Enhancing Critical Thinking Skills and Media Literacy in Initial VET Students: A Mixed Methods Study on a Cross-Country Training Program

Context: In the last few decades, the constant and exponential changes in the society's con-sumption of information have increased the awareness of practitioners from the education and training field, on the need for training programs for the enhancement of critical thin-king skills and media literacy among students from Initial Vocational Education and Trai-ning (IVET) who are less exposed to intellectual trainings than their peers in traditional education pathways.Approach: With this impetus, the present paper reports the results of a mixed methods study evaluating a training program for such competences. Based on a cognitive psychology theoretical framework, the training program consisted in three main techniques through which trainers can work with students in the classroom. N= 35 trainers from five different countries (i.e., Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands) were instructed about the training techniques and implemented them in their training centres. Then, a total of N= 288 students among these countries were involved in the testing of the training, which took place on a duration average of 5 months. Mixed methods approach was used to eva-luate the effectiveness and quality of the training. Notably, prospective statistical analysis evaluated the training's impact of the participating students and compared with a control group. Qualitative interviews examined the training's lived experience with a group of stu-dents and trainers

Enhancing critical thinking skills and media literacy in initial VET students: a mixed methods study on a cross-country training program

Context: In the last few decades, the constant and exponential changes in the society\u27s consumption of information have increased the awareness of practitioners from the education and training field, on the need for training programs for the enhancement of critical thinking skills and media literacy among students from Initial Vocational Education and Training (IVET) who are less exposed to intellectual trainings than their peers in traditional education pathways. Approach: With this impetus, the present paper reports the results of a mixed methods study evaluating a training program for such competences. Based on a cognitive psychology theoretical framework, the training program consisted in three main techniques through which trainers can work with students in the classroom. N= 35 trainers from five different countries (i.e., Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands) were instructed about the training techniques and implemented them in their training centres. Then, a total of N= 288 students among these countries were involved in the testing of the training, which took place on a duration average of 5 months. Mixed methods approach was used to evaluate the effectiveness and quality of the training. Notably, prospective statistical analysis evaluated the training\u27s impact of the participating students and compared with a control group. Qualitative interviews examined the training\u27s lived experience with a group of students and trainers. Findings: The quantitative and qualitative analysis of pre/post- measures of critical thinking skills and media literacy of the experimental group, and the comparison with the control group, indicate an increase in these competences and confirm the efficacy of the training intervention. Conclusion: These results inform about the usefulness of the training program cross-culturally and the feasibility of training strategies based on cognitive psychology. Moreover, the paper offers a methodological contribution thanks to the proposition of the mixed methods approach for training programs assessment. (DIPF/Orig.

Enhancing Critical Thinking Skills and Media Literacy in Initial VET Students: A Mixed Methods Study on a Cross-Country Training Program

Context: In the last few decades, the constant and exponential changes in the society's consumption of information have increased the awareness of practitioners from the education and training field, on the need for training programs for the enhancement of critical thinking skills and media literacy among students from Initial Vocational Education and Training (IVET) who are less exposed to intellectual trainings than their peers in traditional education pathways.  Approach: With this impetus, the present paper reports the results of a mixed methods study evaluating a training program for such competences. Based on a cognitive psychology theoretical framework, the training program consisted in three main techniques through which trainers can work with students in the classroom. N= 35 trainers from five different countries (i.e., Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands) were instructed about the training techniques and implemented them in their training centres. Then, a total of N= 288 students among these countries were involved in the testing of the training, which took place on a duration average of 5 months. Mixed methods approach was used to evaluate the effectiveness and quality of the training. Notably, prospective statistical analysis evaluated the training's impact of the participating students and compared with a control group. Qualitative interviews examined the training's lived experience with a group of students and trainers.  Findings: The quantitative and qualitative analysis of pre/post- measures of critical thinking skills and media literacy of the experimental group, and the comparison with the control group, indicate an increase in these competences and confirm the efficacy of the training intervention.  Conclusion: These results inform about the usefulness of the training program cross-culturally and the feasibility of training strategies based on cognitive psychology. Moreover, the paper offers a methodological contribution thanks to the proposition of the mixed methods approach for training programs assessment.

Development and Validation of a Noise in Decision Inventory for Organizational Settings

The aim of the present paper is to present a Noise Decision (ND) scale. First, it reports the development and validation of the instrument aimed at examining organizational factors that have an influence on decision-making and the level of noise. Second, it validates this rating scale by testing its discriminant and con-vergent validity with other measures to assess decision-making qualities

Quick-witted Entrepreneurs vs Systematic Managers: A Comparative Analysis of Decision-Making Competence

Decision-making competence (DMC) of entrepreneurs and managers is a longstanding important topic in our increasingly globalized world. Entrepreneurs and managers operate in conditions not within their own control, and good levels of DMC are often considered to be desirable for the flourishing of business and society. This paper reports an empirical investigation on the DMC of entrepreneurs and managers, in an attempt to inform about their tendencies to incur in risky and costly choices. Approach and method: We considered three cognitive biases associated with operational strategies and individual characteristics of entrepreneurs and managers, namely under/overconfidence (UOC, i.e., self-confidence in taking decisions), resistance to sunk costs (RSC, i.e., propensity to take cost investments) and consistency in risk perception (CRP, i.e., how well individuals understand probability rules). Cognitive biases measures were used in a crosssectional study on a sample of n = 639 entrepreneurs and n = 512 managers. Data collected via online survey were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics to determine differences among entrepreneurs and manager