Sanja Tatalović Vorkapić

Computer use in pre-school education: The attitudes of the future pre-school teachers in Croatia

According to the relevance of teacher attitudes in the teaching process as well as to the great number of discussions among experts of pre-school education, it was interesting to examine the students of pre-school teaching about their attitudes toward the use of computer among pre-school children. The sample consisted of N = 40 students from regular study and N = 37 students of irregular study of Pre-school education from Faculty of Teacher Education in Rijeka. Their attitudes have been investigated using an 18-item questionnaire created for the purposes of this study only. Overall, it was determined that future pre-school teachers have no clear and decisive general attitude toward the use of computer among pre-school children. In addition, they have shown from neutral to more positive attitudes according to all other items but with certain conditions. The discussion resulted with the recommendations for pre-school teacher’s education.

Internal and external factors in professional burnout of substance abuse counsellors in Croatia

AIM In this study, burnout and its internal and external factors were investigated among substance abuse counsellors (no. = 68) who worked in Centres for Prevention and Substance Abuse Treatment (no. = 18) in Croatia. METHODS Maslach Burnout Inventory was used which measured three burnout dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment; and questionnaire of internal and external burnout factors. RESULTS The higher levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and the higher level of personal accomplishment were determined. Factors such as work conditions, emotions about us and work, work organization and certain personality traits showed significant relationship with three burnout dimensions. CONCLUSIONS Overall, findings implicated a certain specificity of professional burnout in substance abuse counsellors, and the need for specific design of mental health care for them.

Are There Any Differences in Personality Traits and Life Satisfaction Between Future Preschool and Primary School Teachers

ABSTRACT The main aim of this study was to examine personality traits and life satisfaction of future preschool and primary school teachers and to examine if there are differences between these two groups of students. The study was conducted on a sample of 290 students of the University of Rijeka attending Early and Preschool Education and Teacher Education programs. Significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and personality traits were found: extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience. Neuroticism was significantly decreased in both groups of participants. Differences in these two groups of students are not significant in life satisfaction and personality traits except in conscientiousness, which is significantly higher among future primary school teachers as opposed to future preschool teachers. Given the significant correlation of age and the year of study with personality traits, the established findings are discussed in terms of the varying length of the study programs.

The relationship of neuroticism, psychoticism and depression with visual evoked potentials

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between visual evoked potentials (N1, P2, N2, P3 and Sw) and levels of neuroticism, psychoticism and depression. Based on previous research, longer EP-latencies were expected in more depressed subjects, and smaller EP-amplitudes in subjects with higher levels of neuroticism and psychoticism. The sample consisted of female psychology students (N=54), age 19-23, all right-handed. After measuring Eysenck’s personality dimensions with EPQ/R, and depression with D-92, evoked potentials were measured in two trials by means of the EMG/EP device Medelec/TECA SapphireII, 4E. Significantly lower P2-amplitudes, reflecting early stimuli processing, and lower N2-amplitudes, reflecting stimuli characteristic assignment, were found in subjects with higher neuroticism. The most stable relation, determined in both trials, was the one between P2-amplitude and neuroticism. Higher amplitudes of N2 and P3, representing attention allocation and memory updating, were significantly correlated with higher psychoticism. Finally, as expected, slow wave latency was significantly prolonged in more depressed subjects. Eysencks’ personality theory and over-arousal hypothesis are used as theoretical frames for discussing the results and future research guidelines. The research findings significantly contribute to the understanding of biological determination within rarely explored personality traits, such as neuroticism, psychoticism and depression. However, since the research has some limitations, concrete guidelines for future electrophysiological studies in the field of human personality have been recommended.

Teacher education for sustainability: the awareness and responsibility for sustainability problems

Abstract The theoretical framework of the present research is based on the socio-psychological model of sustainable behaviour by Juárez-Nájera (2010). For the purposes of this paper, just part of the research is related to personal norms. The paper provides the results of the awareness of consequences and the attribution of responsibility for environmental/ sustainability problems among students of the four Faculties of Teacher Education in four countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia. Research results indicate that students from Croatian and Slovenian Faculties of Teacher Education are characterised by a more pronounced awareness of environmental/sustainability problems than the students from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. The responsibility for environmental/sustainability problems is higher among the students of the Faculty of Teacher Education from Croatia and Serbia than among students from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia. It seems that a country is the major determiner of awareness and responsibility for environmental/sustainability problems. In general, the results of the present research provide significant guidelines for the reflection on the future of initial teacher education for sustainability and need for conducting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research on personal norms and sustainable behaviour.

PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP SCALE – SHORT FORM: CROATIAN VALIDATION STUDY FROM PRESCHOOL EDUCATION CONTEXT

Having in mind the importance of the relationship between children and their preschool teachers, the research about the quality of its measurement should present one of the main research focuses in overall early and preschool care and education studies. Previous studies clearly demonstrated that positive and close relationships between children and teachers resulted with higher level of socio-emotional and cognitive development of children in a long run. On the other side, the child-teacher relationship that is full of conflicts and bad feelings very negatively influence on children learning outcomes and developed behavioural patterns. Generally, children mental health is significantly determined by these early relationships with significant others in the educational context. Therefore, it is very important to develop and validate the measures that could contribute to understanding and measurement of children-preschool teachers’ relationship. One of that measure is Student- Teacher Relationship Scale, short form (STRS ; Pianta, 2002). It is created with the purposes of measuring overall quality of the relationship between students (aged from 3 to 8) and their teachers. The relationship patterns that are originally should measure within the long form (28 items) are closeness, conflict and dependency. The short form is consisting of 15 items, which are measuring closeness (positive relationship) and conflict (negative relationship). In this study, after expert translation, STRS- short form has been applied in the sample of 161 preschool teachers who rated their relationship with the vulnerable preschool children, i.e. with the preschool children living in risk life conditions: children who are members of discriminated groups (i.e. Roma minority), children from the social care, children from the violent families, children from low stimulating families, children with developmental disabilities and special needs, and children from families with chronically ill member(s). The sample of preschool teachers was from different kindergartens in Primorsko- Goranska County in Croatia. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis with extraction method Principal Components and Varimax rotation with Kaiser Normalization were run. EFA resulted with four factors, which explained 59.555% of total variance. However, when two factors were specified, CFA results were psychometrically satisfactory. So, CFA confirmed hypothesized two-factor structure of STRS and explained 44.487% of total variance (the first factor Conflict explained after rotation 22.315% and the second factor Closeness explained after rotation 22.172% of the total variance). Rotated component matrix showed the lowest loading of the items four (“This child is uncomfortable with physical affection or touch from me”) what should be taken into account in future studies. Determined reliability levels Cronbach alpha were satisfying: for Conflict subscale α = .766 and for Closeness subscale α = .804. The determined findings have discussed within the suggested guidelines for future research studies: applying adjustments in translation ; running focus groups with preschool teachers with the aim of creating culturally original STRS-items ; and the application of the long form of STRS scale.

Construct validity of Croatian version of the Pavlovian Temperament Survey (PTS)

The aim of this study was to examine the construct validity of Pavlovian Temperament Survey (PTS) by determin- ing the relationship between three Strelaus dimensions of temperament (strength of excitation, strength of inhibition, mobili- ty) and basic dimensions of personality as were defined by Eysenck and in the five-factor model of personality. It was expected that strength of excitation and mobility would have significant positive correlations with extraversion and negative correla- tions with neuroticism, while strength of inhibition would show significant negative correlations with neuroticism. Within two studies (N 1 = 74 female students, M age = 22; N 2 = 54 female students, M age = 20), Croatian version of PTS, Five−Factor Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire FF−NPQ, and Eysencks Personality Questionnaire EPQ R/A were used. The reliability coefficients for all three instruments were satisfactory, although not very high. Coefficients of correlation determined in the first study were not entirely in agreement with either theoretical expectations or empirical results of other authors, probably due to small sample size. However, the results of the second study were in accord with the expected pattern of significant cor- relations and that could be considered an indicator of good construct validity of PTS. Since this was a preliminary study the results provide only a general insight into the research aim, and represent a good starting point for future validation studies of the Croatian version of PTS.

Struktur von Wertorientierungen und Wertehierarchie bei Berufsschülern

Oslanjajuci se na prethodna istraživanja hijerarhije vrednota i zastupljenosti vrijednosnih orijentacija adolescenata, postavili smo dva cilja istraživanja: (1) utvrditi vrijednosne orijentacije reprezentativne podgrupe srednjoskolaca srednjih strucnih skola Primorsko-goranske regije i (2) dati doprinos istraživanju faktorske strukture i pouzdanosti Skale vrijednosnih orijentacija (Franc i sur., 2002.) na takvom uzorku. Na stratificiranom su grupnom uzorku od 760 ucenika (M=17.5 godina ; SD=1.22 ; 41.2% ucenica) u deset skola prikupljeni podaci te je eksploratornim metodama provjerena komponentna i faktorska struktura skale, pouzdanost skale i utvrđena hijerarhija vrijednosti i vrijednosnih orijentacija. Rezultati upucuju da se komponentna struktura upitnika primijenjenog na ucenike strukovnih skola znatno razlikuje od strukture koje su na reprezentativnim uzorcima ucenika svih srednjih skola utvrdili autori skale. Faktorskom analizom izdvojena su dva znacajna faktora: (1) samoostvarujuca i konvencionalna vrijednosna orijentacija i (2) hedonisticka vrijednosna orijentacija. Na vrhu hijerarhije vrijednosti ucenika su ljubav, skladan život, obitelj, prijatelji i bliski prijateljski odnosi. Implicirana je potreba nadogradnje i rekonstrukcije ovog upitnika pri primjeni u strucnim srednjim skolama.

Structure and Hierarchy of Vocational School Students' Value Orientations

Oslanjajuci se na prethodna istraživanja hijerarhije vrednota i zastupljenosti vrijednosnih orijentacija adolescenata, postavili smo dva cilja istraživanja: (1) utvrditi vrijednosne orijentacije reprezentativne podgrupe srednjoskolaca srednjih strucnih skola Primorsko-goranske regije i (2) dati doprinos istraživanju faktorske strukture i pouzdanosti Skale vrijednosnih orijentacija (Franc i sur., 2002.) na takvom uzorku. Na stratificiranom su grupnom uzorku od 760 ucenika (M=17.5 godina ; SD=1.22 ; 41.2% ucenica) u deset skola prikupljeni podaci te je eksploratornim metodama provjerena komponentna i faktorska struktura skale, pouzdanost skale i utvrđena hijerarhija vrijednosti i vrijednosnih orijentacija. Rezultati upucuju da se komponentna struktura upitnika primijenjenog na ucenike strukovnih skola znatno razlikuje od strukture koje su na reprezentativnim uzorcima ucenika svih srednjih skola utvrdili autori skale. Faktorskom analizom izdvojena su dva znacajna faktora: (1) samoostvarujuca i konvencionalna vrijednosna orijentacija i (2) hedonisticka vrijednosna orijentacija. Na vrhu hijerarhije vrijednosti ucenika su ljubav, skladan život, obitelj, prijatelji i bliski prijateljski odnosi. Implicirana je potreba nadogradnje i rekonstrukcije ovog upitnika pri primjeni u strucnim srednjim skolama.

STRUKTURA VRIJEDNOSNIH ORIJENTACIJA I HIJERARHIJA VREDNOTA UČENIKA STRUKOVNIH ŠKOLA

Oslanjajuci se na prethodna istraživanja hijerarhije vrednota i zastupljenosti vrijednosnih orijentacija adolescenata, postavili smo dva cilja istraživanja: (1) utvrditi vrijednosne orijentacije reprezentativne podgrupe srednjoskolaca srednjih strucnih skola Primorsko-goranske regije i (2) dati doprinos istraživanju faktorske strukture i pouzdanosti Skale vrijednosnih orijentacija (Franc i sur., 2002.) na takvom uzorku. Na stratificiranom su grupnom uzorku od 760 ucenika (M=17.5 godina ; SD=1.22 ; 41.2% ucenica) u deset skola prikupljeni podaci te je eksploratornim metodama provjerena komponentna i faktorska struktura skale, pouzdanost skale i utvrđena hijerarhija vrijednosti i vrijednosnih orijentacija. Rezultati upucuju da se komponentna struktura upitnika primijenjenog na ucenike strukovnih skola znatno razlikuje od strukture koje su na reprezentativnim uzorcima ucenika svih srednjih skola utvrdili autori skale. Faktorskom analizom izdvojena su dva znacajna faktora: (1) samoostvarujuca i konvencionalna vrijednosna orijentacija i (2) hedonisticka vrijednosna orijentacija. Na vrhu hijerarhije vrijednosti ucenika su ljubav, skladan život, obitelj, prijatelji i bliski prijateljski odnosi. Implicirana je potreba nadogradnje i rekonstrukcije ovog upitnika pri primjeni u strucnim srednjim skolama.