Competitions are one of the most important and attractive activities for students in Romanian schools because they give them the opportunity to deepen the study of a certain discipline and to achieve performance in the favorite field.What is somewhat neglected in literature about educational contests is precisely the presence and influence of emotions experienced by students in the context of competitions that may have a positive or negative impact on the performance achieved. Test anxiety is the most frequently studied phenomenon and mentioned as a problem in the educational psychology, but there are no studies (at least identified by us) that have approached this topic with direct reference to the context of educational competitions (except for sports studies that frequently addresses the issue of competitive anxiety). Another aspect that is rather little studied in research concerned with academic emotions is the influence of emotional regulation on academic performance. Very few studies address the role that emotional regulation strategies have in the relationship between test anxiety and performance.Given the lack of studies on the impact of test anxiety and emotional regulation strategies on performance in educational competitions of adolescents with high intellectual abilities, we have investigated this issue in this study. The selected group of subjects consisted of 541 teenagers who participated in various national Olympiads (2017). The results show that cognitive test anxiety has a positive influence on the performance achieved in educational competitions. Even though emotional regulation strategies do not moderate the relationship between test anxiety and performance, they still have some relationship with both. Thus, test anxiety has positive relationships with all emotional regulation strategies, less with cognitive reappraisal. Performance has only positive relationships with two of the emotional regulation strategies (task-focused strategies and emotion-focused strategies) and negative relationships with other two of them (cognitive-appraising strategies and suppression). These links identified between the variables analyzed can be a contribution to the educational practice,
This research is developed as a distinct in-depth analysis phase focusing on a range of results from a national multi-dimensional survey which was performed last year. This survey provided an overall image of the teacher development programs accredited by the Romanian National Commission in charge of the evaluation/accreditation process. This comprehensive data base covers all the accredited programs implemented throughout the country for teachers who have continued their education (N=618) between January, 2009 and May, 2013, also including, the specific programs provided by universities (N=195). The survey research dimensions which are envisaged for our current analysis are: the thematic distribution of professional development programs; the program distribution based on ISCED levels; the program distribution by target population categories. The main goals of this project are: (1) the identification of teachers' expectations regarding the specificity of professional development programs offered by universities; (2) the identification of specific differences between the teachers' expectations development concerning university and other institutional providers' development programs. The data recovered through the SWOT analysis and focus group interviews, are exploited in order to formulate suggestions and recommendations for university providers of continuing teacher development programs. The research results are also useful for the national evaluator experts who are interested and have accountability in up-dating and consolidating the evaluation/accreditation methodology of professional development programs.
The pedagogical story of what the good teacher's characteristics mean is different according to the research findings in the regular classroom situations and, respectively, in the inclusive educational settings. One of such inclusive settings addresses the talented students. They require special attention from teachers and school policy makers in order to fully develop their talent potential. Talented students have specific psycho-behavioural characteristics and special needs that require specialized, differentiated and personalised teaching. Our work focuses on talented students' moral values and their intense socio-emotional characteristics and needs, such as the receptivity to moral perceptions, the sense of justice, altruism and orientation towards the fulfilment of ideals and the increased general sensitivity. This is the reason their teachers are highly challenged to profess and to promote the education for values. The methodological approach of this article is based on gifted-education-for-values-orientated literature review. The work provides also a synthesis of the good teacher's competences emerged from the relevant evidence-based research data found in recent literature. We found that most of these research results underline the desirable characteristics and competencies of the talented students' teacher, as a moral beliefs promoter.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.