MUHAMMAD AKBAR ZAHIDI - international research journal for quality in education

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International Research Journal for Quality in

Education An International Peer Reviewed Monthly Journal dealing with all aspects of Quality Education

Volume No. 1(2), Pages 1-30, August (2014)

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CONTENTS

Research Papers:

1. The Relationship between Stress Factors and MBA Students’ Academic Performance: Evidence from

Private Universities in Malaysia

- Mustapha Siti Maziha, Kaur Kamaljeet and Nik Salleh Nik Mohamad Zaki

1-4

2. Failure Factors of Physical Education Students in teaching Graduate Programme at Institute of

Teacher Education

- Muhammad Akbar Zahidi and Syed Kamaruzaman Syed Ali

5-11

3. Pública 14: A Report of a Fieldtrip as an Educational Strategy of Integrating the International

Dimension into the Goals of Higher Education

- Moura Anabela, Magalhães Carla and Gama Manuel

12-17

4. A Study on Constructing Indicators of Life Skills for Older Adult in Taiwan from the Perspectives of

Lifelong Learning

- Lin Li-Hui

18-22

5. A review of lights and shadows of Polish educational integration

- Beata Borowska-Beszta 23-30

http://www.shankargargh.org/

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International Research Journal for Quality in Education Vol. 1(2) August (2014)

1

The Relationship between Stress Factors and MBA Students’

Academic Performance: Evidence from Private Universities

in Malaysia Mustapha Siti Maziha

1*, Kaur Kamaljeet

1 and Nik Salleh Nik Mohamad Zaki

2

1. Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA

2. Multimedia University, MALAYSIA

*[email protected]

Abstract Full time Master in Business Administration (MBA)

students in universities face all kinds of pressures to

maintain optimal performance in a challenging

academic environment. Stress can have an impact on

their ability to complete their Master’s degree and

graduate. A significant number of university students

fail to get an acceptable level of academic

achievement which causes withdrawal or dismissal15.

Different stressors can all pose their own treat to a

student’s academic performance. The purpose of this

study is to detect if there is a correlation between the

stress that MBA students perceive that they are under

and their Grade Point Average (GPA). Perceived

stress was measured using the Perceived Stress Scale,

developed by Cohen and Mermeistein in 1983 and

GPA by the grades obtained in that semester. The

students were also asked to rank in order of

importance a list of possible stress factors. We

hypothesize that there would be a negative correlation

between the amount of stress perceived by the students

and the students’ GPA.

Therefore, a higher score on the Perceived Stress

Scale resulting in a higher level of stress, the

correlated GPA should be lower during that specific

semester. The study showed that some of possible

sources of stress contributed more to students’

perceived stress. The implication of the findings is to

offer better information to educators and

administrators on how stress manifests itself on MBA

students and its effect on students’ academic

performance. Programs aimed at helping students to

reduce their level of stress will help reduce academic

failures or withdrawals.

Keywords: Stress factors, MBA students, private

universities, Malaysia.

Introduction University students face many challenges in pursuit of

* Author for Correspondence

academic excellence. Awareness of factors associated with

academic performance in university students is useful in

helping students to maintain optimal performance in a

stressful academic environment. Stress is defined as

physiological non-specific reaction to external and internal

demands22

. Stress has also been described as a relationship

between an individual and his or her environment that is

perceived as dangerous and evaluated as beyond what he or

she can deal with13

. Thus, an individual’s perception and

reaction to an event causes stress, not an event itself.

Research shows that findings relating to perceived stress

among university students are inconclusive. Many studies

have been carried out to look at the relationship between

stress factors and university students’ experience and the

effects of stress on GPA. Hatcher and Prus10

called the

stress factors that are associated to university students as

academic situational constraints. The results of studies on

correlation between the score on the perceived stress scale

and GPA have been inconsistent. However, the hypothesis

for this study is that there would be a negative correlation

between the amount of stress perceived by the students and

the students’ GPA. Therefore, a higher score on the

Perceived Stress Scale resulting in a higher level of stress,

the correlated GPA should be lower during that specific

semester.

Review of Literature Many researchers like Gall, Evans and Bellerose

8 and

Mallinckrodt14

have studied academic stress and found that

college-related stress has been an important factor in

college student adjustment. Academic stress was found to

be negatively related to academic performance among

traditional undergraduates17,20

. Struthers, Perry and

Menec23

found that freshmen in particular are affected by

academic stress, so do inner-city high school students9.

Different stressors can all pose their own treats to a

student’s academic performance. A significant number of

university students fail to get an acceptable level of

academic achievement which causes withdrawal or

dismissal15

. According to Rocha-Singh19

, time constraints,

financial strain, academic workload and interpersonal

difficulties with faculty, peers and significant others

contribute to stress for college students. Findings from past

studies show that stress experienced by university students

results in negative outcomes.


2

There are many factors that could cause stress and

influence a student’s academic performance and thus his or

her GPA. However, what a student perceives as stressful

may not be as stressful for another student. A stressor on its

own may not be as harmful as when combined. A

combination of stressors may have a greater effect on a

student’s academic performance. The study also aims to

discover what possible sources of stress that contributed

more to students’ perceived stress.

The MBA program serves as a medium that facilitates

enhancement of leadership qualities and shaping of

versatile future managers. Students entering into this

professional education will face difficulties that will

challenge their perseverance as the pressure to achieve

good grades and get a degree is very high12

. Students

pursuing an MBA will require support to overcome

obstacles so they can achieve the desired academic

performance. Over the years, there have been numerous

studies that have looked at the correlation of different stress

factors that university students experience and the effects of

stress on their overall achievements and mental health.

However, there has not been much research that deals with

the full time MBA students and the implications related to

stress they experience.

Thus, it is timely that a study is undertaken to investigate

the relationship between stress factors and academic

performance of students pursuing an MBA. The findings

from the study would benefit various departments in

universities that deal with the planning and conducting of

required programs for the students to help them cope with

stress-related factors. In consequence, this will help them to

reduce their stress and gain better academic performance.

Methodology Sample: The hypotheses were tested using a convenience

sample of 171 MBA students (35% male, 65% female)

attending 2 private universities in the Klang Valley,

Malaysia. All participants were full time students with an

average of 20 hours of work spent at university attending

tutorials and performing other academic tasks.

The sample was representative of a typical MBA program

to the extent that it did not represent any one single

demographic group (e.g. gender, age groups etc.)

extensively. The data collection took place during students’

second semester and participants completed a written

questionnaire in their classrooms.

Measures: The participants’ perceived stress was evaluated

using the scale developed by Cohen et al5. It is a fourteen

item scale that requires participants to answer questions

pertaining to them during the second semester. The scale is

a measure of the degree to which situations in one’s life are

appraised as stressful. Participants responded to each item

using a five-point Likert-type scale from 1 (never) to 5

(very often). The scale has been proven to be a reliable tool

to measure only the amount of stress, independent of other

constructs like depression. The reported coefficient alpha

for this scale is .78. The scale produces a single score

where a higher score indicates a higher level of perceived

stress. Items 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 & 13 were reversed coded5.

Academic performance: A self-report item where

participants were asked: “Please indicate your current

cumulative grade point average” was used. Self-reported

GPA measures are often utilized in educational research6,11

.

Demographic Data: The participants were asked to

provide details about themselves for extraneous variables.

They reported data about gender, age, race, semester,

number of credit hours taken and GPA.

Stress Factors Survey: The participants were asked to

rank their top five stress factors that could have affected

their GPA.

Statistical Treatment: Descriptive statistics were utilized.

Pearson correlations were computed to assess the

relationship between variables. Data were analyzed using

SPSS.

Findings The Descriptive Statistics table shows that the mean score

for the participants’ perceived stress is 32.8 with a wide

dispersion as the SD is 6.23. This indicates that there is a

wide range of stress level among students. The mean for

the participants’ GPA is 3.3482. The standard deviation for

GPA is below 1.0 indicating the dispersion as rather small.

Descriptive Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N

Total Score 31.80 6.230 171

GPA 3.3482 0.20470 171

Based on the Correlations table, the correlation coefficient

is -.727. This value of r suggests a strong negative linear

correlation since the value is negative and close to -1. Since

the above value of r suggests a strong negative linear

correlation, the data points should be clustered closely

about a negatively sloping line. This is consistent with the

scatterplot graph obtained below.

Correlations

Total Score GPA

Total Score Pearson Correlation 1 -.727**

Sig. (2-tailed) .000

N 171 171

GPA Pearson Correlation -.727**

1

Sig. (2-tailed) .000

N 171 171

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).


3

The results of the correlation proved that there is a

significant relationship between the stress that students

perceive that they are under and their Grade Point Average

(GPA), p<0.01.

The hypothesis is that there would be a negative correlation

between the amount of stress perceived by the students and

the students’ GPA. The scatter plot shows that the higher

score on the Perceived Stress Scale resulted in a higher

level of stress and therefore the correlated GPA was lower

during that specific semester.

Relationship between perceived stress and GPA

The data from the Stress Factors Survey yielded the

following results. There are academic stressors as well as

psychological stressors which affect the academic

performance of students. In academic stressors, 19.6% of

the students ranked the course load as having the highest

impact on their academic performance. 16% of the students

ranked not getting enough sleep as the second stressor and

social activities as the third stressor (14.95). The fourth

stressor was lack of exercise. Interestingly, 9.5% reported

getting too much sleep as a stressor. There was also stress

due to financial constraint (8.1%).

Conclusion The findings of the study indicated that MBA students

clearly experience stress and it has affected their academic

performance. The findings from study confirm the

hypothesis that MBA students’ academic stress is inversely

correlated to academic performance. Course workload, lack

of sleep and social activities were reported to be the top

three factors contributing to students’ stress. Interestingly,

getting too much sleep has been found to be the fifth

stressor. This may be due to coping mechanism of some

students where they resort to sleeping when the pressure is

too much for them. However, by oversleeping, the students

reported that they become more stressed.

If university personnel are to effectively promote the

adjustment of these students to an academic environment,

they need to be aware of the types of stressors that are most

common to university students and the effects of those

stressors on outcomes such as academic performance.

Besides academic performance, evidence from past

research shows that stress experienced by college students

relates to outcomes such as anxiety and depression1,18

,

hopelessness and suicide ideation3,4

, decision-making

ability16

and attrition7.

MBA students could benefit from strategies to reduce

stress. The implication of the findings is to offer better

information to educators and administrators on how stress

manifests itself on university post graduate students and its

effect on students’ academic performance. Programs aimed

at helping students to reduce their level of stress will help

reduce academic failures or withdrawals.

Limitation The convenience nature of the sample (MBA students in

two private universities in Malaysia) requires replication of

this study in other university environments prior to

generalizing these results to all student populations.

Factors contributing to stress


4

References 1. Aldwin C. and Greenberger E., Cultural differences in the

predictors of depression, American Journal of Community

Psychology, 15(4), 789-813 (1987)

2. Aldwin C. and Revenson T. A., Does coping help? A re-

examination of the relation between coping and mental health,

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(2), 337-348

(1987)

3. Bonner R. L. and Rich A. R., Toward a predictive model of

suicidal ideation and behavior: Some preliminary data in college

students, Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 17(1), 50-63

(1987)

4. Bonner R. L. and Rich A. R., A prospective investigation of

suicidal ideation in college students: A test of a model, Suicide

and Life-Threatening Behavior, 18(3), 245-258 (1988)

5. Cohen S. and Williamson G., Perceived stress in a probability

sample of the United States, In Spacapan S. and Oskamp S., Eds.,

The social psychology of health: Claremont Symposium on

applied social psychology, Newbury Park, CA, Sage (1988)

6. Connelly K. P., DuBois N. F. and Staley R., Structured

interview study of the long-term effects of a college study skills

course: Traces and self-report measures, Paper presented at the

Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research

Association, San Diego, CA, April 15 (1998)

7. Cope R. G. and Hannah W., Revolving College Doors: The

Causes and Consequences of Dropping Out, Stopping Out and

Transferring, New York, Wiley Interscience (1975)

8. Gall T. L., Evans D. R. and Bellerose S., Transition to first-

year University: patterns of change in adjustment across life

domains and time, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology,

19(4), 544–567 (2000)

9. Gillock K. L. and Reyes O., Stress, support and academic

performance of urban, low-income, Mexican–American

adolescents, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 28(2), 259–282

(1999)

10. Hatcher L. and Prus J. S., A measure of academic situational

constraints: Out of class circumstances that inhibit college student

development, Educational & Psychological Measurement, 51(4),

953963 (1991)

11. Hensley W. E., What do grades mean? A pilot study using

sex, GPA and cognitive/semantic consistency, Paper presented at

the Annual Meeting of the Eastern States Speech Communication

Association, Pittsburgh, PA, April 27–30 (1995)

12. Hirsch J. K. and Ellis J. B., Differences in life stress and

reasons for living among college suicide ideators and non-

Ideators, College Student Journal, 30, 377-384 (1996)

13. Lazarus R. S. and Folkman Susan, Stress, Appraisal and

Coping, New York, Springer Publishing (1984)

14. Mallinckrodt B., Student retention, social support and dropout

intention: Comparison of black and white students, Journal of

College Student Development, 29(1), 60–64 (1988)

15. Pascarella E. T. and Terenzini P. T., How College Affects

Students, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass (1991)

16. Priester Michael and Clum George A., Perceived problem-

solving ability as a predictor of depression, hopelessness and

suicide ideation in college population, Journal of Counselling

Psychology, 40(1), 79-85 (1993)

17. Pritchard M. E. and Wilson G. S., Using emotional and social

factors to predict student success, Journal of College Student

Development, 44(1), 18–28 (2003)

18. Rawson Harve E., Bloomer Kimberly and Kendall Amanda,

Stress, anxiety, depression and physical illness in college

students, The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 155(3), 321-330

(1994)

19. Rocha-Singh Indra A., Perceived stress among graduate

students: Development and validation of the graduate stress

inventory, Educational and Psychological Measurement, 54(3),

714-727 (1994)

22. Russell R. K. and Petrie T. A., Academic adjustment of

college students: Assessment and counseling, In Lent R. W., ed.,

Handbook of Counseling Psychology, 2nd edition, John Wiley

and Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 485–511 (1992)

21. Schuler R. S., Managing stress means managing time,

Personal Journal, 58, December, 851-854 (1979)

22. Selye H., The Stress of Life, New York, McGraw Hill (1974)

23. Struthers C. W., Perry R. P. and Menec V. H., An

examination of the relationship among academic stress, coping,

motivation and performance in college, Research in Higher

Education, 41(5), 581–592 (2000).

(Received 01st July 2014, accepted 19

th July 2014)


5

Failure Factors of Physical Education Students in teaching

Graduate Programme at Institute of Teacher Education Muhammad Akbar Zahidi¹ and Syed Kamaruzaman Syed Ali²*

Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, MALAYSIA

*[email protected]

Abstract This study was about the failure factors of physical

education students in teaching graduate programme

(TGP) at institute of teacher education (ITE). Thus,

this study identified the factors of failure from

personal problems, lecturer, facility, syllabus and

school factors. Furthermore, this study used a mixed

mode method such as semi-structural interview and

questionnaires. To answer the interview instrument, a

total of 12 TGP students were selected from maximum

variation method based on six different zones. Then,

to answer the questionnaires, this research involved

40 TGP students at random.

Next, descriptive statistics of SPSS 21.0 software was

used to analyze the factors in five domains. The

findings of the study indicated that the domain of

syllabus factors contributed to the cause of the failure

at the highest level. However, the finding of the

lecturer communication was the highest among the

items. Therefore, failure was causing some effects

such as feeling sad, frustrated and stressed out to deal

with colleagues and family members.

Keywords: Physical Education Students, Teaching

Graduate Program (TGP), Institute of Teacher Education

(ITE).

Introduction Teaching Graduate Program (TGP) offered to in service

teachers who are under the Ministry of Education to uphold

their teaching profession as contained in the Education

Development Plan Blueprint 2013-2025 to ensure that all

teachers have qualifications at least at the undergraduate

level5. TGP goals were to raise the level of educational

qualification of Postgraduate Diploma in Education

Services (PDES) as well as to produce quality graduates,

including in the field of physical education in terms of

mastery knowledge, skills and competencies of

professionalism in line with the National Education

Philosophy and Education Teachers Philosophy1. So, this

program was very important to increase the number of

graduate teachers in primary schools over 60% from the

total before 2015. The goal line with the government

transformation programme launched a new offer for all

teachers to improve service quality and increase profile of

professionalism in their careers3.

Therefore, ITE has offered a total of 13,213 students for

TGP at ITE in June 2011, including the option or field of

physical education. However, the results of first semester

of that year showed a total of 140 TGP students failed the

examination4. After repetitions of examinations were

carried out, a total of 23 TGP students (30%) still failed

and stopped. A total number of students who failed in this

TGP was very large compared to the number of pre-service

students in Bachelor of Teaching which was only five

people in 2011, even though both groups of the students

were to follow the same curriculum structure6. Further,

Halim6 found that 40 TGP students of physical education

options failed in some courses until 2013 and now they still

continue their studies. Therefore, this research will identify

the level of failure based on five domains in the TGP.

Review of Literature The failure of TGP students in physical education at ITE

was due to several factors. Based on previous studies, some

preliminary findings showed that there were a few reasons

contributing to the factors such as personal problems,

lecturers, facilities, syllabus and schools. According to

Sulan2, through the failure of off-campus students at a local

university, personal factors were a major cause and showed

76% respondents failed to finish their studies. This was

because the students were in employment services. Besides,

their ages were different from full time students and some

of them were over 40 years old. Furthermore, some of them

suffered from health problems but age was not a

determinant of reaching a success. Then, students should be

wise in choosing option or field offered for the distance

education.

Accordingly, the family was decisive to ensure a success to

TGP students. This was because most of them were already

married and have to juggle between family and education.

Thus, sacrifice of time on weekends was a psychological

toll that must be borne by the TGP students. Besides, one

of the failures was due to the extra costs or fees. They had

to pay the fees by themselves to get extra knowledge. TGP

students had to be wise to choose their fields at the

university and if not, they were getting some difficulties to

follow the syllabus. Thus, encouragement from families

and friends was very important for the students to be

driving to succeed.

Moreover, according to Jamaluddin3, the cause of the

distance education students’ failure was due to lecturers.

The results showed that the absence of an attitude of

respect was causing the failure. Adult students deserve to


6

get a different learning approach from teenage students.

Therefore, lecturers should respect adult learners through

more effective discretion. Lecturers cannot be arbitrary

resolute in delivering teaching and learning. Thus, teaching

techniques need to be changed and require an

understanding with a different approach to teach the

students. Effective knowledge and techniques of

communication caused the students do not understand what

was being taught.

Further, a study from Rauzah and Muhammad4 showed that

convenience factor for adult learners was not giving

satisfaction. Distance education students had to use

facilities on weekends which were used by the previous

full-time students. Besides, the other facilities factors such

as ITE’s toilets were not clean, tables and chairs were not

enough, lack of an LCD projector, no internet connection,

difficult to get the internet password and the lecture rooms

were not clean5. All of these factors led to disruption of the

adult learning.

Next, Halim6 showed that syllabus factor for learning

distance was too difficult and far on their level of

knowledge. This led students to take additional classes to

understand the syllabus in their studies. Syllabus was quite

difficult, lack of practical learning and study period was too

long. These factors resulted for the students not to continue

their studies.

In addition, school factors were also involved in the failure

of TGP distance students. This was due to lack of moral

support at their workplaces. According to Jamaluddin3,

students who were in employment services needed

encouragement and support by the administration of their

organizations. Therefore, TGP students should not be

burdened with too much work to bother their emotions.

Administrators in the organization should understand that

performing various tasks in the same time required

cooperation between each other. In conclusion, all adult

students through distance education require motivation and

circumstances surrounding need to understand their

situations.

Methodology Research Design: In this study, the method used was

quantitative and qualitative. This study used a descriptive

design of description and narration. It used to describe an

understanding of the failure factors of physical education

students in TGP at ITE.

Sampling: To answer the interview instrument, a total of

12 student teachers were selected through maximum

variation based on six different zones. Meanwhile, to

answer the questionnaires, it was involving 40 students of

TGP students randomly.

Instrument: The main instruments in this study were a set

of interview and a questionnaire developed for identifying

the main factors that caused the failure of physical

education students in TGP at ITE. Interview instrument

was developed through the findings of previous studies

based on the objectives and research questions. Next,

researchers built a set of questionnaires based on the

findings from the interview. The questionnaire statements

consisted of two parts which were Part A and Part B.

Part A contained profile of the respondents while Part B

contained five main components which included personal

factors, lecturer, facility, syllabus and school that

contributed to the failures among the students. Further, the

last aspect contained a few steps and suggestions from

respondents to overcome these problems. The instruments

used were developed by the researchers based on an

interview pilot study that conducted towards 20

respondents in the Klang Valley one month before the

actual research conducted. Accordingly, the questionnaire

was constructed based on the findings from the pilot study.

Validity and Reliability Furthermore, researchers used content validity to assess the

validity of the questionnaire in this study. Based on a list of

scores given by a panel of three experts, the Cronbach

Alpha for the questionnaire instrument was 0.790 to 0.8.19.

In conclusion, the Cronbach Alpha in content validity of

this study was 0.806.

Then, the researchers used "test-retest" to test the reliability

level of expression in the instrument. The instrument was

evaluated twice on the same sample group of 20 persons

and analyzed through Pearson correlation to determine the

strength of relationship. The results of this pilot study

showed the reliability coefficient was 0.839. Thus, the

validity and reliability in this study was acceptable and

suitable to be used.

Data Analysis and Findings Table 1 showed that 35.0% of respondents were male and

65.0% of the respondents were female. In terms of age,

55.0% of students were 31 to 40 years old and 45.0% of the

students were aged between 41 to 50 years old. Based on

the categories of teaching experience, a total of 20.0% of

the respondents were between 2 and 10 years. In addition, a

total of 75.0% of the respondents were between 11 to 20

years. Meanwhile, a total of 5.0% of the respondents were

between 21 to 30 years. For the original option category, a

total of 40.0% of respondents were comprised of music

education option.

However, only 20.0% of respondents were composed of

science option. Next, the students’ option/ field category

showed a total of 10.0% of TGP respondents consisted of

Mathematics, TESL, Physical Education and Islamic

Education options. Furthermore, the category of option or

field chosen showed a total of 100.0% of the respondents

chose physical education.


7

Table 1

Profile of Survey Respondents by Gender, Age, Experience and Original Option/ Fields Offered at ITE

Profile of Respondents N %

Gender

Male 14 35.0

Female 26 65.0

TOTAL 40 100.0

Age

26 – 30 years old 0 0

31 – 40 years old 22 55.0

41 – 50 years old 18 45.0

51 years old and above 0 0

TOTAL 40 100.0

Experience

2 – 10 years 8 20.0

11 – 20 years 30 75.0

21 – 30 years 2 5.0

Over 31 years 0 0

TOTAL 40 100.0

Original Option/ Field

Mathematics 4 10.0

TESL 4 10.0

Physical Education 8 20.0

Science Education 8 20.0

Music Education 16 40.0

TOTAL 40 100.0

Option/ Field Chosen

Physical Education 40 100.0

TOTAL 40 100.0

Table 2

Personal Factors

Not Related Related

S.N. Item SNR N

(%)

NT N

(%)

QR N

(%)

R N

(%)

SR N

(%)

Mean Standard

Deviation

Level

1 Health problems 14 (35) 14 (35) 2 (5) 10 (25) 0 (0) 2.84 1.208 Average

2 Option / field of study offered 2 (5) 4 (10) 2 (5) 16 (40) 16 (40) 3.19 .961 Average

3 Family encouragement 6 (15) 6 (15) 4 (10) 4 (10) 20 (50) 2.95 1.069 Average

4 Sacrifice of time on weekends 4 (10) 12 (30) 4 (10) 8 (20) 12 (30) 3.05 1.181 Average

5 Tuition fees 16 (40) 12 (30) 2 (5) 6 (15) 4 (10) 3.25 1.033 Average

6 Difficulty field in TGP 8 (20) 4 (10) 0 (0) 10 (25) 18 (45) 3.32 1.010 Average

7 Friend encouragement 4 (10) 8 (20) 4 (10) 6 (15) 18 (45) 2.95 1.069 Average

Overall Mean 3.08 1.076 Average

SNR ÷ Strongly Not Related; NR ÷ Not Related; QR ÷ Quite Related; R ÷ Related; SR ÷ Strongly Related

Table 2 showed that the personal factors contributing to the

failure factors of physical education students in TGP at ITE

with an overall mean with M = 3:08, SD = 1.076 on

average level. The study found that the difficulty factor in

TGP field was a major factor in the failure with M = 3:32,

SD = 1.010 on average. The findings were in line with an

interview. The views and perceptions of the respondent

ware as follows:

Indeed ... I’m interested with my option of field chosen.. besides, I like P.E. but it is very difficult for me to study because I

have to use my physical.. but, learning in the institute changed everything.. sometimes, I'm enjoying learning P.E. but I’m too

old to learn P.E. physically ...and the problem is, I don’t get any support in terms of moral from anyone and I have some health problems. We really want to get good lecturers in ITE. I hope I can get a better future after finishing this study even

though I have to pay tuition fees by myself to get knowledge.

(INF1/North/14.2.2014)


8

However, the factor of health problems was the least

important factor with M = 2.84, SD = 1.208 on average

level. The findings were in line with the interviews. The

views and perceptions of the respondents were as follows:

...our seniors in the ITE are not helping us so much.. I cannot remember so many points in the class maybe because of my

age. Besides, my health is sometimes disrupted as well. I really hope that some young teachers can help me in my study. I can do all assignments given by written but it is difficult for me to use my physical at the field. Sometimes my lecturers just

teach us without knowing that we are older than them and our ages caused we could not able to remember so much things in our studies… but, sometimes we are ashamed to admit that we do not know anything in front of the class.

(INF2/Middle/22.2.2014)

Table 3

Lecturer Factors

Not Related Related

S.N. Item SNR N

(%)

NT N

(%)

QR N

(%)

R N

(%)

SR N

(%)

Mean Standard

Deviation

Level

1 Attitude of respect 2 (5) 2 (5) 4 (10) 8 (20) 24 (60) 2.96 1.216 Average

2 Lecturers service 2 (5) 0 (0) 2 (5) 12

(30)

24 (60) 3.07 1.151 Average

3 Lecturer assertive 2 (5) 4 (10) 6 (15) 8 (20) 18 (45) 2.96 1.179 Average

4 Teaching methods 2 (5) 2 (5) 4 (10) 6 (15) 26 (65) 3.12 1.127 Average

5 Lecturer attraction 4 (10) 4 (10) 2 (5) 8 (20) 22 (55) 3.29 1.007 Average

6 Teaching aids 0 (0) 4 (10) 4 (10) 8 (20) 24 (60) 2.84 1.146 Average

7 Lecturer’s

communication

0 (0) 0 (0) 2 (5) 14

(35)

24 (60) 4.96 1.216 High

8 Lecturer’s knowledge 0 (0) 2 (5) 4 (10) 14

(35)

20 (50) 4.07 1.151 High



Table 3 showed that the lecturer factors contributing to the


with an overall mean with M = 3.40 and SD = 1.149 on

average level. The study found that the factor of

communication with the lecturer was the highest factor

contributing to the failure of students with M = 4.96, SD =

1.216 at a high level. The findings were in line with the

interviews. The views and perceptions of the respondents

were as follows:

My communication with lecturers is not too good because I am older than them.. sometimes I felt just a little bit hurt with

their words.. but sometimes I'm ok with them.. but actually, I have no problem with a few single lecturers. Even their teachings are very poor but I am still respecting my lecturers. I know my lecturers well and they are still my lecturers till the

ends even some of them seem do not like me. But as students, we have follow their instructions.. some lecturers are very kind

depend on situation and time…but, I am not too disappointed with my destiny to have lectures like this. We have to accept it

right... but, there are lecturers who do not respect me as a student. We're too old, please treat us like boys. That’s why we

feel very difficult to communicate with these lecturers.. P.E is not an easy field to study via distance learning..

(INF1/East/25.2.2014)

However, the factor of teaching aids was the least

important factor with M = 2.84, SD = 1.146. The findings

were in line with the interviews. The views and perceptions

of the respondents were as follows:

... we are not teens anymore.. this means that lecturers have to teach using teaching aids... sometimes they did not bring any teaching aids, that is why it was difficult for us to understand. Sometimes we are thinking that what the lecturer is doing in

front of the class.. we do not understand anything.. My perception is, our lecturers may be tired in teaching on weekends..

that is why they teach us without using any tools...

(INF2/Sarawak/8.3.2014)


9

Table 4

Facility Factors

Not Related Related

S.N. Item SNR N

(%)

NT N

(%)

QR N

(%)

R N

(%)

SR N

(%)

Mean Standard

Deviation

Level

1 Toilet cleanliness 14 (35) 12 (30) 4 (10) 6 (15) 4 (10) 3.24 .867 Average

2 Number of tables and

chairs

12 (30) 4 (10) 10 (25) 8 (20) 6 (15) 3.25 .905

Average

3 LCD projector 4 (10) 4 (10) 14 (35) 12 (30) 10 (25) 3.31 .972 Average

4 Internet network 2 (5) 6 (15) 10 (25) 12 (30) 10 (25) 3.39 .972 Average

5 Internet password 6 (15) 8 (20) 8 (20) 12 (30) 6 (15) 3.15 1.386 Average

6 Classroom hygiene 4 (10) 8 (20) 10 (25) 6 (15) 12 (30) 3.20 1.105 Average

Overall Mean 3.26 .951 Average


Table 4 showed that the facility factors contributing to the



average level. The study found that internet connection was

the most relevant factor in contributing to this failure with

M = 3:39, SD = 0.972 on average level. The findings were

in line with the interviews. The views and perceptions of

the respondents were as follows:

…to me internet in the ITE is fine but sometimes the line sever is quite slow. It is because most of us always use apps in the

ITE. We have to admit that without the internet, we cannot study with peace. Internet is one of the facilities, but the problem is we're not being allowed to use the middle time of study. Our lecturers always bothering our minds and said it’s ok without

using the internet... instead we are poor and not able to buy broadband.. we rarely use the internet during the class period..

if not, lecturers will get angry..

(INF2/South/18.2.2014)

However, internet password was the least important factor

with M = 3:15, SD = 1,386 on average level. The findings



..ITE’s facilities can be considered 80% completed but there were 20% did not work properly. For example, some of us do not even know about the internet passwords in the ITE. Overdrive.. who know the passwords but sometimes the server is

really cannot be connected. ITE administrators have to know that there are many TGP students using the internet network at a given time. That is why the server is so slow..

(INF1/North/12.2.2014)

Table 5

Syllabus Factors

Not Related Related

S.N. Item SNR N

(%)

NT N

(%)

QR N

(%)

R N

(%)

SR N

(%)

Mean Standard

Deviation

Level

1 Syllabus

appropriateness

2 (5) 0 (0) 0 (0) 16 (40) 22 (55) 4.67 .971 High

2 Level difficulty 0 (0) 0 (0) 2 (5) 14 (35) 24 (60) 4.61 .904 High

3 Theory learning 0 (0) 2 (5) 2 (5) 14 (35) 22 (55) 4.33 .959 High

4 Practical learning 0 (0) 2 (5) 4 (10) 8 (20) 26 (65) 3.61 .942 Average

5 Learning period 2 (5) 2 (5) 2 (5) 6 (15) 28 (70) 3.38 1.039 Average

Overall Mean 4.12 .975 High


Table 5 showed that the syllabus factors contributing to the


with an overall mean with M = 4:12, SD = 0.975 on high

level. The study found that TGP syllabus suitability was the

most relevant factor contributing to this failure with M =

4.67, SD = 0.971 at a high level. The findings were in line

with the interviews. The views and perceptions of the

respondents were as follows:


10

…chapters in the syllabus are actually give a burden.. this syllabus had been provided by ITE itself.. so, the syllabus of the

institute is not suitable for us because we already come with our age and we are not like full-time students. I am telling you sir that studying at the institute is really giving a burden and very difficult. I think Ministry of Education should look up and

make a new syllabus for our program. As I said before, we are not robots, we are educators.. besides, there are so many

works to do in our studies.

(INF1/South/16.2.2014)

However, learning period was the least important factor

with M = 3:38, SD = 1.039 on average level. The findings



..I think two years are enough for us to study in this program to avoid our minds get in dizziness. This is just my opinion. Some of TGP syllabus contents are not suitable for us. Therefore, Ministry of Education should reduce the amount of

syllabus and at the same time reduce our study’s period. This is because we are experienced teacher. We do not need to

learn more and we already had learnt some of the topics in the syllabus.

(INF1/South/26.2.2014)

Table 6

School Factors

Not Related Related

S.N. Item SNR N

(%)

NT N

(%)

QR N

(%)

R N

(%)

SR N

(%)

Mean Standard

Deviation

Level

1 Administrator

encouragement

0 (0) 2 (5) 4 (10) 8 (20) 26 (65) 3.15 .932 Average

2 Burden of work 0 (0) 0 (0) 2 (5) 14 (35) 24 (60) 4.23 1.078 High

3 School program the on

weekends

0 (0) 2 (5) 2 (5) 14 (35) 22 (55) 3.25 1.016 Average

4 Importance of official

duties

2 (5) 0 (0) 0 (0) 16 (40) 22 (55) 3.18

1.159

Average



Table 6 showed that the school factors contributing to the



average level. The study found that burden of work was the

most relevant factor in contributing to this failure with M =

4:23, SD = 1.078 at a high level. The findings were in line

with the interviews. The views and perceptions of the

respondents were as follows:

…my school gives a lot of assignments to me… then, I have a lot of work to do including my study’s assignments. Actually,

school administrators already had known that we are learning in TGP, but they still burdened us with ridiculous works. We

are so tired to bear all these works including school works. Now, we are working like a machine.

(INF1/Sabah/8.2.2014)

However, encouragement from administrators was the least

important factor with M = 3:15, SD = 0.932 on average

level. The findings were in line with the interviews. The

views and perceptions of the respondents were as follows:

...there is no support from my administrators. I am really hoping that they can understand my situation in ITE. My lecturers give a lot of assignment to be accomplished. Sometimes, school programs on weekends require a lot of manpower. So, we

need to go to school and not to attend TGP classes.

(INF1/North/16.2.2014)

Discussion and Implications In general, the impact on physical education students in

TGP who failed in some courses was at a low level.

However, the study also found that there were some

impacts on the students who failed such as promotion of

graduation effects, depression, low of self-esteem, salary

increments and so on. Table 3 provided an overview that

the lecturers’ communication factor showed the highest

level in contributing to the failure of the students. It

indicated that lecturers’ communication was very important

for the distance learning process. There were five factors of

the key themes arising from the study such as personal

factors, lecturer factors, facility factors, syllabus factors and

school factors.

Personal: Generally, researchers found that all students

showed their determination to pursue a teaching bachelor


11

although some limitations were faced. The limitation

factors included their time, finance, distance between the

ITE and home and health problems. However, all of the

constraints need to be faced by the students sake for their

future. This was proved by their presence to every single

class on weekends. TGP students reported that they also

got a full support and encouragement from families and

colleagues in their schools.

Lecturer: Besides, TGP students’ relationships with all

lecturers were quite good except for some particular

lecturers. TGP students reported that some of them were

afraid to deal with arrogant lectures. This was because

some ITE lecturers refused to tolerate with TGP students

who had personal problems which could not be avoided.

Due to that, some of the students were lacking motivation

and encouragement because their lecturers seem to

underestimate their abilities as ITE students.

Facility: Although the internet server at the institute was

limited, the students reported that it was not a major

problem because they used their own broadband. Besides,

they understood that there were too many students using it.

In addition, students also reported that they had to sacrifice

their own money to buy sports equipment costing more

than RM1000 to ensure their studies were running

smoothly.

Syllabus: Besides, students reported that they had to learn

a high level syllabus which is beyond their abilities.

Meanwhile, TGP students only had a short interaction

session with only five meetings per semester. In other

words, students felt that this mode of program was not

suitable for TGP students and the syllabus should be

improved. It was because duration of assignments given

was very short and they did not have time to complete them

in a time given. To overcome this problem, the students are

willing to pursue an additional private tuition with a

qualified partner in the sports field. It is indicating that the

students have high aspirations to succeed and they are

willing to sacrifice their time, energy and money to achieve

their ambitions.

School: Schools including teachers and colleagues are

generally given a full support and encouragement to the

students who are in the program. In fact, some of them are

granted exemption from attending school activities on the

weekend if they have classes. This means their schools are

always provided high supports to improve their knowledge

and thus, help to enhance the overall professionalism.

Conclusion The findings showed that the failure factors of physical

education students in TGP at ITE were caused by an

imbalance assessment system in which the weightage was

100% based on exam-oriented. Next, most of them stated

that they still have to perform coursework, although the

weighted scores were not counted in the final examination.

Besides, the number of face to face interaction with

lecturers is limited and they felt that the course work marks

should be considered to help them to improve the exam

scores. This causes them to feel so disappointed even they

were doing the course work as best as possible.

In addition, they also have intrinsic assignments as a

schools teacher, to perform preparatory teaching and

learning as well as additional duties to another. At the same

time, they also need to divide their time and concentrate on

the task as a TGP student. Following the failure, the

students felt very sad, frustrated and stressed out to deal

with colleagues and family members. Despite their desires

to continue their studies to the degree level are still high,

some of them are desperate and reluctant to pursue again

because of their ages and afraid to face the failure again.

References 1. Sulaiman Fatimah, The concept of teaching through e-learning,

Journal of Distance Education, 8(12), 18-27 (2012)

2. Sulan Ibrahim, Lecturers teaching approaches and methods of

distance education, Journal of Management Education, 8(3), 54-

66 (2010)

3. Jamaluddin Khalid, Satisfaction of students through distance

education, Journal of Distance Education, 2(13), 34-41 (2011)

4. Rauzah N. A. M. A and Muhammad A. Z., Strengths and

weaknesses of distance learning, Journal of Educational

Administration and Management, 5(8), 32-43 (2013)

5. Rosli Kamaruddin, Failure of distance education students in

physical education, Journal of Physical Education, 9(2), 23-38

(2013)

6. Halim Siti Hasanah, Self-learning techniques in distance

students, Journal of Management Education, 2(8), 21-29 (2013).

(Received 27th June 2014, accepted 15

th July 2014)


12

Pública 14: A Report of a Fieldtrip as an Educational Strategy of

Integrating the International Dimension into the Goals of

Higher Education Moura Anabela

1, Magalhães Carla

2 and Gama Manuel

1,2

1. Art Education, Viana do Castelo Polytechnic, PORTUGAL

2. Communication and Society Research Centre, Minho University, PORTUGAL

*[email protected]

Abstract The importance of cultural activities in general

(including creative industries) is increasingly being

recognized in Portugal not only for its cultural and

human value, but also for the contribution it makes to

local, regional and national economies. However, one

of the issues facing Portuguese cultural policy

makers, educators and researchers, especially at local

and regional levels, is the scarcity of information and

quality data available that allows them to make

decisions that are based on evidence and are relevant

to local and regional economic, cultural policy and

practice. There is little cultural data on the northern

region of Alto Minho, specifically, on Viana do

Castelo. Part of the above mentioned legacy will be

the provision of further opportunities for specialist

training and practice for these cultural sector

professionals, as well as contact with current

international practice.

This presentation evolved from the belief of three

members of the staff of a BA Degree Course on Art

and Culture Management (ACM), at Escola Superior

de Educação, Viana do Castelo Polytechnic (ESE-

IPVC), Portugal. They believe that using a field trip

as an educational strategy could help to encourage

the development of an enduring network of

professionally minded cultural practitioners in the

region of Alto Minho who support each other, their

continuing professional development and their region.

But they also were aware that the field trip in itself,

would not be likely to reach this aim, unless it is part

of a programme of discussion on personal experience

and on the observed context. This presentation intends

to be a contribution of three members of staff of ESE-

IPVC and reports the main findings of a field trip visit

to ‘Pública 14’ in Madrid, during January 2014. It

describes how such international event worked for

them as a rich laboratory for exploring a variety of

cultural management issues and a measure of

intellectual dialogue and development not just for this

Polytechnic and its Art and Cultural Management BA

and MA students but also for wider society.

Keywords: Field Trip, Qualitative Research, Higher

Education, internationalization, Arts Management.

Introduction As teacher trainers and researchers in the sector of Art and

Cultural Management, we have been concerned with the

professional training in a social moment which is

characterized by a growing internationalization, involving

larger numbers of people integrating European partnerships

- something that is foreseen under the new Council of

Europe support frameworks for higher education and

culture funding through 2020. One of the most urgent needs

in terms of training cultural managers has to do with the

methods and strategies used in assessing the levels of

experience, understanding and knowledge that our students

should have regarding the arts and cultural sector on priori

basis for determining relevant curriculum content, with the

aims of contributing to the:

• production of knowledge about the relationship between

art and culture;

• improvements in the quality of arts management;

• development of a critical perspective on art and culture.

Aware that future developments in culture are always

dependent on European fiscal and national funding

dynamics as well as political agendas, these developments

are dependent to economic and financial adjustment to

which Portugal is currently being subjected. Considering

the new Community Support Framework, all in all, the

period from 2014 to 2020 will demand much more from

culture through civil society initiatives, than from the

cultural policies of EU states and their funding initiatives. It

is worthwhile to remind that, regarding Portuguese

situation, between 2014 and 2020, the aims of the new

approaches included in the EU support plan were:

- to promote and research which findings can help to

clearly identify the contribution of culture to the

Portuguese economic competitiveness and

internationalization;

- to train specialists intrinsically related with diverse

scientific areas such as Science, Arts, Heritage,

Communications, Sociology, Anthropology, amongst


13

others and promote employment, territorial cohesion

and development and

- to find more adequate financial instruments and the

best articulation between different ways of getting

funding in order to promote investment.

This leads to the question, that in light of diminishing

financial resources, how can a visit to Pública 14 work as a

laboratory for exploring a variety of issues in the arts and

cultural management sector and become a measure of

internationalizing professional development through

intellectual dialogue and development?

Background of the Field Trip In the first decade of twenty-first century, the Fundación Contemporânea (Contemporary Foundation) was created in

Spain, which is a platform for meeting, discussion and

debate for professionals in the cultural and creative sector.

It aims to contribute to the development of culture in the

professionals in the cultural sector, through practice-based

activities intended to (i) foster professional abilities; (ii)

create management tools; (iii) boost networking and

internationalization and (iv) support cultural entrepreneurs.

The creation in 2009 of the Observatoire of Culture

(Observatorio de la Cultura de la Fundación

Contemporánea, 2009) and the beginning of International

Meetings on Cultural Management, by Fundación

Contemporánea (2011), generically called „Pública‟

(Public), were two important initiatives of this Foundation,

amongst others, that sees itself as a space of discussion,

data collection and analysis regarding cultural sector, with

a publication of a report every semester.

The first edition of „Pública‟ was held on January 27th and

28th 2011 and it involved a roundtable moderated entitled

"The Profession of the Cultural Manager"1. In the

introduction of that roundtable, the former director of the

Master in Cultural Management at the University of

Barcelona reminded the participants that despite the

accepted view that cultural management can no longer be

considered as an emerging profession, the truth was that it

is not yet considered as a balanced and mature practice.

Three other studies were presented by Spanish researchers

of other regions and they revealed that most of the cultural

managers in the sector were women. They all had higher

education qualifications in this sector and at least ten years

of experience5. The main findings of these presentations

regarding training and practice for cultural managers were

that dialogue and constant articulation among practitioners

and researchers was fundamental for a successful level of

production of knowledge on the one hand and on the other

hand the implementation of good practices of their

professions on a daily base.

The planning of Pública 12, which brought together

directors and heads of public and private institutions in the

cultural sector, as well as other professional sectors directly

or indirectly related to the cultural sector and academics,

was structured into six themes: 1) New cultural projects; 2)

Experiences; 3) Management Tools; 4) Cultural Policy; 5)

Financing of projects and 6) Internationalisation9.

More than twenty papers were presented at the Circulo de

Bellas Artes in Madrid on January 26th and 27th 2012. The

presentation of Carme Sais6, president of the Professional

Cultural Management Association of Catalunya is

mentioned here for two reasons. First, as she represents an

association that was created in 1993, with over 750

members in 2012 and secondly, because her presentation

on the “Guide to the Best Practices in Cultural

Management”3, gave recognition and dignity to the cultural

managers profession and expanded technical, legal and

ethical knowledge regarding cultural management. The

Guide begins by introducing an operational definition of

cultural management, stressing the importance of

professional development for the artistic and cultural sector

and the integration of the sector into a social, territorial and

economic strategy. Secondly, it sets out some competencies

considered as fundamental for managers when performing

tasks in their profession, namely effectiveness, efficiency,

criteria, knowledge and flexibility.

Pública 1310,11

presented another guide entitled “Guía para

la Evaluación de las Culturales Politicas Locales"6, written

by the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces.

Despite the importance and relevance of this document on

cultural policies, this guide was subject to adaptations and

it will be used in the Portuguese project entitled, “Políticas

Culturais: o Papel Central do Poder Local II 2014-2020”

(or Cultural Policy: The Central Role of Local Government

II 2014-2020), which is being developed by a group of

national researchers who decided to reflect on the

contributions by José Tasat and the other participants in the

roundtable moderated by Rubén Caravaca11

.

The paper presented by the Coordinator of Management

and Academic Coordination of the National University of

Tres de Febrero in Argentina, José Tasat, has once again

encouraged academics to develop research and extension

projects that can contribute to qualify the cultural

management sector, but also to place culture at the center

of political discourse. The presentation which was

moderated by the president of the State Federation of

Cultural Managers, Rubén Caravaca, was important

because it allowed for the discussion of new business

models, especially those based on collaborative processes

in which citizenship is in the center of interventions and

that allow the creation of alternatives to traditional forms of

management based on economic models.

Pública 14 - ENCUENTROS INTERNACIONALES DE

GESTIÓN CULTURAL, with 20 countries participating,

incidentally did not include Portugal. For this reason a

small team of three teachers (Moura, Magalhães and Gama)

at Escola Superior de Educação, Viana do Castelo


14

Polytechnic (ESEVC), Northern Portugal, decided to create

its own inclusion by attending it. The main aims of the visit

were the following:

(i) to collect data from this field trip to "Pública 14";

(ii) to analyze and interpret the collected data;

(iii) to disseminate its findings and present a report.

Methodology Fieldwork is a fundamental qualitative research method

that higher education teachers need to address in their

courses as a means of surveying, observing, describing,

interpreting and mapping the different problems of their

own scientific areas. Polytechnics in Portugal and more

specifically, the Colleges that make up Polytechnics, are in

a strong position to shape a culture in research

development, particularly in the field of Arts and Cultural

Management, as the rules prohibiting these schools from

providing masters courses have changed and they are now

encouraged to form partnerships with other institutions that

allow the strengthening of such programmes.

In 2007, ESEVC began to run the first undergraduate

course in Portugal, in Arts and Cultural Management. After

decades of cultural, social and political isolation (until

1974) and a brief historical moment of "revolutionary" and

downstream cultural production, Portugal has made an

effort to put itself on par with the core countries with

regard to the production and distribution of culture and arts

(examples of which are the Serralves Museum and the Casa

da Música in Porto), despite all financial constraints. Thus,

in the field of artistic and cultural management, research in

educational sciences can play a crucial role in terms of the

development of reflective thinking, not only about

educational experiences and perspectives of artistic and

cultural management in cultural institutions of formal,

informal and non-formal education, but also in terms of

questions about production, distribution and access to

artistic goods and services.

Field trip as a research strategy is recognized as an

important tool at ESEVC, with a long tradition in terms of

Education and Research. Consequently, a field trip visit to

Madrid was funded, on January 30th and 31st 2014,

because it was considered as an important investment on

the professional training of the BA staff. The success of the

outputs of such field trip, as Almeida (1988) states would

depend not only on good planning, but also on how the

participants would perceive it, not only as a privileged

space for developing closer relationships with other people

and understanding their contexts, but also as an opportunity

for professionalizing learning, cognition and staff

motivation.

The field trip method17

is used in many modules of the BA

curriculum such as the optional courses in Education

Resources for Museums, or Sociology and Anthropology of

Culture, Contemporary History I and II, Research Methods

I, II and III, Professional Practice I and II, among others, in

which students learn how to collect data which can be

appropriate to solve specific problems or to locate some

needed resources.

Data Analysis Pública 14 promoted the encounter, discussion and

collaboration between public and private cultural

management professionals, institutions, organizations and

enterprises. The fourth edition included more than sixty

different activities. All of those papers provided the debate

and discussion of issues related to multi-disciplinary teams

and topics such as cultural policies, sustainable

development, cultural tourism, cultural marketing, funding

projects, support for farmers and entrepreneurs and creating

public and digital culture. It was focused on the theme of

internationalization and many of their workshops and

roundtables were made by professionals from institutions

such as Tate in London, ARCHIP and DOX Center for

Contemporary Art in Prague, the Czech Philharmonic or

the Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico, promoting the

debate on cultural policies, sharing stories of success and

management tools and also exploring opportunities for

collaboration between countries.

Again, concerns about the training of cultural managers

were under discussion, this year aiming to point out that

there has been a great development in the

professionalization of cultural managers. But it also noted

the existence of many cultural organizations, both public

and private, which do not invest enough in the training of

their employees. Enrique Villaba18

, director of the Master's

degree in Cultural Management from Universidad Carlos

III de Madrid, believes that the pedagogical formation of a

cultural manager should generally include the following

characteristics: be professionally recognized; be general,

theoretical, practical and vocational; be flexible and cutting

edge; have cultural requirements and be professionally

relevant.

Culture has been one of the fields most affected by the

crisis and one of the biggest problems of the cultural sector,

is its financing. For the creative and cultural sector

industries present at this conference, there are two obvious

difficulties: 1) for organizations and public entities, funding

programming and maintenance of infrastructures and 2) for

the private cultural sector, the difficulty in securing

financing, which conditions their existence. All sources of

funding were negatively affected, in whole or in part, by

the global and European economic and financial crisis. For

a cultural institution to create and realize a project or direct

it with success is therefore very complicated; however,

these difficulties often can increase the sagacity and talent

of cultural managers but should not be a justification of

their existence.


15

In the European models of financing the cultural and

creative sector, the State subsidizes and manages 80% of

the country's culture. The opposite tradition is represented

by the United States, which is characterized by limiting the

role of the State, placing the cultural policies of stimulating

culture in local scale and individual action13

. In this sense,

an example presented at Pública 14, was given by one of

the institutions that seems to have adapted to the crisis

through the reformulation of their management policies: the

Teatro Real, National Theatre Opera of Madrid. Madrid's

Opera made these changes in 2007 when the Spanish

Ministry of Culture left the control of Teatro Real, giving it

autonomy, allowing a professional management without

political interference. In terms of funding, the General

Director of this organism, Ignacio García-Belenguer said

that they opted for an intermediate solution between the

American model, in which 90% of funding is private (70%

from private donations, 20% from ticket offices and 10%

from the State) and the European in which 80% of the

funding is public (10% from private donations, 10% from

ticket offices and 80% from the State)12

.

The Director of Teatro Real stated that their financial goal

is to reach the 30-30-30 model where the public, the private

and the financing from the clients have the same weight. To

execute the new model of the Teatro Real, it was necessary

for the development of a conscience in civil society that

aimed to promote their participation in cultural fields and in

this particular case, in the Opera. Cultural and artistic

production is addressed to the public and therefore it is this

public that justifies the cultural production. Their presence

is a strong indicator of satisfaction and can be a strong

component of funding. The example of the Madrid Opera is

remarkable in the way that sought to regain and expand its

audience, counting on the public as one of their sources of

funding.

But even in countries where private investment takes

precedence over the Government, as is the case of the

United States, the State does not cease to fulfill an

important role in the regulation of this investment, as well

as maintaining a presence in the direct funding of artistic

and cultural activities, fulfilling a mission to fix economic

and social inequalities. In most European countries, such as

Spain or Portugal, the cultural funding is essentially public

with an important role exercised by municipalities.

However, in Portugal, the revenue that the government

intended for culture tends to be insufficient or poorly

distributed.

As opposed to the previous successful example and

following the presentation of the round table entitled, "Out

of the crisis strengthened. Experience the Royal Theatre",

by Gregorio Marañon, Ignácio García-Belenguer Y Joan

Matabosch at Pública 14, some cultural managers spoke

about their difficulties in terms of fund raising, especially

the small cultural organization‟s managers or emergent

managers of artistic projects. Those for whom there is not

enough public funding and private funding is scarce, their

difficulties are related to the fact that they compete with

large cultural organizations or public institutions without

economic power for the same resources, promoting an

unbalanced competition.

The creation of cultural projects has forced the viability of

its execution that depends not only of the quality and

originality of the project but, above all, their ability to be

financed. The ability to grasp funding can therefore be

considered a survival activity. Now, therefore, the current

trend is to measure the merit of a certain work by the

cultural producer‟s talent in grasping resources which in

most cases means to suit to the objectives of companies

(potential sponsors) to carry out the project and not for the

intrinsic qualities of its creation. In the case of great and

renowned museums, which are also having financial

problems for the maintenance of their spaces and

collections, they have chosen exhibitions that attract a

larger audience but their first and foremost interest is to

sponsors. Facing these problems and taking into account

the situation of recession and scarcity of public resources, it

is necessary to use greater assiduity in developing other

funding sources that so far have not been thoroughly used.

It becomes necessary to find networks of partnerships and

cooperation within and outside the countries.

Discussion Examining these empirical and qualitative contributions to

the develop of the BA and MA curriculum and its delivery,

it demonstrates how this visit could work as a laboratory

for exploring a variety of cultural management issues and

become a measure of intellectual dialogue and reflection

for professional development, not just for the Viana do

Castelo Polytechnic and its Art and Cultural Management

BA and MA students and teachers, which in turn, impact

the wider society. It has provided knowledge about a wide

range of international examples and their case contributions

that included the description and interpretation of practices,

insights and suggestions for improvement. It made clear

that the same visit would be very different in a digital base

support because it lacks the necessary direct contact,

experience and interaction amongst organizations,

institutions, professionals, students and teachers.

The field trip to Pública 14 was successful not only because

it revealed a number of key issues and provided insight and

actions for addressing problems such as the promotion of

national and international networks, affecting the future of

art and cultural management specifically in Portugal and in

Europe. It also enabled collaborative input by these groups

of teachers, whose working together on this event,

improved creativity and engagement. As cooperation,

creativity and motivation to learn from each other are some

of the aspects that need to be emphasized more here and are

crucial for the collaborative development of networks and

partnerships.


16

It is significant that the teachers learn from other models

and examples how to share risks and successes and how to

ensure sustainability and consolidation. In this regard,

Lourdes Fernández (Director of Off Limits) stated that

cooperation between organizations is crucial as it allows,

among other things, the opportunity to "create jointly; share

enthusiasm and spirit of mutual aid; create appointments

and common responsibilities"7. But she also warned that a

successful cooperation needs organizations to "give part of

the power, maintain a shared leadership, trust and respect,

because people and common projects are above individual

projects".

Taking into account that the networks of collaboration are,

first of all, networks of people, it seems clear that these

collaborations, as Lourdes Fernández defends, will lead to a

strengthened cultural sector through the possibility of

expanding new knowledge; enhancing individual skills;

consolidating the position of participants and the entities

that they represent and achieving a wider scope through

project results, which constitutes an element of strength

that becomes legitimized in the negotiations with local

authorities and potential financial partners. A clear outcome

from the debate of all presentations is that the conscious

way to the viability of the cultural and artistic sector

involves actions for the strengthening of organizations as a

strategy of development and sustainability of the cultural

sector, boosting capital, experiences and resources of

different origins.

Focusing on the analysis of the data collected during and

after this field trip, it is possible to recognize the evaluative

power of experiential field trips as a teaching/learning

strategy with implications for the training process. It

represents a valuable form of cultural knowledge and

assists in the understanding of contemporary, international

trends in the cultural management sector, as well as

providing insight into the different issues represented in the

diversity of projects at Pública 14.

With all this in mind, the proposal is made that in future for

supporting field trip research; the Higher Institutions can

reach numerous benefits – cultural, educational, social and

economic – that ultimately help generate a more sustainable

and innovative workforce and more creative communities.

Another important conclusion is that Higher Education

Institutions are the right places for creating and

encouraging a research culture and they can play an

important role at the local, regional, national and

international level, combining an active and interactive

attitude between students and teachers and community

cultural resources internationally. It is believed that there is

ample and sufficient research-based evidence about current

issues and concerns in the training and professionalization

of cultural managers since the inaugural year of the

International Meetings Cultural Management in Spain.

The field notes collected during this year‟s international

Conference in Madrid, show evidence of one of the biggest

problems of the cultural sector: its financing. From the

various testimonies shared in Pública 14, what stands out is

the observation of Rubén Caravaca4, a founding member of

the Fabricantes de Ideas, another space for the promotion of

cultural diversity who stated, “the crisis also generated

interesting projects carried out with almost no money. But

if we could get funding, imagine what we could do.”

Finally, this field trip proved to be an educational strategy

with potential to enrich art and cultural management

professional training contexts and will facilitate not only

some curriculum aims of our BA Course at Viana do

Castelo, but also future contacts with international

organizations, such as the Associació de Professionals de la

Gestió Cultural de Catalunya, with internship purposes for

recent graduate students of our BA. Therefore, it is

expected that at a time when the educational offer in

Portugal is being reviewed and the specific provision in the

cultural sector is still scarce and disjointed, this report will

be useful for improving practice through a deep analysis of

the significant national and international practices to be

encouraged and supported by this program representing

Portugal in the next Pública 15.

References 1. Agustí L., Sintesis de la mesa de debate “De Profisión Gestor

Cultural”, Disponível em http://www.fundacioncontemporanea.

com/pdf/Informe_Mesa_Debate_De_profesion_Gestor_Cultural.p

df. Consultado a 28 de abril de 2014 (2011)

2. Almeida A., Visitas de Estudo. Concepções e eficácia na

aprendizagem, Lisboa, Livros Horizonte, 23-128 (1988)

3. Canadell G. and Sais C., Guía de buenas prácticas de la gestión

cultural. Disponível em http://www.gestorcultural.org/images/

noticies/noticia1199516279.pdf Documento consultado a 28 de

abril de 2014 (2011)

4. Caravaca R., Cultura para nosotros. Replica al modelo cultural

hegemónico: público/institucional – privado/mercantil, In Pública

14, Madrid, Fundación Contemporánea, 30 de janeiro (2014)

5. Carreño Tino, Caminos cruzados: El perfil actual del gestor

cultural em Catalunya, Disponível em http://www.

fundacioncontemporanea.com/pdf/Publica11._De_profesion_gest

or_cultural._Tino_Carreno.pdf Consultado a 28 de abril de 2014

(2011)

6. Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias, Guía para la

evaluación de las políticas culturales locales, Disponível em

http://www.femp.es/files/566-762- archivo/Gu%C3%ADa_

indicadores%20final.pdf Documento consultado a 28 de abril de

2014 (2009)

7. Fernández L., Redes y Plataformas profesionales: algunas

pistas, In Pública 14, Madrid, Fundación Contemporánea, 31 de

janeiro (2014)


17

8. Fundación Contemporánea, Pública 11, Disponível em

http://www.fundacioncontemporanea.com/asi-fue-publica-11/

Consultado a 28 de abril de 2014 (2011)

9. Fundación Contemporánea, Pública 12 | Encuentros

Profesionales de Gestión Cultural, Disponível em http://www.

fundacioncontemporanea.com/asi-fue-publica-12/programa/.

Consultado a 28 de abril de 2014 (2012)

10. Fundación Contemporánea, Pública 13 | Encuentros

Internacionales de Gestión Cultural, Disponível em

http://www.fundacioncontemporanea.com/publica-13/programa/

Documento consultado a 28 de abril de 2014 (2013a)

11. Fundación Contemporánea, Pública 13 | Ponentes, Disponível

em http://www.fundacioncontemporanea.com/publica-13/

ponentes/Documento consultado a 28 de abril de 2014 (2013b)

12. García-Belenguer I., Salir fortalecidos de la crisis, La

experiencia del Teatro Real, In Pública 14, Madrid, Fundación

Contemporánea, 31 de janeiro (2014)

13. Moreira E., La Gestión Cultural: herramienta para la

democratización de los consumos naturales, Buenos Aires,

Longseller (2003)

14. Moura A., Educação Cívica, Artes e Formação de

Professores, In Moura A., Coquet E., orgs. Diálogos com a Arte –

revista de arte, cultura e educação, Braga, Ed. Centro de Estudos

da Criança, CIEC-UMinho (2010)

15. Observatorio de la Cultura de la Fundación Contemporánea,

Panel de expertos. Barómetro anual, Analisis de los resultados.

Disponível http://www.fundacioncontemporanea.com/img/2010

0705_111345.pdf Consultado a 28 de abril de 2014 (2009)

16. Sais C., Buenas prácticas en la gestión cultural, Disponível

em http://www.fundacioncontemporanea.com/pdf/Presentacio_

Carme_Sais_Publica_12_26.01.2012__Modo_de_compatibilidad

_.pdf, Consultado a 28 de abril de 2014 (2012)

17. Varela de Freitas L., Visitas de Estudo –breve relato de uma

experiência pessoal, In Fontes P., org., Cadernos Encontro O

Museu, a Escola e a Comunidade, Braga, CESC-IEC, 48 (1997)

18. Villaba E., Formacion & titulación universitária en Gestión

Cultual, In g+c revista de gestión y cultura, nº 5, 40-44, Granada,

Área de Trabajo, S. L. (2010).

(Received 21

st June 2014, accepted 18

th July 2014)


18

A Study on Constructing Indicators of Life Skills for Older

Adult in Taiwan from the Perspectives of Lifelong Learning Lin Li-Hui

Department of Adult and Continuing Education, National Chung Cheng University, TAIWAN

[email protected]

Abstract The world is experiencing population ageing at a

dramatic rate. According to the statistics released by

the Ministry of Interior (2014), by the end of January

2014, the population in Taiwan aged 65 and above

has attained to 2,704,605 which constitute 11.57% of

the national population. Since the percentage of older

adult is growing dramatically, how to promote life

quality of older adult has become a hot issue all over

the world.

The notion of life skills relates to the diverse

knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that together

enable people to achieve their personal goals,

function effectively in their social environment and

enhance their quality of life. To say it further, the

importance of life skills is widely acknowledged as

central to the everyday survival, health and well-being

of older adult.

Keywords: Older adult, life skills, indicator, lifelong

learning.

Introduction According to the statistics released by the Ministry of

Interior8, by the end of January 2014, the population in

Taiwan aged 65 and above has attained to 2,704,605 which

constitute 11.57% of the national population. By 2025 the

elderly population is estimated to increase to 4,900,000, or

20.69% of the total population. This rapid percentile

growth in the elderly population means that older adult will

form a significant segment of Taiwan’s future society and

that improvement to their quality of life will be a high

priority for government policymakers.

UNESCO’s promotion of “Education for All” through its

evaluation reports incorporates a concept of life skills that

has not been emphasized by academia until recent years. In

general, “life skills” refers to any knowledge, skills, values

and talents which can help children, youth and adults

achieve their goals, contribute to their society and improve

the quality of life. More specifically, life skills are the keys

to survival, health and happiness in daily life13

. Hence, the

value of this research is confirmed by UNESCO’s

recommendation that developed as well as developing

countries should embrace this issue.

An ageing society is characterized by an increasing

population of older adults who need to acquire new life

skills. But what should they learn and how should they

acquire these skills? Leon County Schools7 indicates that

well-designed life skills training courses can help teachers

meet the needs of older adult. Powney, Lowden and Hall11

also find that these learners can acquire such skills more

efficiently if courses are designed on the basis of life skills

indicators. All told, the necessity of establishing the life

skills indicators of older adult becomes clear.

Research purposes Since 1970 UNESCO, out of concern for the ageing society,

has been an advocate of the principle of lifelong learning.

Scholars also believe that involvement in lifelong learning

can help older adult enjoy a more pleasant life and better

contribute to their society6. These older adult usually pay

considerable attention to their health; relations with friends,

spouses, children and grandchildren and career

achievements. New knowledge or skills can help them

achieve a high quality of life during their senior years.

This study aims to establish indicators of life skills for

older adults based on the perspective of life-long learning.

In its publications Learning: The Treasure Within and

Nurturing the Treasure: Vision and Strategy 2002-2007,

UNESCO outlines five basic aspects of lifelong learning

that are especially necessary for society: “learning to live

together”, “learning to know”, “learning to do”, “learning

to be” and “learning to change”. This paper is based on the

framework as shown in figure 1.

Learning to live together

Learning to know Learning to be

Learning to do Learning to change

Figure 1: Aspects of life skills

Life

Skil

ls


19

Review of Literature Life skills involve at least three major aspects: attitude,

knowledge and skills10

. Attitude refers to one’s motivation

to acquire, utilize and develop life skills. Knowledge puts

an emphasis on the knowledge of “how to do things” which

can help individuals make correct decisions. Finally, skills

depend on attitude and knowledge and enable one to obtain

the abilities or skills involved in “learning to do” and

“learning to know”. The United Nations Children’s Fund

also takes a similar stand believing that life skills can help

individuals put their knowledge and attitude/value into

practice—in other words, facilitate the process of learning

to do13

.

Following the definition given by the United Nations and

the line of work done by Bailey and Deen1 and

others2,4,5,9,10

, this paper defines life skills as the attitude,

knowledge and skills including “learning to live together”,

“learning to know”, “learning to do”, “learning to be” and

“learning to change.” Older adult should acquire these in

order to cope with the challenges of an ageing and

changing society. It is a complex and multifaceted

philosophy. Scott12

proposes we learn different skills at

different stages of life (adolescence, adulthood and old age).

This paper adopts Scott’s theoretical framework to study

the aspects of life skills that are necessary for older adult.

The philosophy of lifelong learning has gained increasing

worldwide popularity. Powney et al11

distinguished

between two kinds of life skills: those which enrich a

person’s life and those which should form the basis of the

compulsory courses in lifelong learning. Based on these

scholars’ views and interpretations, we have concluded that

certain skills are necessary for the elders as part of lifelong

learning as shown in table 1.

Table 1

Aspects of life skills for older adult under the concept of

lifelong learning

Lifelong Learning Life skills for older adult

Learning to live together Family responsibility

Interpersonal abilities

Learning to know Literacy

Consumer skills

Learning to do Career development

Health maintenance

Learning to be Self-development

Citizenship skills

Learning to change Resource utilization

Leisure management

Life skills the elderly need thus include:

1. Family Responsibility: The ability to manage

housework, marriage and children’s education.

2. Interpersonal ability: The ability to interact with

neighbors, get along with others, be open-minded and

communicate well.

3. Literacy: The ability to read, write and do simple

mathematics.

4. Consumer skills: The ability to manage personal finance,

to make purchases and to understand the consumer

economy.

5. Career development: The ability to apply for jobs, to

manage one’s career management and to seek

post-retirement employment.

6. Health maintenance: The ability to choose a healthy

lifestyle, to locate medical information and to maintain

health.

7. Self-development: The ability to make decisions, to be

responsible, to analyze and solve problems, to know the

purpose of life and individual development and to engage

in critical thinking and understanding.

8. Citizenship skills: The ability to understand the rights

and obligation of citizens and to fulfill one’s

responsibilities as a citizen.

9. Resource-utilization: The ability to make use of

community resources, to know how to obtain services and

to use resources efficiently.

10. Leisure management: The ability to manage leisure

life, to use facilities and to involve oneself in leisure

activities.

Research Methods The research design involves several steps. First, a

thorough literature review was conducted with a goal of

constructing our theoretical framework. Second, a number

of focus group discussions were organized in northern,

central and southern areas of Taiwan. Afterwards, a

questionnaire based on the Delphi Technique was

formulated in order to distinguish among main indicators,

sub-indicators and reference indicators.

Using the Delphi Technique, a questionnaire on life skill

indictors for older adult was designed in light of scholarly

literature and focus group discussion and subjected to three

rounds of reviews. The questionnaire contained an

introduction, instructions, personal information and the

essence of the life skills. The input from round 1 was

attached to rounds 2 and 3 as the reference data for the

Delphi Technique experts. The data gathered from these

questionnaires gave us a picture of life skills indicators for

older adult.

Data Analysis Analysis of the questionnaires was carried out by SPSS


20

which measured percentage, frequency analysis, mode,

mean and standard deviation to examine whether the results

were significant. The questionnaire studied two aspects: the

suitability and significance of the indicators. Percentage

measure was adopted to evaluate the suitability of the

indicators in round 1 and the Likert 5-Point Scale for round

2 and 3. In round 1, the indicator was defined as

appropriate if it achieved more than 80% of suitability. For

rounds 2 and 3, if the mode and mean point of an indicator

was more than 3 and 3.5 respectively and the SD <1, this

indicated that all experts reached a consensus on the

indicators. In terms of the study of the significance of

indicators, the Likert 5-Point Scale was carried out during

all three rounds of review. Equally, if the mode and mean

point of an indicator were more than 3 and 3.5 respectively

and the SD <1, all experts were deemed to have reached a

consensus on the indicators.

During three focus group discussions, we established a core

concept which was developed into the Delphi Technique

questionnaire. From this data we concluded that in addition

to the above-mentioned five life skills for the older adult,

the complete lifelong learning process should also

incorporate “learning to self-care.”

Round 1 of the questionnaire covered six aspects: learning

to live together, learning to know, learning to do, learning

to be, learning to change and learning to self-care. This

questionnaire included 13 dimensions (“learning to change”

had three dimensions while the others had two dimensions)

and 68 indicators.

As the experts reviewed the results from round 1, round 2

was modified to have 6 aspects, 13 dimensions and 64

indicators. Finally, after the results from round 2 were

reviewed, round 3 was revised to have 6 aspects, 13

dimensions and 61 indicators. The measures of frequency

analysis, percentage, mean and standard deviation were

employed in the analysis of the significance of these

indicators.

Conclusion This research aims to establish life skill indicators for older

adults from the perspectives of lifelong learning. Also

studied were the aspects and indicators of life skills for the

older adults and the significance of these indicators. The

conclusions are as follows:

(1) Life skills for older adult should include six aspects and thirteen dimensions: Life skills should include 6

aspects—learning to live together, learning to know,

learning to do, learning to be, learning to change and

learning to self-care and 13 dimensions.

i). Learning to live together including two dimensions:

(A) the ability to understand others and

(B) the ability to manage interpersonal relations.

ii). Learning to know including two dimensions:

(A) the ability to solve problems and practice skills and

(B) the ability to enhance learning ability.

iii). Learning to do including two dimensions:

(A) the ability to develop a role after retirement and

(B) the ability to live independently.

iv). Learning to be including two dimensions:

(A) the ability to purse self development and

(B) the ability to participate in social activities.

v). Learning to change including three dimensions:

(A) the abilities to adapt,

(B) the ability to make use of resources and

(C) the ability to use information technology.

vi). Learning to self-care including two dimensions:

(A) the ability to maintain health and

(B) the ability to care for oneself.

(2) The sixty-one indicators for the skills: i). The ability to understand others (5 indicators)

ii). The ability to manage interpersonal relations (4

indicators)

iii). The ability to solve problems and practice skills (4

indicators)

iv). The ability to enhance learning (6 indicators)

v). The ability to develop a role after retirement (3

indicators)

vi). The ability to live independently (8 indicators)

vii). The ability to pursue self-development (5 indicators)

viii). The ability to fulfill responsibilities as a citizen and

become involved in society (4 indicators)

ix). The ability to adapt (7 indicators)

x). The ability to make use of resources (4 indicators)

xi). The ability to use information technology (3 indicators)

xii). The ability to maintain health (4 indicators)

xiii). The ability to care for oneself (4 indicators)

(3) The significance of these indicators: The 61 indicators

have the Mean score on the Likert 5-Point Scale of between

3.50 and 4.83. This shows that the indicators range from

significant to highly significant. Following are the

explanation of the indicators that had the highest Mean

score.


21

i). The ability to understand others: to develop a social life

(Mean score is 4.62)

ii). The ability to manage interpersonal relations: to live

together with one’s spouse (Mean score is 4.54)

iii). The ability to solve problems and practice skills: to

solve problems in daily life (Mean score is 4.83)

iv). The ability to enhance learning: to engage in lifelong

learning (Mean score is 4.31)

v). The ability of role development: to develop a role after

retirement (Mean score is 4.50)

vi). The ability to live independently: to take care of daily

life needs (Mean score is 4.83)

vii). The ability to pursue in self-development: to enhance

one’s personal value (Mean score is 4.23)

viii). The ability to fulfill one’s responsibilities as a citizen

and become involved in society: to engage in public affairs

and be aware of the rights and obligations of citizenship


ix). The ability to adapt: to adapt to old age (Mean score is

4.69)

x). The ability to make use of resources: to consult on, be

aware of and use the rights of older adult (Mean score is

4.46)

xi). The ability to use information technology: to collect,

choose and use information and to be able to operate new

technology such as mobile phones and computers. (Mean

score is 4.31)

xii). The ability to maintain health: to manage one’s health


xiii). The ability to care for oneself: to be aware of self

health conditions (Mean score is 4.69)

Suggestions

This research has included six aspects, thirteen dimensions

and sixty-one indicators with the regard to the life skills of

older adult and is aimed at facilitating the enhancement of

their quality of life and personal values. However, several

variables such as age, economic condition and social status

should be also taken into account when applying these

indicators. Therefore, we suggest that they be considered as

an assessment to study the needs of disadvantaged older

adult. As for the older adult in general, they should be seen

as a reference for the management of lifelong learning and

education institutions for older adult.

(1) To emphases the value of lifelong learning and

encourage older adult involvement in learning: We

propose three approaches to encourage older adult’s

involvement in lifelong learning:

i). By detailing the advantages of lifelong learning and the

successful experience of other learners, we can encourage

their involvement in lifelong learning. We should also

design the learning material based upon individual needs.

ii). Older adult learn more readily through familiar media

(for example, neighborhood sound trucks). The announcer

should also use friendly language.

iii). The utilization of community resources can deepen the

concept of lifelong learning through the establishment of

learning centers. These can provide many convenient

learning opportunities and would recruit a greater variety of

older learners.

(2) Life skills indicators for the older adult as a future reference for educational institutions: In round 3 of the

questionnaire, experts identified sixty one indicators as

either significant or highly significant. Based on this

finding, we propose the following principles for

educational institutions dealing with senior learners.

i). While arranging courses, institutions should take into

account the thirteen dimensions which had an

higher-than-Mean score: namely the ability to develop a

social life; live together with one’s spouse; solve problems

in daily life; engage in lifelong learning; develop a role

after retirement; take care of their needs in daily life;

enhance their personal value; engage in public affairs;

adapt to old age; consult with others; be aware of and use

the rights of older adult; collect, choose and use

information, as well as be able to operate new technology

such as mobile phones and computers; manage one’s health;

and take care of oneself.

ii). Brochures detailing information about practical life

skills for seniors should be provided as a reference to all

public sectors responsible for older education.

iii). A promotional video could be produced to promote the

six aspects of life skills and a new image for seniors.

(3) The strengthening of older adult’s ability to solve

problems, practice their skills and live independently:

This research has found the most significant dimensions to

be role development after retirement and the ability to live

independently (the Mean score was 4.83). Thus, we

conclude that these two dimensions are of most importance

in helping senior citizens adapt to old age:

i). Older adult should develop the ability to care for

themselves through lifelong learning, involvement in

society and open-mindedness to new ideas in the ageing

society.


22

ii). By participating in lifelong learning, older adult can

learn to live independently, improve their lives, better

manage their careers and take care of their daily life.

References 1. Bailey S. J. and Deen M. Y., Development of a web-based

evaluation system: a tool for measuring life skills in youth and

family programs, Family Relations, 51, 138-147 (2002)

2. Brooks D. K. Jr., A life skills taxonomy: defining elements of

effective functioning with the use of the Delphi technique,

unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of Georgia

(1984)

3. European Commission, European Report on Quality Indicators

of Lifelong Learning, Brussels, author (2002)

4. Gazda G. M., Childers W. C. and Brooks D. K., Foundations of

counseling and services, New York, McGraw-Hill (1987)

5. Hamburg B. A., Life-skills training: preventive interventions

for young adolescents, (ERIC Document Reproduction Service

No. ED323018) (1990)

6. Henry N. J., A qualitative study about perceptions of lifestyle

and life satisfaction among older adults, unpublished doctoral

dissertation, Syracuse University (1989)

7. Leon County Schools, Life skills curriculum for senior adult

learners, (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED361116)

(1989)

8. Ministry of Interior, Monthly population statistics of household

registration, Retrieved July 12, 2014, from http://sowf.moi.gov.tw

/stat/month/list.htm (2014)

9. Mullen D., A conceptual framework for the life skills program,

(ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED218438) (1981)

10. Nelson-Jones R., Life skills: a handbook, London, Cassell

Educational Limited (1991)

11. Powney J., Lowden K. and Hall S., Young people’s life-skills

and the future, Research report series, (ERIC Document

Reproduction Service No. ED445268) (2000)

12. Scott D. M., An investigation of the relationship among

life-skills, self-esteem and well-being in adults, unpublished

doctoral dissertation, Louisiana Tech University (2002)

13. Wanger D., Sabatini J. and Gal I., Assessing basic learning

competencies among youth and young adults in developing

countries: analytic survey framework and implementation

guidelines, EFA 2000 assessment surveys report, (ERIC

Document Reproduction Service No. ED449299) (1999).

(Received 03rd

July 2014, accepted 20th July 2014)


23

A review of lights and shadows of

Polish educational integration Beata Borowska-Beszta

Faculty of Education Sciences, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, POLAND

[email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract Integration (inclusion) is the important issue and demand for any education system world wide. It

assumes inclusion of children and youth with various

disabilities to the education system. Polish system of inclusive education is supported by bright theoretical

ideas of inclusive teaching and shadows during implementations within educational settings. This

paper is a review of light and shadows of Polish

contemporary educational integration (inclusion) system.

The contents are arranged chronologically, illustrating the evolution of Polish definitions and

concepts of integration in education, since Aleksander

Hulek, the creator of Polish concept in 70's.

Keywords: Educational integration, inclusive education,

inclusion, system of education, disabilities, children,

adolescents.

Introduction

Although the Anglo-Saxon world is dominated by the

concept of inclusion, this paper uses the concept of

integration and inc lusion interchangeably. The term of

integration was primarily used by the author of Polish

inclusion concept – Professor Aleksander Hulek10-13

in 70's.

The term of integration is still much more widespread in

Poland and constantly present in the Polish reality of the

legal, theoretical and practice areas.

Concepts of the educational integration of pupils with

disabilities in Poland: The concept of integration is not

semantically unambiguous, it is sometimes interpreted

differently. Polish scholars at times understood it as a

merge, creating entirely of parts, harmonizing social

collectivity15

.

The first Polish definition, created by Hulek11

emphasized

the signif icant axiological dimens ion of integration,

however, referred to the medical model of conceptualizing

disability. According to Hulek11

, integration is accepting

and creating conditions for the persons with disabilities to

participate in a supportive, motivating and stimulating

possibilities environment which contributes to their active

participation in various areas of life. According to the

author11

, "integration is respect for human values and it

expresses itself in the failure of distinction between able

and those with disabilities and is implemented in mutual

contacts. It is assumed condoning human with disability

values, regardless of his/her achievements and current

standards".

Special educator Sękowska33

drew attention to the

availability of the educational environment for people with

disabilities as an aspect of integration.

Kościelska19

defined the integration as the process of

assembling a completion but also taking into account the

natural environment as a site of integration. The natural

environment, according to the author's opinion, allows for

the formation of correct behavior and interactions occurring

between children who have disabilities cause at the same

time with those without disabilities.

According to a special educator Dykcik5, an important

aspect of integration is to highlight the presence of people

with disabilities in the non-segregated areas. In 2001, the

author5 wrote: "Integration is an expression of way of the

democratization of social life, the direction of change in

which at every stage of life of the individual, regardless of

the type and degree of occurring developmental disability

constraints, the natural environment is guaranteed as non-

segregated setting. Integration expresses desire to create

such persons may be fully or partially integrate into

mainstream life, access to all the institutions and services

that benefit persons without disabilities“.

Kossewska18

pointed out the integration and its broad and

pragmatic dimension, as the ability to live together in

harmony and interaction of people with disabilities on the

set of social life. In the narrow dimension the author

embedded its foundation in educational integration. The

author18

wrote, "In a broad sense [integration] expresses the

ability to live together in harmony and interaction of people

with disabilities in all forms and situations of social life - at

school, home, work, leisure time, which boils down to

social inclus ion. In contrast is the narrow meaning of the

term of school integration, which enables students with

disabilities to study in public schools and mass education

along with able students and allows them to use aids

according to individual abilities".

Maciarz23

defined the concept of social integration of

people with disabilities in Poland. The author believed that

this concept is "the idea, the direction of social change that

is reflected in the pursuit of such a normalization of living

conditions, development, rehabilitation, education and

activities of persons with disabilities of all ages to have had

the possibility of subjective and unrestricted participation


24

in natural social environment and to be available to them

all the institutions that are accessible to persons without

disabilities.”

Chodkowska3 focused on the aspect of teleological concept

of integration. According to the author, a human from an

early age feels the need to integrate. In the early stages of

life provides us with our family, but in the later stages of

their lives looking for contacts with other people, going

beyond the family. With age, relationships and contacts are

more in-depth and stable. Security, recognition and social

ties are necessary, contained in need of integration. Not all

children are able to independently handle relationships with

their peers. Children with different types of difficulties

have a problem in establishing contacts with peers.

Kościelska19

sees in the integration chances of education

and training a new generation in a different way. These key

content and values of inclusive education will be

acceptance, dignity and tolerance. Kościelska19

believes

that the process of integration indicated that values become

easier to raise awareness and understanding of, inter alia,

through daily contact with another human being, who has

to overcome many barriers, unknown to us. The mere

creation of an inclusive classroom according to the author,

however, does not benefit to healthy children. Possession of

the proper knowledge about pupils with disabilities, also

appropriate to their age, proper preparation of teachers to

work in an inclusive classrooms or pro-integration

education of parents is also required19

.

Theoretical assumptions and implementation

Reaching the beginnings of the Polish concept of

integration, some of its correctness was the assumption of

mutual relations between persons with disabilities and able

peers implemented on an equal bas is. Analyzing the

contemporary Polish scientific literature, specialist can

meet many classifications types and forms of integration

(inclusion), postulated or implemented in practice.

Dykcik

5 pointed out three of its dimensions:

1) Physical: When the persons without disabilities and with

disabilities are next to each other, but not with each other,

there occurs the actual reduction in the distance, but there is

no interaction.

2) Functional: Functional integration of lower level is

where the person concerned shall undertake joint actions on

different materials and by other program activities. A

higher degree is when the person is interested in pursuing

the same activity in the same program.

3) Inclusion: The third dimension as indicated by Dykcik5

is inclusion. It is the highest form of spontaneous

participation in any social group, on the basis of full

participation, requir ing psychological and educational

preparation of both parties.

Hulek12

believed that "functional integration lies in the fact

that people with disabilities live, work and spend their free

time in the same conditions as non-disabled people". He

stressed that it is not possible, if they are not used to this

process right tools to help disabled people to function in

their natural environment.

We can distinguish two other concepts of integration:

complete and incomplete. The full integration allows the

disabled to lead a normal life, providing them with all the

institutions of education, work, culture and recreation,

enjoyed by people without disabilities. Integration is

incomplete while it is the complement of the society for

people with disabilities.

With regards to educational integration, Hulek11

distinguished the following forms of training and

education: enabling participation for children and young

people with disabilities in regular classes in mainstream

schools. Within this form author distinguished two forms of

integration: - functional integration, where in addition to

the physical inclusion of the child to class, it must be given

adequate assistance and the conditions conducive to the

orderly functioning in the role of a student and a member of

the peer group and the inclusion consisting of local

integration, as turn the child to class and leave it "himself."

Hulek11

also pointed out a form of social integration,

manifested in organizing classes or special classes in

mainstream school. Among further distinguished forms of

integration were special schools (segregated) daily, for

children living in family homes and special schools

(segregated) boarding, designed for children who live in it

Monday to Friday and Saturdays and Sundays spending at

home.

Another organizational form of inclusive (integrated)

education was for Hulek35

teaching student at his/her home

by teachers from local mainstream schools and special

schools.

Maciarz24

analyzing the educational process in terms of

integration, singled out two main planes of integration: an

individual, when children with disabilities are treated

equally with others, is taught in the classroom or daycare

group inclusion and integration within groups, when the

children with disabilities form a distinct special classes in a

mainstream school. The author also pointed out the formal

integration, when children with disabilit ies residing in a

group of able peers, but this is the only community of

common temporary residence, without establishing closer

contacts social and emotional ties.

Maciarz25

distinguished in addition, partial integration in

mainstream school, where next to the groups and classes of

children with disabilities are a groups or classes of children

of the same type of disorder or disability. Pupils with

disabilities have their own, separate places and teachers

prepared in the field of special education. In these forms of


25

integration, children with disabilities and without

disabilities vis it each other and take part in joint

ceremonies, games and trips. Another form of integration is

the most desirable integration true and complete, that is

when there is full connectivity of all children, regardless of

their degree of disability and development opportunities.

The concept of integration by Hulek was in my opinion,

akin to the Scandinavian and American demands of

normalization principle. The conclusive assumptions of

integration concept by Hulek10

noted more existing

similarities than differences between able and people with

disabilities in general and believed that the diagnosis of

dysfunction and its extent are not always identical with the

actual level of the functioning of a person with a disability,

which would create the right conditions for development.

Polish Special educator Doroszewska4 wrote in 1981 that

the study of life can only be stuck in the mainstream and

not in isolation from it, which is also the correct

observation of status and place in a public space of people

with disabilities in Poland. This statement also is close to

Scandinavian and American normalization principles,

which however also means existing trends insulation

against disabled people in Poland in the late 70's and 80's.

Organization of inclusive education In terms of organization, education of children and youth

with disabilities in conditions of integration in Poland is

carried out in different schools. Maciarz25

in a similar

manner indicated major organizational forms of inclusive

education in Poland. These are the integration schools for

children with developmental disabilities and other

disorders. Moreover, there are inclusive classes which

implement the complete integration of children with

disabilities into mainstream classes schedule.

Another form of organization is called cooperating classes

where students with disabilities are subjects of individual

teaching, participate in selected classes at school and

auxiliary classes which are special groups organizationally

embedded in mainstream schools.

The author also points out as one of the forms of teaching,

consisting work in the house of the family of a child with

dysfunctions, according to educational and therapeutic

individual program, but in constant contact with his/her

peers.

Turning to the characteristics of an inclusive education

system in Poland, I would like to emphasize that special

education is a component part of the education system in

general. Integration in education (inclusion), representing a

signif icant value of the education system in Poland, is often

mistakenly associated only with the process of placing a

child with a disability in a mainstream school. In fact,

inclusive education is a complex form of training and

education of children and young people with special

educational needs, together with peers without disabilities,

the aim of which is a creation of optimal conditions for the

development of each participant of integration.

According to Serafin32

, inclusive education is not only the

common physical being in a classroom or a common

existence, but it is mainly for mutual learning and fun,

overcoming common obstacles, performing the tasks,

organization of leisure time. Thanks to the integration that

children learn tolerance and acceptance of responsibility.

Reaching the basic assumptions of the system, regarding

the formation of an inclusive education system in Poland,

Hulek11

saw it as the application of appropriate measures to

inclusion of persons with disabilities in the usual forms of

individual and collective life and satisfaction of their needs.

The integration of education and training by Hulek11

consisted of a maximum inclusion of children and youth

with disabilities into mainstream schools and other

educational institutions enabling them, where possible,

growing up in a group of healthy and able peers.

In my opinion, the assumptions of inclusive education and

the concept of Hulek were based on the global

deinstitutionalization trends of people with disabilities. The

author believed that in the case of persons residing

permanently in stationary care centers, the integration will

take into consideration the concern about ensuring the most

frequent contact with the external social environment.

Hulek12

stressed that inclusive education system does not

exclude segregated educational settings, however, poses

some alternative, forcing traditional Polish education to

make signif icant modifications. Inclusive education system,

according to Hulek13

was based on the following principles,

referred to the fundamental human rights. First, children

and young people with disabilities have the right to live

such as persons without disabilities in general terms, with

the same rights and responsibilities should be tailored to

their individual capabilities.

Hulek13

emphas ized that every child with a disability has

the right to education and should not be deprived of this

right. By providing people with disabilities appropriate to

their abilities and needs, living conditions, they are able to

operate on an equal level as people without disabilities.

Related to the concepts of Hulek were the foundations of

the Polish integration system. Maciarz25

considered that the

importance of inclusive education system is the creation of

schools in which each student would have opportunities for

full and undisturbed development.

The school, according to Maciarz25

should be a miniature

model of the society. At the core of an inclusive education

system, according to this author lie the following

assumptions: first, the most favorable for development,

education and teaching of children with disabilities is being

with family and the community of persons with disabilities,


26

while ensuring must be relevant health conditions, socio-

education and teaching. Secondly, for the preparation of the

disabled child to autonomy, to the extent of its capabilities,

life in society is preferable to its spontaneous and

deliberately organized to participate in this life. Thirdly, the

process of education and inclusive education of children

with disabilities should take care of their needs and

personality dispositions common to them and children

without disabilities. Fourth, children and young people with

disabilities have the right to use all the degrees and

education profiles, the institution of sport, recreation and

culture and the fifth, periodic or partial isolation in

stationary centers of some special groups of children for

reasons of health or education, will not have only negative

effects on their development, when they will be allowed

various forms of contact with the environment.

Kościelska19

noted that inclusive education is a new model

of education, the opposite of segregation, the alternative for

the separation from general education and children with

disabilities from healthy pupils. According to the author,

inclusive education is a great education opportunity of a

new generation in a different way.

According to Kościelska19

, key assumption of inclusive

education is to adjust the learning as much as possible to

the needs and abilities of children. Therefore, to such

kindergartens and schools should have access all children,

with the exception of the relatively few, whose current state

of mental health prevents the use of a structured

curriculum.

The theoretical assumptions of Polish educational

integration (inclusion) system indicate that children and

young pupils without disabilities and pupils with

disabilities have the same rights and responsibilities.

Among the advantages of inclusive education, Barłóg2

pointed out the following: approaching conceptually

system of integration to inclusive education. The author

wrote that through education in the integration the person

learns acceptance, not only the pupil with disabilities, but

also teaches tolerance and recognition of other cultures,

races and religions. Integration enables to accept and

interact with another human being, regardless of his

limitations and biases to him. Integration should be taught,

not only the pupils with disabilities but also able peers,

since both groups depend on their interpersonal

relationships.

Legal basis

Among the key Polish documents, posing the legal bas is

for the education of children and young people with special

educational needs are: the Law of September 7, 1991 on the

System of Education34

. However, as pointed by Firkowska-

Mankiewicz6, there were created favorable legal provisions

for education, which, however, in flagrant contradiction

with everyday educational practice, are in relation to the

education of children and young people with more serious

disabilities.

In 1999, the Polish education system was reformed and

introduced new concept of the first stage of the educational

level. The new concept involved division of primary and

secondary schools, giving up eight years of education in

primary schools and four-year high schools. The document

of the Ministry of National Education: "The Reform of the

Education of Students with Special Educational Needs"30

,

described the objectives of the reform of the education

system in Poland and attempted to clarify the definition of

special developmental needs. In the above-mentioned

document were mentioned groups of persons with special

educational needs including: people sensory disabilities,

motor (orthopedic, progressive muscle disease), intellectual

disabilities, language disorders, multiple disabilities,

emotional and behavior disorders, childhood autism and

related disorders, specific learning disabilities, chronic

physical health.

With such legislative options, parents of children and youth

with disabilities were included in decis ions making process

and taking responsibility for the education of their children

as well as having influence in issues concerning the

physical accessibility of schools. Parents may choose

education in schools closest to their residence, mainstream

schools, mainstream schools with integrative classes,

integrated schools, special classes in mainstream schools,

special schools (segregation), specialty centers, educational

institutions (segregation). Another key legal document that

regulates the rights of the education of children and youth

with disabilities in Poland, in terms of integration, was the

regulation of the Minister of Education dated November

17, 201031

which entered into force on September 1, 2011

and specify the many areas of the education of children and

youth with disabilities. This document takes into account

new proposals for education.

On the basis of the Law of September 7, 1991, with the

decree of November 11, 2010, were established the

conditions the organization of training, education and care

for children and youth with following disabilities: deaf,

hard hearing, blind, visually impaired, physically disabled

including aphasia, with intellectual disabilities, with

autism, including Asperger's syndrome and multiple

disabilities.

Educational facilities, which were obliged to education of

children and youth with disabilities were: kindergartens and

mainstream schools, kindergartens and integrative schools.

Regulation dated on 17.11. 2010, specifies also the time of

study for young pupils with disabilities : up to 18 years of

age, in primary school and 21 years of age in middle school

and up to 23 years in secondary school. The key objective

of so understood inclusive education is, according to the

regulation, to prepare students with disability to

independence in adulthood.


27

Critique Over the last two decades, the integration process has been

described as a scientifically tested and evaluated by Polish

scholars. Despite the positive aspects, noticing

development of the inclusive education system, constantly

appear critical assessments of the levels of its

implementation, associated with different circumstances,

expressed by various entities involved in the process of

educational integration in Poland.

Przybylski29

believes that a decisive impact on the success

in education of students with disabilities needs different

types of support and has special conditions: philosophical,

political, legis lative, social and psychological as well as

physical and technical. The author believes also that the

nature of the particular conditions and the relationships

between them, determine the current status of detection,

defining and meeting the special educational needs of

children. Meanwhile, in the case of each child we have to

deal with different contexts: individual, institutional and

general public.

Olechowska27

clarified the main areas of problems

associated with the implementation of inclusive education

in Poland. Among them were indicated related directly to: a

disability, parents, educational institutions, society (nation

and the local community) and the state and the law. In each

of the identified areas are manifested difficulties and

barriers to the implementation of inclusive education in

Poland. The following below examples show some of them.

Integration is a concept that is understood by contemporary

Poles in different ways, with both supporters and

opponents. Supporters, coming from different backgrounds

professional or families, opt for promoting integration

activities of children and youth with disabilities in Poland,

seeing its values. Opponents also professionals or parents,

are more skeptical and are struggling to maintain the

traditional status of special schools (segregated), claiming

that children with multiple disabilities, requiring the

support and education of special facilities (segregated),

because public schools do not provide them in any way the

right conditions for growth.

On the other hand, opponents tend to be disappointed with

the difficult process of implementation of educational

integration, they believe that "inclusive system of education

and training does not benefit anyone and cause only the

problems and disappointment"1.

Meanwhile, some parents and at the same time recognized

in Poland specialists in the areas of disability rights,

mothers of children, adolescents or adults with disabilities,

among others, Kościelska M., Chodkowska M., support

inclusive education as a valuable source of common social

life.

Zyta36

investigating the environment of people with Down

syndrome, wrote that "for parents of children with special

educational needs is essential, that their children do not live

in the sense that they are worse, they have no right to a

decent and reasonably normal life".

At the same time, somewhat skeptical towards the

integration of people with moderate intellectual disabilities

is recognized by Polish sociologist Zakrzewska-Manterys28

who published works in the area of special education.

Educational and social integration of persons with

disabilities today raises many different emotions in Poland,

delight at the idea and also the criticisms and negation.

Reaching early aversion to the idea of integration I want to

point out a problem with the inconsistencies and illegibility

of the concept, concerning the models of disability and

persons with disabilities.

Hulek10

noted that in the 70's, the principles based on the

idea of Polish integration have been lucidly and clearly

formulated. The basic premise was understanding and

perception of people with disabilities as normal, even in

situations where its serious disability, determined by bio-

psycho-social, caused different functions. The

consequences of such early approach of integration are in

my opinion, twofold. First, there is a tendency of denying

dysfunction in the image of people with disabilities in order

to improve his/her social position or his/her actual denial

and non-acceptance. Secondly, the consequence was the

negation of human disability in his/her image.

Olechowska27

presented key information that refer to the

realities of the education of children and young people with

special educational needs. The author stated that "the

proportion of children with difficulties in development

have a major impact on the learning and social adaptation,

up to 20% of the population of school age.”

In 2005, the number of students with disabilities in an

Polish integrated setting was 21 47320

. Number of students

with various disabilities who attend institutions of

integration depends on the Polish region. In the school year

2004/2005 most students with disabilities in an integrated

setting were educated in the provinces of Mazovia, Siles ia

and Lesser Poland Province, the central and southern

Poland. Least of inclusive facilities was in provinces:

Świętokrzyskie, Opole and Lubusz. Number of students

with disabilities in an integrated setting also differs

depending on the level of education. Number of children

with special educational needs attending primary schools

including special, amounted to a total of 83 542, which

represents 3.1% of all primary school pupils (of all types).

Number of children with special educational needs who

attend integrated schools was 12 50420

, with the result that

in an integrated setting learned 15% of all Polish pupils

with special educational needs ".

Maciarz24

pointed out the difficulties implementing the

concept of integration of disabled people in Poland. Author


28

believed that the implementation of the concept faces a

number of obstacles and barriers to physical, social,

cultural and educational. The author pointed occurring

architectural barriers such as high thresholds, stairs, narrow

doors and hallways, too small rooms, lack of handrails and

handles, lifts for people with disabilities, air conditioning

and poor physical accessibility of cultural institutions.

Maciarz noted also in 1999 that very few school facilities

were adapted to the needs of children with disabilities,

therefore it was necessary to obtain help from the

assistants. Bringing down barriers and impediments in the

Polish system of inclusive education, the students with

disabilities being eight years after the entry into force of the

Law of September 7, 1991, the author noted that the

barriers are also associated with traditional educational

processes and inappropriate organizational and educational

activities.

Maciarz24

noted that children with disabilities are often

subjected to unhealthy and unfair competition; do not have

a chance to experience the solidarity of the community, in

addition to their stress level increases. Consequently,

children with disabilities, experiencing stress have

difficulty in developing pro-social behaviors and build ties

between peers.

In the late 90's, as noted by Maciarz24

and Al-Khamisy 1,

teachers reluctantly undertook work with children with

disabilities. Researchers also observe some paradoxes

within the system of educational integration. According to

Przybylski29

, “It is currently implemented integration

model (class / group integration, kindergarten, integrated

school) - one-sided and not very flexible - slowly creates a

new system of segregation within the system of

integration". Further barriers which indicated Maciarz24

are

associated with negative attitudes towards pupils with

disabilities by pupils without disabilities. The author

pointed inappropriate, often unreasonable attitudes and

prejudices of us - Poles, limiting persons with disabilities to

participate in cultural life, but also limiting social access to

education in mainstream schools and offering a narrow

range of professions and jobs. According to the author the

elimination of prejudices and bad attitudes will be soon, if

the public will get along with people with disabilities.

Barriers to inclusive education in the perception of parents

of children and adolescents with a disabilities indicated

Olechowska27

. The author drew attention to the

phenomenon of apparent integration, observed by the

parents and the lack of understanding of their families.

Parents indicate lack of proper cooperation with them in the

various ministries, among others, health, education and

government organizations. Parents of children, youth with

disabilities, although see many opportunities offered by the

integration, but 15% of them believe that the integration of

people with intellectual disabilities is impossible and

unfortunately in Polish society.

Parents of children and adolescents with disabilities pay

attention to the inadequate preparation of schools, to

educate students with special educational needs, they have

a bad experience with mainstream education.

Research undertaken in Poland27

indicates that a high

percentage of parents is dissatisfied with the results of

inclusive education of their children, directly affected by

the following factors. Lack of well-defined criteria that

qualif ies a child for such a form of education, lack of

experienced and factually prepared teaching staff are

difficult conditions in schools and incompetent school

collaboration with parents.

Another critical remark concerning the integration of the

educational system in Poland is the area of contact between

the parents of children with disabilities. Konarska14

pointed

out that "parents of children without disabilities very often

are opposed to mutual contacts". Zyta36

pointed out in the

report of the study's own dramatic statement like the

following parents of a child with a disability, to social

contacts held within own family "I even avoid contact with

close family. They do not approve my child during vis its

and fear that my daughter does not wet the sofa".

Olechowska27

believes that parents of children with

disabilities often indicate feelings of loneliness in coping

with their own problems and reduced sense of dignity and

self-esteem.

I presented only some of the barriers and obstacles

indicated in the areas of inclusive education by its

researchers and parents of children and youth with

disabilities. Difficult situations in educational integration

have devoted a book by Gajdzica8: "Difficult situations in

the opinion of teachers of integration." Author accurately

illustrated the basic categories of difficult situations,

conditioned by the following sources: the qualif ications and

competence of teachers working in integration classes,

overloading students in grades of integration, complex,

methodical situations in inclus ive classrooms in the context

of emerging conflicts.

Among the gaps and barriers in the background of

difficulties perceived by teachers of inclusive education

Gajdzica8 pointed out a small number of hours allocated to

activities, modest facilities with teaching aids, as well as

shortages of cooperation between teachers and parents and

in addition, conflicts between teachers and resistance to

conflicts resolution and lack of cooperation. Conclusion Lights and shadows of educational integration (inclus ive

education) of children and adolescents with disabilities

Poland, presented in this article were concentrated on

several pillars. I introduced the definitions of educational

integration and the key theoretical assumptions of the

Polish concept of integration by Aleksander Hulek and his


29

followers, which can be seen as green lights towards the

development of inclusive education system.

Another optimistic pillar was illustration of the legal bas is

of the contemporary system of inclusive education in

Poland. Lot of gaps still exists as shadows in the

implementation area. There are many different opinions

about pros and cons of inclusive system. Main problem in

my opinion is associated with relatively poor public

awareness of the need of inclusive environments in Poland.

What shadows characterize Polish reality of inclusive

education for years? In my opinion it involves also

contextual dominance of the medical model of disability,

which lasts since beginning of 20th century. The social

model of disability or bio-psycho-social model of disability,

although nowadays accepted, as a viable construct of

disability, however, was not passed on to the definitions of

disability. In Poland still are present categories in the

definitions of disability, locating disability in human, not in

his complex situation, constructing a disability, as defined

by the ICF (International Classification of Functioning,

Disability and Health) in 2001.

The Polish legis lation, scientif ic publications dominate the

expression "children and young people with a disability" or

"disabled", which indicates the semantic attachment in

Poland to the medical model and a constancy of concepts

since the early years of the twentieth century. An undoubted

advantage of inclusive education in Poland is that despite

the large barriers, institutional or mental, existing in the

minds of Poles stereotypes regarding disability, it is a

continuous process, implemented and modified.

Inclusive education in Poland constantly arouse various

emotions of the participants, which means both the

existence of strong resistance among disillusioned by

inclusive education professionals or disappointed parents.

Besides, inclusive education is at the same time in Poland

supported by the scientif ic communities, NGOs or parents,

seeing in it the power of change, to improve the conditions

and educational opportunities for Polish children and

adolescents with disabilities.

References

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(Received 10th

July 2014, accepted 22nd

July 2014)

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