Knowledge is one of the basic aspects of scientific literacy. For targeted enhancement of scientific literacy it is necessary to diversify the methodical activities. The results of the research indicate on the necessity to enhance the formation of scientific literacy in chemistry lessons by motivating students to think about the nature as unified system. Based on the results of a pedagogic research the new teaching and learning method was developed, called the TETRA- method. The tetrahedral spatial mind model is used for the application of this method which is based on the fact that our environment is dimensional. The actions of the model are oriented to discovery and understand various thematic interconnections which form connected knowledge. The results obtained in the approbation of the method indicate that during chemistry lessons students showed greater interest, concurrently the level of students' knowledge level raises up. The obtained students' knowledge which is based on understanding enhances activation of the students’ cognitive processes. By the developing such students’ competences which are creating scientific literacy is important to show meaning of knowledge in chemistry influence on the environment and society.

This study was conducted to examine the link between career self-efficacy and career selections of university students. The study was also aimed to find out the differences of career self-efficacy in terms of gender and socio-economic status. The study was restricted to Malay students, and Malay is one of the main races in Malaysia. Participants selected for this study were undergraduate Malay students from different faculties at International Islamic University, Malaysia. The number of samples selected was 200, consisting of 100 males and 100 females. The instrument used in the study was designed by Bentz and Hackett (1981) and was adapted by the researcher to suit the Malaysian context. Data was analyzed using t-test and one-way variance. The result indicates significant differences in career self-efficacy in successfully completing the educational requirements and performing job duties of traditional and non- traditional careers with regard to gender. The result of this study also indicates that female students show higher career-self-efficacy for both traditional and non-traditional careers, compared to male students. The study also shows that students from high economic status reported higher career self-efficacy compared to students from medium and low socio economic- status.

The literature highlights the effects of parties’gender on the satisfaction of mentoring relationship. However, little is known whether or not cultural values associated with sex roles would affect protege’s preference of mentors’gender, and their satisfaction from the mentoring process. To fill this gap, the researchers examined the amount of variance explained by cultural values related to sex roles on these aforementioned variables. The analysis of 155 student teachers of a large size metropolitan university in Turkey yielded that student teacher proteges with masculine value orientations had a tendency to prefer male rather than female teacher mentor. In addition, protege’s perceived level of satisfaction from the mentoring was significantly predicted by the protege’s level of masculine value orientation. Implications were made regarding current protege-mentor pairing practice in teacher education programs in Turkey.

This article discusses the new challenges in RE in Slovakia. Religious Education in Slovakia is confessional and it is compulsory school subject. In 2008 has started the five-year reform of the Slovak educational system, which is expressed in the new State Educational Program. In this program RE is a part of curriculum domain “Human being and values” and the content of RE is fully in the competence of particular Churches and religious societies. The competence-based education and creating of new curriculum bring the RE teachers lots of problems and they face new challenges in the teaching process itself. There is strong effort of Slovak Ministry of Education to transform the traditional teacher-centred education into child- centred education, which should bring more creativity into classrooms. RE is open to new trends in teaching-learning process and using various teaching methods.

On the institutions training music teachers, the level of piano teaching affects the competence of music teachers working at elementary schools and high schools. Therefore, during the undergraduate education, a music teacher candidate should show interest on piano lesson as much as he or she shows interest on main instrument lesson. Meanwhile, besides the piano lessons, he or she should show interest at same level and work on lessons related to the piano like ‘Musical Hearing Reading and Writing’, “Harmony, Counterpoint, Accompaniment”, “Playing Accompaniment”, “Musical Styles”, “Turkish Music Poly Vocalization”, “Composing Educational Music”, “The piano and Piano Teaching”. For this reason, “The piano and Piano Teaching” lesson became an important stage for the piano education on music teaching from the stand point of earned information and abilities, resources regarding the piano literature, piano education and works containing various methods and techniques.

The goal of this research is to investigate how opinions of first grade students, coming from different types of preschools and attending different primary schools, change from the beginning to the end of one school year about their preschool and primary school teachers. In this context, we used a qualitative case study method, with a sample of 27 first grade students in order to observe changes in the opinions of students and subsequently analyze important differences between these school types. Our sample includes three different categories of first grade students:
9 students graduated from the kindergarten of a Ministry of National Education Primary School (MONEPS) and continuing with the same primary school, 9 students graduated from the kindergarten of a Private Primary School (PPS) and continuing with the same primary school and finally 9 students graduated from an Independent Preschool Administered by the Ministry of National Education (IPAMONE) and continuing with the Ministry of National Education Primary School. For each student, relevant data was collected through interviews with semi-structured questionnaires, conducted twice at the beginning and at the end of a seven month period within the 2008-2009 academic year twice. Following these interviews, any differences or similarities between the answers of students coming from different types of schools are investigated. As an additional outcome of this study, changes in the opinions of each student between the two associated interviews were identified. The results of first interviews show that students in all types of schools liked doing reading and writing exercises with their teachers. However, during their second interviews, they favored studying and examinations instead. Nearly all of the students remembered their preschool experiences and mentioned that they missed play activities and the close relationship they had established with their preschool teachers during that period.

Samples of teachers and pupils (primary & secondary) in five countries (Czech Republic, Cyprus, France, Ireland, & Slovenia) completed questionnaires concerning dimensions of their thinking about learning science that reflect aspects of the constructivist approach. The dimensions concerned the actual experience of (1) teachers’ and (2) pupils’ and (3) teachers’ desired experience in relation to (1) personal relevance/ learning about the world; (2) uncertainty/ learning about science; (3) critical voice/ learning to speak out; (4) shared control/ learning to learn; and (5) student negotiation/ learning to communicate. There were significant differences between countries in each of these three data sets. Results are discussed in terms of the convergences and divergences between primary and secondary data in each country in each of these three domains for the five variables. The issue is whether science teaching is represented as about memorising or about investigating.

This study was carried out in order to determine how students’ attitudes towards mathematics changed according to their school and grade levels, and to examine which factors affected students’ attitudes from the views of students and teachers. This study was conducted with 698 primary third to eighth grade students, 367 of whom were male and 331 of whom were female and 6 mathematics teachers studying in those schools. Data of the study were collected by means of two instruments, Mathematics Attitudes Scale (MAS) and semi-structured interview. Obtained data were analyzed both statistically and descriptively. At the end of the study, it was observed that there is a meaningful difference in students’ attitudes towards mathematics according to schools. In addition, it was observed that attitudes of students enrolled to primary schools which consist of 3rd, 4th and 5th grades are meaningfully more positive than the attitudes of students enrolled to secondary schools consisting of 6th, 7th and 8th grades. In spite of this, it was found that there has not occurred a meaningful difference among 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students’ attitudes and 6th, 7th and 8th grade students’ attitudes in the same way. Finally, according to students and teachers factors affecting attitudes towards mathematics are teacher, friend, individual characteristics, family, mathematics issues, achievement and perception of mathematics difficulty and its importance.