. This study therefore concludes that, despite the
objective risks associated with tick-borne diseases, there is still broad consensus among educators and parents on
the importance of outdoor education in the early years
Recognizing the grieving process in adolescents at juvenile correctional homes from the viewpoint of adolescents and caregivers
Get PDFThe master's thesis discusses the process of grieving of adolescents who are currently placed in educational institutions. Two perspectives are presented - the perspective of adolescents and the perspective of educators. The adolescents’ perspective focuses mainly on their lives and experiences, which they perceive as difficult, and on recognizing the grieving process in themselves, while the educators’ perspective includes their observations and response to adolescents’ grief.
Any grieving experience is difficult and grieving is not just a process after the loss of an important person, therefore the purpose of this empirical work is to present the diverse experiences, losses, and changes in the lives of adolescents placed in educational institutions. I was interested in how adolescents perceive their own grieving process and how they connect it to their own experiences, how they view the process today and what helped them getting through it, with a particular focus on the help they received from educators. I pay special attention to the placement in an educational institution as an important turning point in a young person's life, as this can also trigger the grieving process, and the experience is common to all those placed. Moreover, I was interested in how the educators in the educational institutions view the grieving adolescents, how they recognize the process and how they respond to it.
In the theoretical part, I present the educational institutions, emotional and behavioural problems, then I focus on the grieving process itself, its characteristics and specifics when it comes to adolescents. I conclude with important aspects of help and support in working with grieving adolescents and also mention some concrete methods that can be used by educators in their work.
The research was conducted with a qualitative research approach. The sample included 10 people, 6 of whom were adolescents and 4 were educators in an educational institution.
The research showed that adolescents grieve for different things, depending on their value system. The grieving triggers range from the death of people and animals to divorce and consequent loss of a relationship with one of the parents, loss of friendships, various changes in the environment, including placement in an educational institution, to loss of health and safety. The main findings show that adolescents accepted their placement in an educational institution rather positively, as they saw the change as an opportunity for a new beginning, with educators playing a major role. The key of the educators' support in the grieving process is seen by both the adolescent group and the group of educators in building a relationship between them, in trust and acceptance. The recognition of grieving and the discovery of triggers by educators is conditioned by the relationship with the adolescents, knowledge of their story, and a formed connection between them. The fact that educators were there for them, that someone listened to them and expressed a sincere interest in their story, and in addition, did not condemn and evaluate them, helped the adolescents with their painful losses. All interviewees share an awareness of grieving as a process that occurs not only after death but after various losses
A comparative study of word formations and morphological processing in Italian native speakers and Italian-Slovenian bilinguals
Get PDFThe central aim of this study is to investigate the processing of derivational suffixes in the Italian language by using the combination of two suffixes (SUFF1 and SUFF2) we investigated how accurate Italian monolinguals and Italian-Slovenian bilinguals can be when dealing with derivational suffixes. In other words, whether they are capable to successfully distinguish between non-existing and existing combinations of suffixes; and whether there is a difference in accuracy between monolinguals and bilinguals. We based our hypotheses on two underlying assumptions. First, suffix order is handled as binary combinations of SUFF1-SUFF2 type, depending on their position to the root morpheme (Manova, 2015; Brzoza & Manova, 2015). Second, although it seems that suffixes are not organized in the same way throughout different languages, it is understood that SUFF1 relates to SUFF2 in a fixed or predictable way (Manova, 2011, 2015; Brzoza & Manova, 2015). A combination is fixed, when a SUFF1 can combine with only one particular SUFF2 within a major lexical category (noun, adjective, verb); as it is, for example, with the Italian SUFF1 -ific(are) and SUFF2 -bil(e). It is predictable, if a SUFF1 can combine with more than one SUFF2, but only one SUFF2 by default derives a majority of words in a major lexical category; as it is, for example, with the SUFF1 -ific(are) and SUFF2 - zion(e). Our two hypotheses about native speakers’ intuition on the derivational suffixes are that if SUFF1 is fixed, i.e. tends to combine with only one SUFF2 +, speakers should know them intuitively. And if so, they should also differentiate with a higher accuracy between existing and non-existing combinations, and also between productive and unproductive combinations. In order to examine this, native-speaking Italian participants were asked to decide whether standalone SUFF1-SUFF2 type combinations exist or not in a psycholinguistic experiment using a lexical decision task. This experiment was conducted with 30 native Italian participants and 24 Italian-Slovenian bilinguals. 30 existing and 30 non-existing suffix combinations were selected for the testing (based on Medvešek & Manova, 2017). The accuracy of their categorization was examined according to the productivity and fixed status of the existing suffix combinations. By investigating monolingual and bilingual speakers’ intrinsic knowledge on existing and non-existing combinations, we expected they would be more accurate in recognizing productive existing combinations than unproductive existing or non-existing. As the results showed, both Italian native speakers and Italian-Slovenian bilinguals could intuitively distinguish between existing and non-existing suffix combinations, and they were better at recognizing productive combinations, affirming the hypotheses
Personal conceptions and subjective theories od preschool teachers and preschool teachers assistants abot active learning
Get PDFThe thesis examines the personal conceptions and subjective theories of educators and assistant educators. Personal conceptions are our ideas about phenomena that help us understand the world and play an essential role in responding to a particular situation. Together, they are organized into subjective theories, i.e., relatively unchanging relations of various concepts. These are often based on emotions and values and are not entirely logical and conscious. The education staff form subjective theories about crucial issues for their work and the dilemmas they face there. As the staff develop personally and professionally, they develop specific ideas about various aspects of pedagogical work, which are then formulated as concepts. The formation of these concepts is influenced by education, personal experience and personal history, in-service training, work colleagues, and the prevailing practices in kindergartens.
The thesis aimed to determine the personal conceptions and subjective theories about learning, knowledge, and teaching held by educators and assistant educators. We were particularly interested in the relationship between age and personal conceptions and length of service and personal conceptions. The respondents were asked to identify which factors influenced the formation of subjective theories and how the professional staff understood the concept of active learning.
We put together a survey questionnaire and sent it to educators and assistant educators. One hundred four completed questionnaires were returned. Open and closed-ended questions and agreement scales were used. We found that the personal conceptions of educators and assistant educators were at a higher cognitive level compared to past research. No statistically significant correlations were found between the age of the education staff and their perceptions, or their length of service and personal perceptions. According to the respondents, their perceptions were influenced mainly by the following factors: their experience with children, informal conversations and exchanging experiences with colleagues, in-service training, reading professional journals, and personal background and history.
Subjective theories and personal conceptions impact how educators plan and perform activities and behave in the class unit. Personal conceptions and the subjective theories derived from them need to be more complex and at a higher level, making it possible for children to play a more active role in kindergarten
Self-evaluation of speech-language pathologists on the competence of cooperation with parents: a comparative study of Slovenia and North Macedonia
Get PDFThe purpose of the master's thesis is to present the self-assessment of speech and language pathologists (SLPs) in Slovenia and N. Macedonia on the competence of cooperation with parents. The competence of cooperation with parents is considered in this master's thesis as a construct of knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable the SLPs to successfully cooperate with the parents of the children involved in the treatment. We wanted to find out what is the relationship between self-assessment of competence of cooperation with parents and the years of experiences of SLPs and whether there are possible differences in self-assessment of competence for effective speech and language therapy between individual groups of SLPs (according to field of work, frequency of participation in professional training in the field of cooperation with parents and the country where SLPs are working). As there is no questionnaire that would measure the competence of cooperation between SLPs and parents, we designed a new questionnaire for the purposes of this master's thesis based on the analysis of professional literature on key factors of competence of cooperation with parents. The results on a sample of 62 SLPs from Slovenia and 48 SLPs from N. Macedonia show that there is no correlation between the self-assessments of SLPs regarding the competence of cooperation with parents and their years of experiences. There are also no differences in the self-assessment of the competence of cooperation with parents between SLPs working in the field of health care and SLPs working in the field of education. The results showed that SLPs who have participated in two or more professional trainings in the field of cooperation with parents in the last three years better evaluate their attitudes leading to successful cooperation with parents compared to SLPs who have never or once participated in professional training in the field of cooperation with parents. There were also differences in the self-esteem of attitudes towards cooperation with parents between SLPs in Slovenia and STPs in N. Macedonia.
The master's thesis emphasizes the importance of the competence of cooperation with parents in the effectiveness of the treatment of children with speech, language and communication disorders. The research opens up possibilities for further research into the competence of cooperation between speech therapists and parents
Trust, automation bias and aversion: algorithmic decision-making in the context of credit scoring
Get PDFAlgorithmic decision-making (ADM) systems increasingly take on crucial roles in our technology-driven
society, making decisions, for instance, concerning employment, education, finances, and public services.
This article aims to identify peoples’ attitudes towards ADM systems and ensuing behaviours when
dealing with ADM systems as identified in the literature and in relation to credit scoring. After briefly
discussing main characteristics and types of ADM systems, we first consider trust, automation bias,
automation complacency and algorithmic aversion as attitudes towards ADM systems. These factors
result in various behaviours by users, operators, and managers. Second, we consider how these factors
could affect attitudes towards and use of ADM systems within the context of credit scoring. Third, we
describe some possible strategies to reduce aversion, bias, and complacency, and consider several ways in
which trust could be increased in the context of credit scoring. Importantly, although many advantages
in applying ADM systems to complex choice problems can be identified, using ADM systems should be
approached with care – e.g., the models ADM systems are based on are sometimes flawed, the data they gather
to support or make decisions are easily biased, and the motives for their use unreflected upon or unethical
Organisation of distance education work with teachers and parents of pupils in a selected primary school during the covid-19 epidemic
Get PDFThe master's thesis explores the work organisation of teachers and parents of children in Program with Lower Educational Standard and Special Education Program at the primary school Osnovna šola Antona Janše Radovljica during the COVID-19 epidemic. The theme is topical, as it is not only connected to the current period of the epidemic but is highly related to the challenges of digitalisation of the educational system and distance learning in general. In the first part of the theoretical part, the work of the chosen primary school and the presentation of the programmes, which children with special needs attend, are included. The second part is connected to the understanding of distance learning and the presentation of the models and guidelines that were accepted by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport in cooperation with the National Education Institute Slovenia and Slovenian National Institute of Public Health. The results from the current researches in this field are also presented.
In the empirical part, the results of quantitative research in which 20 teachers and 43 parents of children, who attend the chosen school, participated, are presented. The main purpose of the research is to determine, what kind and how successful was the work organisation of the teachers and parents of the children in the Program with Lower Educational Standard and Special Education Program. We were also interested in how successfully parents as well as teachers confronted the situation of distance learning and what kind of obstacles and problems they faced. The results show that more than half of the parents felt that they successfully coordinated school and other responsibilities during distance learning. More than half of parents also felt competent using online and other tools. It appeared that students’ parents had the most problems participating in videoconferences. Among the parents of the students, who attend Program with Lower Educational Standard and those who attend Special Education Program, there were no major differences. Nevertheless, we established that parents of the students, who attend Program with lower Educational Standard, felt more competent to help their children with schoolwork during distance learning. It appears that this working method presents a challenge for the teachers because of time organisation. There were no major differences among the teachers of both programmes. Distance learning and the related usage of different online tools have shown that younger teachers are more competent for the use of different online tools, such as Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meet, and others. With the obtained results of the analysis, we also presented the answers to the open questions, which bring important insight into the experience of distance learning of teachers as well as parents.
The research reveals the understanding of the obstacles with which teachers and parents were confronted. With the obtained results, we got a more detailed insight into the work organisation of teachers and parents of the children with special needs, who attend Programs with Lower Educational Standard and Special Educational Programs, because recently there has been hardly any research done for this type of population
Competitive didactic games in learning about the environment in the 3rd grade of elementary school
Get PDFNowadays, teachers tend to use more effective teaching methods which stimulate students’ interest for a certain learning content. One of such teaching methods is a didactic-game method through which the students understand the learning content more easily, improve their communication skills and healthy competitiveness. This method allows the students to acquire the understanding of the learning content in a more fun way, while gaining knowledge faster and more lastingly. Furthermore, the method allows the teachers to get to know the students even more.
According to literature, teachers do not include enough didactic games in their environmental-science lessons in primary schools. Therefore, three competitive didactic games are provided in this thesis that teachers can use in their classrooms. Four research questions were set in order to find out whether didactic games contribute to better understanding of the content, deepening of knowledge and an increase in interest for the learning content among the students.
The results of the research show that the didactic games for the learning contents of environmental science, habitats and sense organs had a positive effect on the students. There was an improvement in the knowledge of these contents, better understanding of the concepts and the deepening of the prior knowledge. First, we announced the didactic games and motivated the students. They kept the motivation also when writing the pre-test and the after-test, which was found out with observation. The sample of students that were chosen for the purpose of the research, was small, therefore, the generalization of the results was not made.
The finding will be helpful and motivating for the teachers in the first cycle of primary school, which they can use when planning the environmental-science lessons. Using the didactic-game method, they will be able to get the students’ interest for work
Beneficial impacts of textile arts and crafts on the well-being of women
Get PDFFor the past ten years, I have been working with different groups of women as a textile artist and designer, introducing textile art as a creative medium as well as a means of communication, interpersonal connection, personal growth, mental resilience, and general well-being.
I have always wanted to expand my practical work by supporting it with theory and research, but have never found enough time for such an enterprise. During the pandemics, while all my projects were suspended, it finally became possible for me to immerse myself in studying, reading, reflecton and drafting of this text.
The theoretical part of my thesis is a synthesis of my most essential findings of the past twenty years about the positive impact of textile handicrafts on the health and well-being of women, and its increasing use in art therapy in the recent period. To facilitate understanding, I present various traditional and modern practices of textile production, describe the importance of textiles as a tool for expression and communication, and trace the historical connection between women and textiles as a basis for modern engagement in textile. Research confirms that creative activities with textiles promote general well-being, increase overall quality of life, and positively impact health both in individuals and textile handicraft groups members. The effects of such creative endeavours tend to be even more prominent in times of increased stress and in circumstances where employment prospects, life opportunities, and social networking become limited.
In my work, I focus on several different vulnerable groups of women – elderly, chronically ill, survivors of sexual abuse, and immigrants from different cultural backgrounds. I also list the reasons why textile arts and crafts became a successful therapeutic, medical, and social tool.
To show how creating with textiles positively impacts women’s well-being, I have conducted an empirical survey with the senior participants of a multiyear textile project. I have combined several different approaches, which include the description of my own personal experience with a group of senior participants; the preliminary research based on structured one-on-one interviews; and the main research approach with narrative one-on-one interviews, which provided me with stories about participants’ personal experience and offered insights into the impacts and meaning of textile arts and crafts in their life, all in the light of a hermeneutic or explanatory analysis.
My study shows that the positive impacts of creative activities with textiles can be divided into four important fields: health and mental well-being (field 1), personal identity (field 2), learning, growth, and transition (field 3), and community, sharing, and belonging (field 4). Textile handcrafting encourages interaction and inclusion, provides personal, mental, and physical challenges, boosts self-confidence, and facilitates self-actualization, thereby contributing to a better quality of life during the aging period. Complete immersion in the creative endeavours makes the participants feel good, which further contributes to a meaningful existence and creates a sense of fulfilment. Involvement in textile-craft activities creates the continuity and support needed in times of life changes, transitions and transformations.
After almost ten years of creative work with textiles I have concluded my in-depth theoretical and qualitative empirical research, which confirms and describes the positive impacts of textile handcrafting on the well-being of individuals and communities. My intention is to promote its use in the art therapy of the future, where the power and potential of textile arts and crafts will be fully accepted, appreciated and taken advantage of