Equal Opportunities and Treatment and the Real Training Needs of Adult Learners - A Case Study

AbstractAdult training in the field of equal opportunity and treatment is the main way of raising awareness, informing and promoting measures to prevent and fight discrimination in Romania. Contrary to many andragogical principles according to which adults learn if by learning they can solve specific personal problems, these training courses are generally designed starting from the global analysis of problems and needs of trainees. The case study referred to in this article was conducted as a result of a training initiative on equal opportunity and treatment for employees in the public administration (50 adult trainees, Timis County, Romania), which resulted in the identification of specific training needs for employees and local community members. To this end, we made a comparison between our initial training objectives and those redesigned based on the feedback from the participants. The conclusion of this contrastive approach was that, to have the desired impact, the goals and objectives of adult education courses must meet the real needs of the participants

Romanian Students’ Appraisal of the Emergency Remote Assessment due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The response of most educational institutions to the health crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic was the adoption of emergency remote teaching and assessment. The paper aims to evaluate students’ satisfaction with assessment activities in a Romanian university and to identify elements pertaining to sustainable assessment in the post-pandemic period. A collaborative research strategy was developed with students being invited as co-researchers for data collection by distributing an online questionnaire and for interpretation of the results in a focus group. The factor analysis of the responses to the survey extracted two pillars pertaining to students’ appraisal of remote assessment activities: Knowledge, and leisure and stress. The discussion in the focus group showed that the research helped participants to process and reason their experience with remote assessment activities in the summer of 2020. Students missed their academic rituals and interactions with peers and teachers. Despite their enthusiasm for technological innovation and the benefits brought by computer assisted assessment, students are inclined towards preserving human evaluators, preferably from their familiar teachers, in educational settings resembling pre-pandemic academic life. A sustainable, resilient model of education needs to be based on retaining features identified as acceptable by students as examinees

Migration Intentions of Romanian Engineering Students

This paper aims to diagnose Romanian engineering students in relation to their migration intentions, motivations, and destinations, and to predict the magnitude of migration in the polled population. It presents the results of a quantitative study based on a questionnaire survey consistent in terms of number and structure of variables and responses. The online questionnaire was self-administered by 1782 students from the five major technical Romanian universities, which are the main providers of the highly skilled labor force in the area of engineering. Regression analysis was carried out to correlate the drivers of migration and the potential for real migration. According to the results, Romanian students from technical universities are inclined to migrate in a significant proportion; the economic factor being the main migration driver. The predictive model built on the logistical regression and the collected data accounts only partially for the variations of the variable decision to migrate, so further research is needed. The analysis of the students’ mindset can prove useful to understand the future interactions between the new graduates and the labor market, to develop regional and national policies regarding human capital, and to root development plans towards sustainable economic growth in solid databases concerning the engineering profession

Students’ Perceptions of Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Behaviors during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic

Aiming at shedding light on the implications the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the students’ social and personal lives, this study has focused on the verbal and non-verbal communication and on the surveyees’ personal lives during the pandemic as well as on the perspective of changing their communication behaviors after the pandemic. The 409 respondents, students at Politehnica University of Timisoara, took part in a survey, conducted between 1 April and 30 May 2021, that was posted on isondaje.ro, a Romanian online survey platform. The research has suggested the following results: the adjustment of the verbal communication by speaking in a more articulated manner or more loudly; the overuse of the upper part of the face to compensate for the concealed parts of the face due to face mask wearing; the analysis of the factors underlying the respondents’ actions, i.e., relational attitudes, various greeting forms, various non-verbal reactions, which are aspects that are likely to change even after the pandemic. The results have also presented the changes that interpersonal communication could go through under the pressure of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, but also the ways through which people try to protect their most valuable asset, i.e., communication, which defines humanity and makes us unique as human beings

Cultural Perspectives, Feelings and Coping Behaviors during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Romanian Students

Socio-cultural patterns and communication styles differ from culture to culture. As such, the way in which people deal with a crisis situation is also culture-dependent. The COVID-19 pandemic has pointed, once more, to the cultural diversity of the world through a variety of reactions to the measures imposed by the global spread of the deadly virus. The present research aims at identifying the feelings, coping behaviors and communication patterns of the younger Romanian generation during the COVID-19 pandemic and at explaining them from a cultural standpoint, in an effort to raise awareness of the cultural (un)predictability of human reactions to certain external stimuli. The survey conducted online on 409 students at Politehnica University of Timișoara (Romania) revealed that most of students’ socio-cultural behavior could have been anticipated by the Romanian authorities when they decided a certain pandemic action plan, and that the few unexpected results indicate the versatility of a culture that is still changing under the Western European influence caused by the fact that Romania has adhered to European Union principles for more than fifteen years

Emo phenomenon – An actual problem in adolescence

AbstractThe aim of the present study was to study personality features characteristic for the teenagers involved in the EMO subculture. The study sample was represented by 100 adolescents, average age 17,5 years. First group of 50 adolescents that are considered like being part of the EMO subculture were selected after interviewing several teachers from a high school, from Timisoara, Romania. This interview has 5 categories of questions: regarding physical aspect; emotional tonus observed; capacity of adaptation to tasks; behaviour and interests. Immersion in personality dynamics of adolescent, especially regarding such a delicate matter as a new suburban culture, that is beginning to have more and more influence in teenagers, is necessary

Transition from Online to Face-to-Face Education after COVID-19: The Benefits of Online Education from Students’ Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has left a mark on education as it had been known before. Beyond his, attention needs to be paid to the transition back to face-to-face learning and its implications. Within this context of change, the present research focuses on identifying the students’ preferred aspects of online education during the pandemic, namely learning, teaching, assessment, and interaction with peers and teachers, in order to improve face-to-face education by contextually adapting it to their needs. A survey was used on a representative sample of students from Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania, who were required to indicate their preferred form of education and the most beneficial one for their professional development. The results indicate the targeted students’ several preferences, such as teachers’ support with electronic educational resources, the use of online educational platforms to access resources and take tests, the easier and individualized communication with teachers, as well as peer connectivity in common projects. These findings identify practical suggestions that lead to a balance between face-to-face and digital education, probably under the form of blended learning, which could be considered by the main stakeholders in order to have a future sustainable education

Transition from Online to Face-to-Face Education after COVID-19: The Benefits of Online Education from Students’ Perspective

The COVID-19 pandemic has left a mark on education as it had been known before. Beyond his, attention needs to be paid to the transition back to face-to-face learning and its implications. Within this context of change, the present research focuses on identifying the students’ preferred aspects of online education during the pandemic, namely learning, teaching, assessment, and interaction with peers and teachers, in order to improve face-to-face education by contextually adapting it to their needs. A survey was used on a representative sample of students from Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania, who were required to indicate their preferred form of education and the most beneficial one for their professional development. The results indicate the targeted students’ several preferences, such as teachers’ support with electronic educational resources, the use of online educational platforms to access resources and take tests, the easier and individualized communication with teachers, as well as peer connectivity in common projects. These findings identify practical suggestions that lead to a balance between face-to-face and digital education, probably under the form of blended learning, which could be considered by the main stakeholders in order to have a future sustainable education