Alena Hašková

EMPIRICKÝ VÝSKUM OVPLYVŇOVANIA VZŤAHU ŠTUDENTOV K VYUČOVACÍM PREDMETOM PROSTREDNÍCTVOM MULTIMEDIÁLNYCH UČEBNÝCH MATERIÁLOV

The contribution follows the authors’ article published in the previous JTIE issue (Záhorec – Hašková, JTIE, 1/2009, s. 83 91). Following the empirically derived hierarchy of subjects identifying degrees of particular teaching subjects popularity among grammar school students, and influence of various factors on students’ attitude toward these subjects the authors explored possibilities to eliminate students’ negative attitudes and approaches to so-called unfavourite ones, which just natural science and technical disciplines belong to. In the concrete they focused on physics, which was identified as the least favourite subject. In this paper the authors present results of a pedagogical experiment which aim was to verify positive influence of multimedia teaching materials educational intervention on students’ negative approach to physics.

How to improve professional competences of technical subject teachers

In the paper the authors briefly describe the aims and content of an international project focused on modernization of tertiary education in the target countries (the Ukraine, Armenia, and Georgia). The quality of teaching technical subjects is assured by providing practically oriented syllabi and modules in the embedded system environment and by creating remote laboratories in the target institutions.

E-learning assisted teaching of technical subjects

Nowadays electronic form of teaching is proclaimed to be an imperative mainly for tertiary level of education. On the other hand many research results show that higher efficiency of education is achieved by the use of blended learning. The paper presents experiences and research results of the authors related to the use of e-learning as supporting tool to traditional forms of education at higher education institutions to eliminate study problems of students coming to universities from different types of secondary schools. To help the students of the bachelor study programme Occupational Health and Safety to cope with their study problems in relation to the compulsory subject Machines and machine elements they created an electronic course offering the students a possibility to acquire eventual missing knowledge necessary to pass the practical exercises included in the subject. As the teacher experiences and research data of the designed e-course verification show, students given at disposal this e-course as a learning assistance tool have no serious problems to do the practical assignments they are expected to fulfil during the lessons.

Curricula Design of Teacher Training in the Area of Didactic Technological Competences

The authors in their contribution present conceptual and methodological background of a research aimed at improving pre-graduate teacher training in the area of didactic technological competences. The main goal of the prepared research is to modernize and optimize relevant parts of study programs of teacher trainees at Slovak higher education institutions, i.e. to optimize inclusion of the relevant subjects into the study programs as to both their content and time allocation. Following this goal, in the first phase of the research there has been prepared a questionnaire survey of the current state and perspectives of the continuing professional development of primary and secondary school teachers contributing to their didactic technological competences improvement and development. In the paper there are summarized main results of the pilot test of the created questionnaire, the purpose of which was to verify the questionnaire reliability. The data gathered in the pilot test were processed and the reliability of the created questionnaire was approved by means of reliability/item analysis. The total reliability of the questionnaire was calculated through the Cronbach alpha coefficient. The obtained results show a high level of the internal consistency of the created research tool and ensure a reliability of the broader research data collection which will follow.

Innovation of CAD/CAE System Teaching at Upper Secondary Education

In the traditional methodology of CAD system teaching, one starts with acquirement of technical drawing principles and design of technical schemes and drawings based on manual drawing. Only consequently students learn to draw the schemes and technical drawings in some of the CAD systems. In their paper the authors present a new, by them created methodology of teaching modelling and simulation in CAD/CAE systems at which students (ISCED 3 level) start immediately with a machine element proposal (draft) and modelling. A key question related to the use of this innovative teaching methodology is whether the reduction of the technical drawing teaching will not have a negative impact on the students’ achievements. The answer to this question should result from a pedagogical experiment which the authors are going to carry out and a methodology of which, together with the research hypothesis and expected results, they present in the paper.

Professional training in embedded systems and its promotion

Tendency to eliminate mans intervention in the controlling processes in different hardware applications as much as possible supports implementation of embedded systems in a broad scale of industry sectors. Consequently this leads to an increased demand for embedded system specialists at the labour market and at the same time to increased requirements on their competences. Issues related to curricula topics and professional training methodology in embedded systems at higher education institutions have been investigated in the international European Tempus project with a consortium of partners from the European Economy Area and target partners in Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia (DesIRE — Development of Embedded System Courses with implementation of Innovative Virtual approaches for integration of Research, Education and Production in UA, GE and AM, 2013–2016). In the paper there is presented a description of the project content together with an overview of the carried out activities and achieved main results.

Information systems as a component part of tertiary education quality assurance

Quality of higher education has been considered as the basic priority of higher education development during last several decades in many countries of the world. Main principles of quality assurance were formulated in an official document known as European Standards and Guidelines (ESG). According to them information and information systems are two of the key components creating and supporting quality of each higher education institution. The paper explains importance of information with regard to different groups of stakeholders and at the same time it points out the issue of information systems with regard to the way in which people use the information. The key attention is paid to the presentation of a research focused on the use of information and information systems in higher education institutions in Slovakia and in a broader scope of European institutions, to support and enhance quality assurance processes. The paper presents also other activities which should implement the European quality assurance strategies also in the Central Asia.

Experiences from field research on technology education at ISCED level 2

In 2008 in Slovakia a school reform became into a force. A key part of it was introduction of a curricula reform of primary and secondary education. Currently the results of this reform are analyzed within a project Analysis of the consequences of the curricula reform on technology education in primary and lower secondary schools which is carried out with the support of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of Slovak Republic. Methodology of the analysis is based on questionnaire inquiry. A pilot research of the project showed some weaknesses of the used methodology. The need to find out some additional information to obtain a deeper view on the solved issues and to gather data to reinforce the qualitative aspects of the analysis to its factual aspects led to a decision of the project team to carry out also personal inquiry. There were carried out two kinds of the personal inquiries. One of them were personal interviews with qualified teachers teaching the subject technology at lower secondary schools and the other one was a panelling (focus groups interviews), participants of which were technology teachers acting also in the school leadership. The paper describes the methodology of both kinds of the used personal inquiries, presents their main results and summarizes the most serious experiences gained from these field researches.

How to support technology education: What does the practice in Slovakia show

In 2008 in Slovakia a curricula reform was introduced into the primary and secondary schools. In terms of technology education on the one hand the reform cut the number of compulsory lessons devoted to technology education but on the other hand it provided schools large possibilities to support technology education through additional so-called disposable lessons, which they might incorporate in their School Education Programmes. The paper presents some main results of a qualitative analysis which was carried out to find the consequences of the curricula reform on the technology education carried out in practice in primary and lower secondary schools (ISCED 2). The aim of the research was to find out to which level the schools have used the possibility to increase the number of lessons devoted to technology education, what were the reasons for schools that influenced their decision to increase the number of the lessons devoted to technology education, as well as what were the main reasons or barriers why they did not incorporate in their School Education Programmes additional hours or subjects related to the technology education.

Quality assessment of remote real experiments and their use in practice

At the higher education institutions education by means of the remote real experiments education has been in use for several years. It has become a part of mainly science and technology fields. Besides the unquestionable economic and technical advantages it is necessary to monitor also the effectiveness of the didactic use of remote real experiments, which is examined in this article. Based on an analysis of different scientific and professional publications the authors suggest the quality evaluation criteria of remote real experiments that would serve teachers in practice to evaluate didactic and educational aspects of remote real experiments. The authors also present data achieved through a questionnaire survey on the use of remote real experiments.