Suchergebnisse

In recent years, the Croatian government has put a major effort into integration of children with developmental disabilities in regular schools. However, this has mainly been done for primary school students, and little is known about what happens with those children in high schools. The aim of this study was to examine attitudes about persons with physical disabilities and to compare them between high school students, their parents and their teachers. In addition, teachers' attitudes toward integration of children with developmental disabilities in high schools were investigated. The participants were 740 high school students, 192 parents and 196 teachers. All participants gave some general data and filled out the Attitudes towards People with Physical Disabilities Scale. Teachers also filled out the Teachers' Attitudes toward Integration of Children with Disabilities Scale. The results have shown that all participants had only mildly positive attitudes toward persons with physical disabilities, but teachers and parents, in comparison with students, showed more positive cognitive and affective aspects of attitudes. Furthermore, teachers showed mildly positive attitudes towards the integration of all students into regular high schools (regardless of their developmental disabilities), although they had the most positive attitudes toward regular school integration of students with physical disabilities, followed by those with learning disabilities. The results are discussed in connection to a new educational program, which the Faculty of Education can offer to teachers and experts working in high schools with children with disabilities.

The study aimed to determine the methodological particularities present in research on contemporary childhood. The study methodology involves an analysis of Croatian journals in which the subject of contemporary childhood has been published in the last two years. The inclusion criteria for article analysis were as follows: Social Science discipline, field of Pedagogy and Psychology, participants' age (from 6 to 14 years) and the visibility of the journal citation. The analysis of the contemporary approach included methodological particularities. The results show that these studies of contemporary childhood do not apply "contemporary" approaches to the examination of childhood.

Being a teacher, like any job, has some of its specifics that contribute to whether the teachers feel more or less comfortable in their workplace. In general, teachers believe that the school climate describes a general perception of the situation at a workplace. School climate determines the quality of relationships and the feeling of comfort or discomfort in the relationships between the participants of the educational process. School climate is associated with the quality of the school environment, common perception of school behavior, and school management. The aim of the study was to check the potential predictors of school climate among classroom teachers. Research included the contribution of demographic and class characteristics, stress experience, and social support as personal variables contributing to the prediction of the school climate. The study involved 311 classroom teachers (97.7% female) from Croatia. During the State expert summit for teachers Strengthening of professional competences of classroom teachers, in June 2017, teachers completed the Scale of Social Resources, Scale for Measurement of Teachers' Stress Sources, and the Questionnaire of School Climate, assessing their own stress levels, social support, and school climate. Research results showed that demographic and class characteristics are not crucial for predicting the school climate, however, school climate is connected to the teacher's experience of stress and support. Different sources of stress and social support proved to be significant predictors and accounted for 23.8% of the total variation of the school climate. A higher level of stress caused by the student's inappropriate behavior, a lower level of stress caused by the need for professional recognition, and the perception of greater social support predict a more positive school climate. Stress caused by inappropriate student behavior encourages teachers to change their behavior, but also to take responsibility for creating a positive classroom discipline through ...

Children with attention deficits are usually integrated in regular primary school classes in Croatia, without any special educational treatment nor interventions. Teachers, whose primary education does not include educational methods for working with children with developmental disabilities or procedures of inclusion of such children in regular classes, must do their best to be successful in education and integration of this specific group of children. The main objective of this research was to determine the differences in use of educational strategies (upbringing and teaching) and misbehavior management (positive and negative) among primary school teachers working with children with attention deficits in respect of their gender, level of education, years of work experience and whether they teach in lower or upper grades of primary school. The research covered 31 primary schools from 3 counties of the eastern part of the Republic of Croatia. Participants were teachers (N=103) teaching in lower grades (from 1st to 4th) (51%), and in higher grades (from 5th to 8th) (49%) of primary schools. 12.8% of them were male and 87.2% female teachers. Teachers gave estimations for their students who had attention deficits (N=305), 85.6% (N=261) were male and 14.4% (N=44) were female students. The age span of estimated students was 7 to 15 years, and the average age was 10.69 years (SD=2.26). Teachers filled out the Educational desirable behavior-oriented strategy scale (upbringing and teaching subscales) and the Scale of misbehavior management strategy (positive and negative discipline subscales). The results implicate that teachers in the lower grades of primary school use more positive disciplinary strategy than teachers in the higher grades of primary school. The results of the research have shown that teachers working with children having attention deficits more often use the educational strategy of upbringing than teaching. Teachers from lower grades of primary school and also female teachers more often used the ...

In this study authors gathered information on ICT users from different areas in Croatia with different knowledge, experience, working place, age and gender background in order to examine today's situation in the Republic of Croatia (n=701) regarding ICT users'potentially risky behavior and security awareness. To gather all desired data validated Users' Information Security Awareness Questionnaire (UISAQ) was used.Analysis outcome represent results of ICT users in Croatia regarding 6 subareas (mean of items): Usual risky behavior (x1=4.52), Personal computer maintenance (x2=3.18), Borrowing access data (x3=4.74), Criticism on security in communications (x4=3.48), Fear of losing data (x5=2.06), Rating importance of backup (x6=4.18). In this work comparison between users regarding demographic variables (age, gender, professional qualification, occupation, managing job position and institution category) is given. Maybe the most interesting information is percentage of questioned users that have revealed their password for professional e-mail system (28.8%). This information should alert security experts and security managers in enterprises, government institutions and also schools and faculties. Results of this study should be used to develop solutions and induce actions aiming to increase awareness among Internet users on information security and privacy issues.