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Die Masterarbeit beschäftigt sich mit der phonetischen Perzeption und Produktion des deutschen /r/ bei slowenischen DaF-Lernern im Gymnasium. Im theoretischen Teil werden die /r/ Laute im Deutschen und im Slowenischen kontrastiv vorgestellt und phonetische Fehler beim Zweitsprachenerwerb im Allgemeinen erläutert. Im empirischen Teil wird der Verlauf der Untersuchung präsentiert, die aus einer Umfrage, einem Perzeptionstest und einem Produktionstest bestand. Anschließend werden die Hypothesen bewertet und mit zwei anderen Ansätzen verglichen. Magistrsko delo preučuje fonetično prepoznavanje in izgovor nemškega fonema /r/ pri slovenskih gimnazijskih učencih, ki se nemščine učijo kot drugi tuji jezik. V teoretičnem delu so kontrastivno predstavljeni alofoni fonema /r/ v nemščini in slovenščini ter fonetične napake pri usvajanju tujega jezika. V empiričnem delu avtor predstavi potek raziskave, ki je sestajala iz vprašalnika in slušnega ter izgovornega preizkusa. Nato ovrednoti hipoteze in jih primerja z dvema drugima pristopoma.

This study examined the difficulties experienced by Slovenian upper-secondary school and university students aged 18 to 25 in their close social relationships during the Covid-19 pandemic. We examined the extent of social difficulties in six domains (relationships with friends, establishing a new relationship with an intimate partner, sexuality, relationship with a current intimate partner, parental control and living with parents, and family conflict) in the pre-pandemic period and in the first two waves of the pandemic. We were also interested in whether demographic variables were related to the students’ perceived social difficulties. The results showed that the severity of reported difficulties increased in all six domains during the government-imposed quarantine periods, with relationships with friends and the opportunity to establish new intimate relationships being the most affected. In addition, we found differences in the extent of perceived difficulties related to educational status, gender, intimate relationship, and change in living situations. The study offers insight into the socio-emotional life of students during a non-normative life event that educators should acknowledge. (DIPF/Orig.)

The consumer behaviour of Slovenian pre-service teachers for the December holidays and their personal views about sustainable consumption were studied. A total of 130 students of the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Education took part in the study. The sample consisted of 11 male and 116 female students, while 3 students did not report their gender. The survey was conducted in January 2020. The results show that 95.4% of the respondents received gifts during their childhood on Saint Nicholas Day, 60.0% at Christmas and 23.1% when celebrating the New Year. Almost 13% of the respondents received gifts three times in December during their childhood. In December 2019, 54.6% of them gave gifts for Saint Nicholas Day, 65.2% at Christmas and 10.8% for the New Year. Christmas has therefore become the most common gift-giving time in December. Students most often give their loved ones sweets, clothes and shoes, and cosmetics. The majority of the respondents spend less than 50% of their monthly income on gifts for the December holidays. In terms of sustainability, the respondents described their consumer behaviour as follows: (1) giving or receiving things they really need, (2) giving or receiving gifts and wrappings made of recyclable material, (3) giving or receiving nonmaterial gifts, (4) reducing the number of gifts, (5) giving for charity, or (6) not giving gifts at all.

The article focuses on the changed dynamics of family life due to the first wave of Covid-19—starting in the spring of 2020—and the consequent longstanding social lockdown in the fall of 2020. We employ the concept of “forced nuclearisation” to describe the process that required a rapid reorganisation of otherwise self-evident and established social patterns and relationships, above all new adjustments of care relations both inside and outside the private sphere. The focus is on new demands in the intertwined spheres of work, school, and family obligations, especially because the private sphere has been assigned several additional functions, otherwise carried out by educational and daycare institutions. Based on an extensive dataset from a quantitative exploratory online survey conducted in two time periods, first in April 2020 and then in October 2020, this article discusses, from a comparative perspective and with a focus on gender inequalities, the main changes in practices and everyday routines such as shopping, housework, childcare, work obligations, and caring for other family members. The research aimed to identify the most obvious distinctions in family scenarios and, in particular, to point to the main social inequalities and potentially vulnerable groups within the population, who faced the forced and unexpected nuclearisation of everyday life.

In a time when the deinstitutionalisation of mental health services has become a global and European platform and one of the main forms of care provision, a theme such as the transition of care from large institutions down to a more personal community level care might seem outlived, but the fact is that in some European countries the discussion has revolved for almost 35 years around the most basic question concerning the closure of large, asylum‐type mental health institutions. In this article, I provide a historical overview and analysis of deinstitutionalisation processes in the field of mental health in Slovenia from mid‐1980s onwards, interpreted in terms of achievements and gaps in community‐based care and in user participation in these processes. It demonstrates some of the innovative participatory practices and their potential to transform services. A thematic data analysis was used to analyse the data collected from various primary (a focus group) and secondary sources (autobiographies, newspaper articles, round table reports, blogs) that all bear witness to the different periods of deinstitutionalisation and the user perspective in it.

Until their conceptual, systemic and substantive reform in the 1990s, preschool institutions in Slovenia were recognised predominantly as care institutions, on the one hand, and as “preparatory institutions” for school or pre-primary school, on the other. This paper presents an analysis of preschool education in Slovenia based on theoretical starting points, international comparative analyses of quality indicators for preschool education and curricular documents, as well as the results of Slovenian and foreign empirical research on early child development and learning. The analysis was conducted from the viewpoint of conceptual, systemic and curricular solutions. In particular, we emphasise the need to update the Curriculum for Preschool and resolve any professional dilemmas related to the efficiency and equity of preschool. In conclusion, we specifically highlight certain possibilities for improvements in Slovenian preschool education.

This article examines the long-term effects of the regulation of private education adopted in the course of the education reform in 1996 and the sustainability of the guiding principles that served as the starting point for this regulation. It reviews the guiding principles of the intro-duction of private education, the goals of the reform laid down in the White Paper in 1995 and the regulations introduced on the basis of these tenets. It follows up on the ‘life’ of the legal solutions and the history of (attempted) amendments of the legislation, which generally start in the Slovenian Parliament and then proceed all the way to the Constitutional Court. The article also examines the effects of the adopted regulation: how the private education sector has established itself and what kind of relationship it has developed vis-a-vis public education. The second part of the article explores certain developments in the field of education in Slovenia and on the global scale, using them as the basis for assessing the sustainability of the goals that guided the education reform. The thesis proposed by the article is that it is the normalisation of private education in Slovenia should be considered the main achievement of the education reform.

This article attempts to conceptualise the relationship between the indi-vidual (professional) and the structural in a period of relatively radical changes in society. The challenging and revealing dialectic of such rela-tions is analysed through the combination of auto-ethnographic reflec-tions and archival documents showing the changes in the functioning of a council of experts in a country that experienced and coped with three fundamentally peaceful transitions: the transition from a self-managed socialist economy to a market economy, the transition from a one-party socialist system to a representative liberal democracy, and from a re-public that was part of a federal state to an independent state. The Ex-pert Council of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia (then still part of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia), later renamed the Expert Council of the Republic of Slovenia (at that time a liberal democracy with a mar-ket economy and an independent state), can serve as an example of the productive intertwining of individual (expert) and the structural in the formulation and the implementation of the functional transformation of the educational system. The contextualised account and assessment of the shifts that together helped bring about the independent state and its education system formation outlines the complexity and importance of reflexive governance in the times of transition, which, in itself, brings to the fore a number of relevant issues and invites and supports change in the educational system. Such an opportunity should not be missed by the country and its educators.

Following the adoption of the conceptual design proposed by the White Paper in 1995 and the legislation adopted on this basis, the reform of primary school transformed its overall image. In the present paper, we discuss only some of the solutions and consider the events and changes that have occurred in the last twenty years, devoting special attention to the systemic, programme and process levels. At the systemic level, where the starting point was primarily to ensure justice and equal opportunities, we have managed to maintain an adequate public network and programme structure, despite various attempts to implement the solutions indicated in the White Paper of 2011, and notwithstanding interventions in the system that were not in fact always well thought out. Nonetheless, more attention should have been paid to reducing inequalities related to sociocultural circumstances and different regions in Slovenia. On the programme level, a consensus needs to be reached on what quality general education means to us; this would alleviate conflicting demands placed on teachers, students and planners of programme solutions. On the process level, however, we find that there is a lack of adequate professional support and systematic evaluation studies, as the quality of school cannot be judged solely on the basis of results from international research. In order to take a step forward on the process level, there is need for quality school-linked school policy that is based on various professions and aimed at raising quality rather than at self-promotion and budget cutting in the field of education.

Peer victimisation during school years has been found to significantly shape the way students perceive themselves and how they enter into relationships with peers, thus impacting students’ current and long-term wellbeing. However, victimisation has seldom been examined in university students. The present study aimed to investigate students’ current level of self-reported peer victimisation and perceived peer support and their retrospectively reported victimisation as predictors of their social self-concept and loneliness in their first year of university. First-year university students (N = 200; 26% male) participated in the study. The results indicated that retrospectively reported victimisation experiences during their years of schooling explained additional variance in social self-concept and loneliness beyond their concurrent peer experiences. These findings indicate that experiencing victimisation during school years could have consequences for students’ wellbeing that are not limited to the period of primary and secondary schooling, but can persist after their transition to university. Practical implications for the promotion of mental health in the higher education context are discussed.

In the contemporary process of teaching fine arts, the students’ own creative expression and art appreciation are used to encourage learners towards both perception and reception; consequently, the evaluation and internalisation of works of art play an equally important role. In art education practice, we manage to provide adequate incentives and are able to follow incentives for artistic expression, but pay less attention to developing art appreciation. This research presents the results of a study that monitored the development of art appreciation abilities among 9- and 10-year-old students (4th and 5th grades; n = 2794) in Slovenian primary schools. The level of art appreciation abilities was rather average, but was more developed among older students and girls. In monitoring the school stratum, we did, however, notice a statistically significant difference regarding perception, whereby students in urban schools performed better than their peers in suburban schools.

This paper creates a framework for the comparison of two similar and yet different democratisation cases – Slovenia and Montenegro. The two countries have obvious similarities: their geography and small population, as well as their common socialist Yugoslav heritage and common aspirations to join international organisations, most importantly the European Union. However, while Slovenia went through the democratisation process rather smoothly, Montenegro took the longer road, struggling for more than a decade to regain its independence and complete its transition. We take into account different internal and external factors in these two cases such as the year of independence and of joining NATO, the political and electoral system, ethnic homogeneity, the viability of civil society, EU integration status, economic development and the presence of war in each territory in order to identify and describe those factors that contributed to the success of democratisation in different areas: the party system, the interest groups system, the defence system, Europeanisation and social policy. We find that the democratisation process in these countries produced different results in terms of quality. Various objective measures of the quality of democracy score Slovenia higher compared to Montenegro, while public opinion data shows, in general, greater satisfaction with the political system and greater trust in political institutions in Montenegro than in Slovenia.

Picture books discussed with pupils in primary school are considered multimodal texts, as they combine at least two communication codes (verbal and visual). A discussion involving picture books will normally be included in Slovenian language lessons, with pupils focussing mostly on the text. The visual aspect, which equally carries a message, is often neglected. The objective of the present case study that was conducted among fifth-grade primary school pupils in the 2018/19 school year was to explore how a cross-curricular approach to planning and executing the lessons in the Slovenian language and visual art can help pupils learn about the characteristics of the picture book as a multimodal text. We conducted a set of didactic activities entitled Getting to know the picture book, introducing selected picture books to pupils as part of their Slovenian language classes, which resulted in them developing their receptive skills while observing and defining the structure of the texts. In visual art classes, the pupils learned about the visual features of the picture book. As a productive response to the picture book discussed, the pupils were instructed to complete the following tasks: design a cover for their own picture book, design endpapers, illustrate their own poem, and produce their own leporello. The survey involved 21 pupils, a generalist teacher, and a researcher in art didactics. The case study was completed in five weeks. The data were obtained by means of initial and final testing, questionnaires for pupils, and participant observation.

One of the teacher’s basic tasks should be to ensure that the quality of his/her educational work is continually enhanced by the application of practitioner research, as a recognised genre of educational research. The aim of this study was to explore factors that can motivate or demotivate teachers to include research in their educational practice. An online questionnaire was addressed to all Slovenian primary and secondary school teachers and full responses were received from 325 teachers. Although the teachers expressed high perceived self-confidence in their research abilities, this did not transfer to research activity, as only about one quarter of the respondents reported that they performed research. The main drivers of research are an intrinsic motivation for research and career goal orientation, followed by the relatively low influence of important others. Practitioner research is highly valued among teachers, so there must be other factors at work preventing more teachers from starting research activities. Among the leading factors recognised as obstacles are those that can be regarded as facilitating conditions in terms of motivational theory. Work overload, lack of time, school bureaucracy and family life can be regarded as competing with research for the teacher’s time, along with other important issues. The school climate cannot be regarded as the main obstacle to research. The findings call for the reallocation of at least some work duties in favour of research as part of regular employment.

Professional learning is a continuum starting in initial teacher education and persisting throughout the teacher’s career. Initial teacher education programmes should therefore prepare prospective teachers for professional learning via research. There is, however, little knowledge about how initial teacher education programmes educate students about this important subject. The aim of this study was to identify how initial teacher education programmes in Slovenia address the question of empowering prospective teachers with research competence. We analysed all of the initial teacher education programme curricula and established that: (i) overall, more than half of the initial teacher education programmes do not include acquiring research competence as an aim of their study programmes; (ii) the majority of bachelor initial teacher education programmes include courses aimed at gaining research competence, but half of the master’s initial teacher programmes do not provide any courses related to research; and (iii) there is a variety of European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System weightings for educational research courses across initial teacher education programmes in Slovenia.

During the last three decades, chemical education in Slovenia has developed mainly in two chemistry education research groups, one located at the University of Ljubljana and the other at the University of Maribor. The present study aims to identify research papers in the field of chemical education published between 1991 and 2019 through a database survey. From a total of 273 identified research papers in the field of chemical education, an analysis of the papers published in respected international and Slovenian journals and monographs revealed four main research fields: (1) Submicrorepresentations, Models and Animations, (2) Chemistry Teacher Education, (3) Experimental Work, and (4) Conceptions of Basic Chemical Concepts. For further analysis, only papers published in English in respected peer-reviewed international journals were used (N = 41). Based on citations in Web of Science or Scopus, it seems that papers published in the first field have the greatest impact on the international research community. Some research monographs published in Slovenian aim specifically at contributing to bridging the gap between chemical education research and classroom practice, but further actions are necessary to achieve this goal in the future.

U radu se obrađuju ugovorni odnosi u vezi s privremenim agencijskim radom, i to posebnosti ugovora o radu između agencije (kao poslodavca) i radnika, ugovorni odnos između agencije i korisnika te faktični odnos između korisnika i agencijskih radnika. Ti su ugovorni odnosi analizirani s aspekta hrvatskoga i slovenskog radnog prava, prava EU-a i dobre prakse nekoliko europskih država., agenzia. Precisamente, si esaminano le particolarità del contratto di lavoro tra l'agenzia (in qualità di datore di lavoro) ed il lavoratore; il rapporto contrattuale tra l'agenzia e l'utente, come anche il rapporto di fatto tra l'utente ed il lavoratore dell'agenzia. Quando si tratta del rapporto di lavoro tra l'agenzia ed il lavoratore si analizza in primo luogo il fatto che si qualifica come agenzia soltanto quel soggetto giuridico che soddisfa dei criteri particolari. Si disamina anche la questione della determinazione della durata del rapporto di lavoro, del luogo in cu vengono compiute le mansioni, le particolarità legate ai diritti derivanti come anche il termine del rapporto di lavoro. L'agenzia e l'utente pur concludendo un contratto di diritto commerciale, incontrano nel loro rapporto limiti derivanti dal diritto del lavoro analizzati nel contributo. Il terzo rapporto che viene analizzato nel contributo è quello tra l'utente ed il lavoratore, rapporto non formalizzato mediante la conclusione di un contratto, bensì regolato dalla legislazione giuslavorista sia sotto il profilo dei diritti dei lavoratori dell'agenzia, sia sotto il profilo della sua influenza sui rapporti di lavoro dei lavoratori dell'utente. Tali rapporti contrattuali si disaminano nei diritti del lavoro croato e sloveno, come anche nel diritto dell'UE e nella good practice di alcuni paesi europei., This article analyses the contractual relationships concerning temporary agency work: specificities of the employment contract between the agency (as an employer) and worker; contractual relationship between agency and the user undertaking and the factual relationship between the user and agency workers. Concerning the employment relationship between the agency and worker, the analysis focuses on the fact that only legal subject that fulfils specific conditions can operate as an agency; further, on the duration of the employment relationship, the workplace, rights and the termination of the employment relationship. Despite the fact that the agency and the user conclude the commercial contract, those contractual parties are limited by the labour law rules that are the object of the analysis in this article. Thirdly, the article deals with the relationship between the agency worker and user, that is not formalized by the conclusion of the contract, but regulated by the labour legislation, that prescribes the workers’ rights and its impact on the user’s stable workers’ rights. The authors analyse the mentioned contractual relationships as regulated in Croatian and Slovenian labour law, as well as by EU law, giving the examples of good practice used in some European countries., Dieser Beitrag bespricht die Leiharbeitsverhältnisse, und zwar, die Besonderheiten von Arbeitsverträgen zwischen dem Verleiher (als Arbeitgeber) und dem Arbeitnehmer sowie auch das Verhältnis zwischen den Nutzern und den Leiharbeitern. Beim Arbeitsverhältnis zwischen dem Verleiher und dem Arbeitnehmer wird vor allem die Tatsache, dass der Verleiher nur dasjenige Rechtssubjekt sein kann, welches die besonderen Voraussetzungen dafür erfüllt, analysiert. Die Bestimmung der Dauer des Arbeitsverhältnisses, der Ort der Arbeit, die Besonderheiten bezüglich der Rechte sowie auch die Beendigung des Arbeitsverhältnisses werden besprochen. Der Verleiher und der Nutzer schließen einen Vertrag aus dem Bereich des Handelsrechts und trotzdem sind sie durch die in diesem Beitrag analysierten Regeln des Arbeitsrechts beschränkt. Das dritte Verhältnis, das in diesem Beitrag besprochen wird, bezieht sich auf das Verhältnis zwischen den Nutzern und den Leiharbeitern, welches durch die Vertragsschließung nicht formalisiert wird, sondern vom Arbeitsrechtsgesetzgebung sowohl bezüglich der Rechte von Leiharbeitern als auch bezüglich dessen Einflusses auf die Arbeitsverhältnisse der Arbeiter von Nutzern geregelt wird. Diese Vertragsverhältnisse werden aus der Perspektive des kroatischen und des slowenischen Arbeitsrechts sowie auch des EU-Rechtes und der bewährten Verfahren einiger europäischen Staaten analysiert.

The present study investigated relationships between statistics anxiety (SA), trait anxiety, attitudes towards mathematics and statistics, and academic achievement among university students who had at least one study course related to statistics in their study programme. Five hundred and twelve students from the University of Ljubljana completed the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and answered questions about their perceptions of mathematics and statistics. The results showed below-average mean scores on the STARS dimensions, except for the Test and Class Anxiety with the average score around the midpoint of the scale. Female students reported higher levels of SA than male students did. The highest levels of SA were reported by students who perceived mathematics and statistics as a threat. The subscales of the STARS correlated positively with students’ trait anxiety. Students who reported less enjoyment in mathematics in high school perceived statistics to be a less worthy subject and had a lower computation self-concept. Students who had better mathematics performance in high school and higher average study grades also reported a higher computation self-concept. In the present study, we translated the STARS questionnaire into Slovenian and confirmed the six-factor structure of the questionnaire. The results provide a basis for further research on statistics anxiety and further validation of the STARS questionnaire. The results can also aid statistics teachers in better understanding students’ worries, fears, and attitudes towards statistics and in learning about the factors that affect students’ statistics anxiety and their work in the course. (DIPF/Orig.)

This article explores how the Gender Pension Gap (GPG)—the relative difference in average pension received by men and women—might evolve in the future in various European countries, given past, current, and projected future labour market behaviour and earnings of women and men, and current pension regulations. The GPG reflects career inequalities between women and men, though these are partly mitigated by the redistributive impact of the public retirement pensions. They are further mitigated by survivor benefits. This study aims to document both mechanisms in the projections of the GPG. As the GPG varies widely across European countries, we analyse countries with a high (Luxembourg), high and low middle (Belgium and Switzerland Portugal), and low (Slovenia) GPG. We find that the GPG will fall significantly in all five countries over the coming decades. The fundamental drivers behind this development are discussed. In addition to the base scenario, we simulate two variants to show the impact of the Gender Pension Coverage Gap and of survivor pensions. Additionally, we project the GPG if current labour market gender gaps were to remain at their present level, and, conversely, if these were to disappear overnight. These alternative scenarios, one of which also serves as a robustness test, suggest that the future decline of the GPG is largely the result of labour market developments that have already happened during the past decades.

When the Covid-19 pandemic started in March 2020, the educational process had to be redesigned to meet current needs. At the Faculty of Education of the University of Ljubljana, pre-service engineering and technology teachers (3rd and 4th years of undergraduate two-subject teachers’ study programme) are obliged to complete a teaching practice in educational institutions and submit a teaching practice diary. Due to the closure of primary schools, the teaching practice was transformed to distance/online practice. This empirical study examines a recently developed intuitive model for distance learning, which took place during the teaching practice. Teaching practice diaries served as an instrument for gathering data. The sample size encompasses 56 lesson plan activities for the compulsory primary school Design and Technology subject for students aged 12–15 years at 15 primary schools in different parts of Slovenia carried out during online teaching practice by 11 pre-service technology teachers in the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 academic years. The research methodology is focused on lesson-type determination and model elements analysis in lesson plan making and implementation activity. Distance learning model elements are evaluated with regard to online/offline learning tools from e-learning platforms to engineering education field-specific tools (e.g., technical drawings and electric circuits). Online teaching practice was as new for pre-service technology teachers and teacher-mentors as online learning was new for students. The advantages and disadvantages are highlighted. Furthermore, the distance learning model from the first Covid-19 wave teaching practice was adapted to challenge the second Covid-19 wave. The pandemic has enabled the rise of blended learning, which has been gaining focus in secondary and higher education levels in recent years; however, it encountered obstacles when entering the primary school domain. How to encompass blended learning into the evolved distance learning model will be shown. (DIPF/Orig.)

The survey research reported in this paper aimed to show how foreign language teachers’ (N = 69) self-efficacy beliefs and concerns related to implementing inclusive instructional practices with learners with dyslexia, as well as their attitudes to inclusion in foreign language education, change as a result of the teachers’ participation in an intensive face-to-face course on dyslexia and foreign language teaching. The pre-post comparisons identified a statistically significant improvement in self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes, with large and medium effect sizes, respectively, as well as a decrease in concerns, with a small effect size. Moreover, the perceived level of knowledge of dyslexia reported by course participants after the course increased significantly compared to pre-course knowledge, with a large effect size. The perceptions of knowledge were crucially related to pre-course self-efficacy beliefs and concerns, as well as to post-course self-efficacy beliefs. The impact of several background variables on self-efficacy beliefs, concerns and attitudes was investigated. We found no significant effects of general teaching experience, experience in teaching learners with dyslexia, teaching context (country), full-time employment and level of education on self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes both before and after the course. The initial effect of previous training on self-efficacy beliefs disappeared in the post-course questionnaire. No significant effects of previous training were observed for pre-course and post-course concerns and attitudes. The initial effect of level of education and experience in teaching a foreign language to learners with dyslexia on concerns disappeared in the post-course questionnaire. Teaching context (country) and full-time employment differentiated participants with regard to how concerned they were about implementing inclusive teaching before the course, and these differences persisted after the course. Age differentiated participants in the attitudes to inclusion they held before the course, but this difference disappeared after the course. Finally, teacher trainers differed significantly from other course participants regarding pre-course self-efficacy and post-course concerns, with a small to medium effect size. (DIPF/Orig.)

V spomladanski fazi pandemije je bilo izobraževanje mladostnikov s specifičnimi učnimi težavami (SUT) zahtevno. V raziskavi, v kateri je sodelovalo 122 mladostnikov s SUT (50 % iz Slovenije, 50 % iz Nemčije), smo ugotavljali, kako slovenski in nemški mladostniki s SUT zaznavajo in rešujejo nekatere izzive učenja na daljavo. Raziskovalne podatke smo zbrali z dvema spletnima vprašalnikoma (v slovenskem oziroma nemškem jeziku). Slovenski mladostniki so statistično značilno pogosteje kot nemški navajali težave s pozornostjo, pomen multisenzornega učenja in možnosti izbire časa za učenje ter psihosomatske težave. Slovenski mladostniki so imeli več izkušenj s pohvalami učiteljev med pandemijo, omenjali pa so tudi več težav s prehodom na učenje na daljavo in uporabo informacijsko-komunikacijske tehnologije. Mlajši mladostniki so imeli več pomoči staršev. Mladostniki moškega spola so pogosteje poročali, da niso imeli ustreznih prostorskih pogojev za učenje. Nemški mladostniki so več časa preživeli ob klepetu na družbenih omrežjih in doživeli manj podpore pri učenju. Mladostnice so pogosteje izražale strah pred pandemijo in pomanjkanje podpore pri učenju, medtem ko so mladostniki v celotnem vzorcu bolj pogrešali vrstnike. Večina anketirancev je prihajala iz družin, v katerih pandemija ni povzročala resnih materialnih in prostorskih težav, vendar so nemški mladostniki statistično značilno redkeje občutili te posledice. Po mnenju anketirancev so bili prostorski in materialni pogoji v obeh državah podobni. The spring phase of the pandemic made the education of adolescents with specific learning difficulties (SpLD) challenging. In the present study, which included 122 adolescents with SpLD (50% from Slovenia, 50% from Germany), we investigated how Slovenian and German adolescents with SpLD perceived and solved some of the challenges of distance learning. The study data were collected with two online questionnaires (in Slovenian and German, respectively). Slovenian adolescents were statistically significantly more likely than German adolescents to mention problems with attention, the importance of multisensory learning, and the importance of being able to choose the time to learn, as well as psychosomatic problems. Slovenian adolescents had more experiences with praise from teachers during the pandemic and they also mentioned more issues with the transition to distance learning and the use of information and communication technology. Younger adolescents had more parental help. Male adolescents were more likely to report that they did not have the right spatial conditions for learning. German adolescents spent more time chatting on social media and experienced less support for learning. Female adolescents were more likely to express fear of the pandemic and a lack of learning support, while male adolescents across the sample missed their peers more. Most of the respondents came from families in which the pandemic did not cause serious material and spatial problems, but German adolescents were statistically significantly less likely to feel these consequences. According to the respondents, the spatial and material conditions were similar in both countries.

The present study investigated relationships between statistics anxiety (SA), trait anxiety, attitudes towards mathematics and statistics, and academic achievement among university students who had at least one study course related to statistics in their study programme. Five hundred and twelve students from the University of Ljubljana completed the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and answered questions about their perceptions of mathematics and statistics. The results showed below-average mean scores on the STARS dimensions, except for the Test and Class Anxiety with the average score around the midpoint of the scale. Female students reported higher levels of SA than male students did. The highest levels of SA were reported by students who perceived mathematics and statistics as a threat. The subscales of the STARS correlated positively with students’ trait anxiety. Students who reported less enjoyment in mathematics in high school perceived statistics to be a less worthy subject and had a lower computation self-concept. Students who had better mathematics performance in high school and higher average study grades also reported a higher computation self-concept. In the present study, we translated the STARS questionnaire into Slovenian and confirmed the six-factor structure of the questionnaire. The results provide a basis for further research on statistics anxiety and further validation of the STARS questionnaire. The results can also aid statistics teachers in better understanding students’ worries, fears, and attitudes towards statistics and in learning about the factors that affect students’ statistics anxiety and their work in the course. (DIPF/Orig.)