Contemporary Educational Researches Journal

EDITORIAL

2019-03-06T14:50:54+00:00

Dear Readers,

It is the great honor for us to publish Volume 9, Issue 1 of Contemporary Educational Researches Journal (CERJ). The journal welcomes original empirical investigations and comprehensive literature review articles focusing on educational issues. The journal is an international peer-refereed journal that promotes the researches in the field of contemporary teaching and learning approaches and theories.

A total number of seventeen (17) manuscripts were submitted for this issue and each paper has been subjected to double-blind peer review process by the reviewers specialized in the related field. At the end of the review process, a total number of six (6) high quality research papers were selected and accepted for publication.

Aim of this issue is to give the researchers an opportunity to share the results of their academic studies. There are different research topics discussed in the articles.

The topics of the next issue will be different. You can make sure that we will be trying to serve you with our journal with a rich knowledge in which different kinds of topics are discussed in 2019 Volume.

I would like to present many thanks to all the contributors who helped to publish this issue.

Best regards,

Interest and Learning Approaches as Discriminating Factors in the Performance of Senior Secondary School Students in Economics

2019-03-06T14:52:00+00:00

Abstract

The study utilized the ex-post facto research design to investigate how interest and learning approaches utilized in Economics discriminates the academic performance of students in the subject area. The population comprised senior secondary school two students in Ife Central Local Government of Osun State while the sample comprised 94 students in five secondary schools in the area. Three research instruments viz: Individual Interest Questionnaire (IIQ), Revised Two Factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) and Economics Achievement Test (EAT) were used to collect appropriate data. The Discriminant Function Analysis was utilized to analyse data collected. Findings revealed a function with coefficients in order of magnitude as revealed by structure matrix as follows: Interest in Economics (1.06), Surface Approach (0.41) and Deep Approach (-1.14). None of coefficients was significant at 0.05 significance level. The function was maximized for: 47.1% of students who scored above 50% and 57.1% of those who scored below 50%. The conclusion that was reached was that adequate cognizance should be given to the improvement of the process of teaching the subject including assessment practices.

Key words: Discriminant Function Analysis; Interest; Learning Approaches; Performance; Senior Secondary School.

Financing From Demand-Side in Education

2019-03-06T14:52:34+00:00

The belief in the importance of education on economic and social development has resulted in the education expenses being largely covered by the public budget. Countries' approaches to financing education services may vary depending on the tendency to see the education as mixed, complete or private goods and the policies they follow in this direction. In order to fully meet the demands for education, it is of great importance that the available financial resources are spent on the basis of effectively and accountability, as well as the ratio of the financial resources allocated for education. The failure in education is largely attributed to the lack of funding. However, this failure is largely ignored because of the poor use of existing financing, as well as the inadequacy of funding resources. It is an important issue to observe the measures of equality and equity in the distribution of resources related to education and of efficiency and accountability in their spending. Demand-side financing approach in education includes the issues of the freedom of school choice as part of initiating inter-school competitions, giving the ‘Education Cheque’ or the ‘Education Voucher’ to student parents and their submitting this cheque or voucher to the board of the school where school stakeholders are also included and where they send their children, within the framework of a protocol, instead of spending the determined money considering the free market conditions or transferring it directly via the education center or district units to the school account for each student studying at each school level. The purpose of this study is to create awareness among education stakeholders and researchers such as decision-makers, managers and teachers regarding the education in by examining the approaches of ‘Demand-Side Financing’ which is based on parents/ customers' initiative in the use of financial resources allocated from the general budget for education.

Key words: Demand-side financing, education financing, financing

Space configuration and learning comfort; a case study of Federal University of Technology Minna lecture halls

2019-03-06T14:51:43+00:00

This research pursuit the objectives of testing and measuring the level of indoor environmental quality in the lecture theatres across the university; analysing the challenges of the learning component that affects the learning process and appraise the learning space configuration that best suits the learning process of the students in various lecture halls. This research employed empirical research method involving questionnaires and scientific measurement of the acoustic level, thermal comfort level, lighting and particulate matter 2.5, 1.0 and 10. The research results show that the various learning spaces have good orientation and are adequately ventilated. The thermal comfort of most of the lecture halls reduces in the afternoon. The furniture arrangement within the lecture spaces reduced the level of interaction amongst the students and between lecturers and students. Therefore, this paper recommends effective artificial cooling must be introduced in the afternoon and the ergonomics within the lecture halls must be made flexible.

Keywords: Space configuration; Technology; Minna

The Effectiveness of Plastic Arts Education Weighted Creative Drama in The Education of Gifted / Talented Children

2019-03-06T14:52:11+00:00

It is the notion of creativity which is emphasized on educating the modern human in accordance with the requirements of the age. Art education is an effective field that supports and develops creativity with all its fields. The factor that makes one person, one society, one country more advanced than the others is the power of revealing a new product. One of the most effective areas that develop the underlying creativity is art education.

Art education provides a better expression and its contribution to other forms of expression and other disciplines cannot be denied. According to the needs of the age, one of the most important concepts in educating modern people is creativity.The main purpose of the fields of art, education and science is to serve human development and discover new things by using the concept of creativity.It is possible to say that mental skills, thoughts and intelligence may also be developed through interdisciplinary interaction while the emotions are being trained.

In this study, the Effectiveness of Creative Drama in the Education of Gifted / Talented Students for Plastic Arts Education was investigated. For this purpose, drama workshops with a focus on art education were performed with plastic and modern art references. Reactions of talentedstudents were observed during and after workshops. The findings obtained based on these observations were discussed, examined and interpreted.

Keywords: Art, Education, Ingenuity, Intelligence, Interdisciplinary

Research study trends in web-supported evaluation tools for assessing inspectors, teachers, and students

2019-03-06T15:27:12+00:00

Web-supported assessment tools for evaluating inspectors, teachers and students’ performance represent the main point of interest in this research. “Teacher”, “student”, “inspector”, “supervisor”, “assessment”, “web-based”, and “web supported” were used as keywords in the research. Various databases, such as EBSCO, Science Direct and ULAKBIM were scanned and the retrieved articles were used for in-depth investigation for the purposes of this research. In order to ensure that the focus was on recent data, only articles published between 1999 and 2015 were considered for the analysis. The ‘Purposeful Sampling Technique’ was used to gather data from these databases, with the result that 101 published articles were reached from 24 magazines and 50 electronic journals. After studying the articles reached using the content analysis technique, the researchers of this article determined that the content could be classified into 13 categories: the “publication year”, “publication type”, “number of authors”, “academic position of the researcher”, “country where the research was conducted”, “researching/supporting university”, “application area in education”, “the way of stating the purpose of the study in the research”, “research model”, “the paradigm adopted”, “targeted audience composing the universe”, “data gathering tools used” and “research results”. All data gathered from the reached articles according to these 13 categories were then inputted into a database, which was analysed using the SPSS Statistics pack for specifying total numbers and percentages and comparing results regarding to certain variables, such as time.

The impact of higher education on employment in the labour market: Lithuanian case

2019-03-06T14:52:25+00:00

This study aims to investigate the employment of higher education in Lithuanian labour market between 2005 and 2014. Today, this problem is relevant to Lithuania, as level of high school graduates employment is changing yearly. The purpose of the research is to evaluate the impact of higher education on employment in Lithuanian labour market. Seeking to define the impact of higher education on employment in Lithuanian labour market, analysis and synthesis of scientific literature about the influence of education on the labour market; systematic statistical data analysis of Lithuanian education and employment and unemployment rate are presented. In order to compare the impact of Lithuanian higher education on employment rate, unemployment rate and real labour productivity with other countries of the EU-28, the correlation analysis are used. Results indicate that education attainment has influence on employment and unemployment level in Lithuanian labour market and relationship between higher education and employment, unemployment and real labour productivity are dominated in all the EU-28 countries.

Keywords: education; higher education; employment; unemployment; labour productivity.