@article {1698,
	title = {ANTECEDENTS OF THE PERCEIVED USEFULNESS OF AN ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM DURING THE PANDEMIC},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {81},
	year = {2023},
	month = {December/2023},
	pages = {Continuous},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {861-868},
	abstract = {The pandemic has posed a number of challenges to university studies. The whole study process, the conditions, the context, the conditions for student mobility, the technical possibilities, and finally the quality of the studies have changed. During the pandemic period, a number of studies have been carried out on how higher education is organised in the context of a pandemic, but there is still a lack of analysis on how students perceive the usefulness of distance learning. 
A quantitative study was carried out with a contingent of 132 prospective preschool and primary education teachers, and students in the field of social sciences at three Lithuanian universities. The aim was to explore possible antecedents of the perceived usefulness of an online learning platform during the pandemic. The sample consisted of 24 first-year, 52 second-year, 28 third-year and 28 fourth-year students. The data obtained during the study were processed and analysed using SPSS software. In addition, structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with Lisrel 9.3 for Windows has been used to test the model.
Three factors were extracted. All constructs have a very good convergent and discriminant validity. These factors are important for analyzing the effectiveness of distance learning in general. It was found that the most important contributor to the perceived usefulness is the ease of access. It was also found that content adaptation has a positive influence on the perceived usefulness. 
},
	keywords = {distance education, perceived usefulness, quantitative research, university students},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/23.81.861},
	url = {https://oaji.net/articles/2023/457-1702996295.pdf},
	author = {Vincentas  Lamanauskas and Costin   Pribeanu}
}
@article {1684,
	title = {PERCEIVED SELF-EFFICACY AND COURSE SATISFACTION IN STUDENTS PREPARING FOR TEACHING CAREERS},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {81},
	year = {2023},
	month = {October/2023},
	pages = {Continuous},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {687-701},
	abstract = {Self-efficacy is an important variable that explains students̕ behavior of engaging in school activities and persevering in the face of academic challenges. High confidence in personal competencies and in the ability to successfully accomplish a particular task or a certain goal, acts as a stimulating factor of mental resources (cognitive, affective, motivational, volitional), contributing to students̕ success. In an educational context, the development of self-efficacy can be both a means of facilitating high achievement, but also an end in itself, a prospective goal of education. Perceived self-efficacy plays a major role in understanding how students perceive and experience academic courses. This research aims to identify the extent to which perceived self-efficacy with the course influences students{\textquoteright} satisfaction with the class as a prerequisite for learning and academic performance. A structural model was developed and tested on two samples of students enrolled in the Psychoeducational Training Program, to prepare for the teaching career. The research results show that there is a significant relationship between perceived self-efficacy with the course and satisfaction with the class. Understanding this relationship, several educational implications can be formulated for the development of students{\textquoteright} academic self-efficacy; by recognizing the main indicators of low self-efficacy, teachers can implement specific strategies and interventions to optimize students{\textquoteright} self-confidence and performance.},
	keywords = {academic self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy, self-regulated learning, social self-efficacy},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/23.81.687},
	url = {https://oaji.net/articles/2023/457-1698379485.pdf},
	author = {Santi, E. A. and Gabriel Gorghiu and Costin   Pribeanu}
}
@article {1586,
	title = {DRIVERS OF CONTINUANCE INTENTION TO USE THE ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM AFTER THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {80},
	year = {2022},
	month = {October/2022},
	pages = {Continuous},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {724-736},
	abstract = {With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic period, the need to continue the educational process imposed the exclusive move to the online environment - a new and insufficiently prepared experience, which generated controversies, but also reflections, and adaptation for teachers, students, decision-makers, and even parents. The major concern of the academic community was related to the quality of the educational process and how the student-centered education paradigm can be introduced in the online environment. The students and teachers of the post-pandemic generation are no longer the same, this period has strongly impacted society, mentalities, and the school{\textquoteright}s future. Analyzing online education from multiple perspectives, the advantages, and opportunities generated by the integration of ICT in the teaching process are obvious. However, many variables have an impact on the effectiveness of e-learning, and many unanswered questions, yet. This research aims to analyze the key drivers of technology acceptance and the role played by three external variables: content adaptation, facilitating conditions, and ease of access in the context of exclusive online education. For this purpose, an extended technology acceptance model has been conceptualized and tested on a sample of Romanian university students. The results illustrate that content adaptation represents an important predictor of both the perceived ease of use and usefulness. The model explained a lot of variance in the continuance intention which is due to the positive attitude towards using the online learning platform in the future.},
	keywords = {COVID-19 pandemic, distance education, learning motivation, online learning platform, TAM},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/22.80.724},
	url = {https://oaji.net/articles/2022/457-1667683017.pdf},
	author = {Costin   Pribeanu and Gabriel Gorghiu and Santi, E. A.}
}
@article {1314,
	title = {USEFULNESS OF MOBILE TEACHING AND LEARNING AS PERCEIVED BY ROMANIAN AND LITHUANIAN SCIENCE TEACHERS},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {78},
	year = {2020},
	month = {October/2020},
	pages = {Continuous},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {719-733},
	abstract = {With the explosion of mobile technologies, mobile teaching and learning became an important educational challenge. Since both teachers and students are increasingly using mobile devices in their everyday life, the question is why so little progress has been made in this direction. Clearly, the initiative of introducing mobile technology in class should come from teachers. Existing research shows a large diversity of factors that are influencing their perception as regards the usefulness and opportunity of mobile teaching and learning. This research aims to understand the extent to which the expectancy of increased students{\textquoteright} motivation and better understanding are influencing the perception of mobile teaching usefulness. A structural model has been developed and tested on two samples of science education teachers, one from Romania and the other from Lithuania. The results show that the expectancy of a better understanding of lessons by students has an important effect on the teachers{\textquoteright} perception of mobile teaching and learning.},
	keywords = {educational usefulness, learning motivation, mobile learning, mobile teaching, pilot research},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/20.78.719},
	url = {http://oaji.net/articles/2020/457-1600951632.pdf},
	author = {Gabriel Gorghiu and Costin   Pribeanu and Vincentas  Lamanauskas and Violeta Slekiene}
}
@article {1161,
	title = {EDUCATIONAL POTENTIAL OF ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS: GENDER AND CROSS-COUNTRY ANALYSIS},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {76},
	year = {2018},
	month = {October/2018},
	pages = {Continuous},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {620-632},
	abstract = {The social media technologies are blurring the boundaries between formal and informal/non-formal learning and provide new educational opportunities. Recent work shows that online social networks provide various kinds of educational support, such as social learning, informal/non-formal education, information, interaction, and collaboration. The aim of this research was to analyze the gender and cross-country differences in the perception of the educational opportunities provided by Facebook. The educational opportunities have been specified as a global factor that manifests along four dimensions: information, collaboration, personal development, and professional development. The model has been tested on two samples of university students, one from Romania and the other from Lithuania. An analysis of invariance has been carried on that shows that the educational opportunities model is invariant across groups. The results showed that female students have a higher perception of the educational opportunities provided by Facebook.},
	keywords = {cross-country differences, educational opportunities, gender differences, invariance analysis, online social networks},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/18.76.620},
	url = {http://oaji.net/articles/2017/457-1540320007.pdf},
	author = {Gabriel Gorghiu and Dragos Daniel Iordache and Costin   Pribeanu and Vincentas  Lamanauskas}
}
@article {1073,
	title = {SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND DEPENDENCE IN THE FACEBOOK USE BY ROMANIAN AND LITHUANIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {75},
	year = {2017},
	month = {August/2017},
	pages = {Continuous},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {354-365},
	abstract = {The time spent on Facebook by university students is continuously increasing. This fact is raising many questions as regards the relation between the social networking websites and the university. The educators are challenged to understand the factors that are driving the adoption of social networking websites, the characteristics of the daily use as well as the positive and negative effects on the university work. The social influence has been recognized as one of the factors that are driving the adoption of information systems. On another hand, the excessive use may lead to addiction. The first objective of this research is to explore the correlation between the social influence and the Facebook dependence. A model with these latent variables has been specified and tested on two samples of university students, the first from Romania and the second from Lithuania. The second objective of the research is to comparatively discuss the measures in each country. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis has been carried on to test the configural and metric invariance. The comparison of means shows that university students reporting higher social influence have a higher risk of Facebook dependence. The comparative analysis revealed that for both variables, the mean values are higher for the Romanian sample.},
	keywords = {e-learning process, Facebook dependence, invariance analysis, social influence},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/17.75.354},
	url = {http://oaji.net/articles/2017/457-1503750787.pdf},
	author = {Vincentas  Lamanauskas and Dragos Daniel Iordache and Costin   Pribeanu}
}
@article {1011,
	title = {THE EDUCATIONAL USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES: FROM PROMISE TO REALITY},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {71},
	year = {2016},
	month = {June/2016},
	pages = {Discontinuous},
	type = {Editorial},
	chapter = {4-5},
	abstract = {The platforms supporting social networking activities on the Internet are applications for the creation, sharing and exchange of user-generated content that manifests in various forms. Users can freely express their ideas and opinions, and have opportunities to launch and participate in collaborative projects and virtual communities. Facebook (FB) is a social networking website featuring an explosive growth in the last years and an increased popularity among university students. },
	keywords = {multidimensional concept, social networking activities, social networks, university students},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	url = {http://journals.indexcopernicus.com/abstract.php?icid=1210956},
	author = {Costin   Pribeanu}
}
@article {1031,
	title = {ON THE FACEBOOK DEPENDENCE AND ITS NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON UNIVERSITY STUDENTS{\textquoteright} WORK: A MULTI-GROUP ANALYSIS},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {73},
	year = {2016},
	month = {October/2016},
	pages = {Discontinuous},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {62-74},
	abstract = {The explosion of social networking websites in general, and Facebook in particular, impacts the educational context both positively and negatively. Too much time spent on Facebook leads to negative effects on the university work of students. The objectives of this research are to measure and analyse the relationship between the Facebook dependence and the negative consequences of the excessive use of Facebook on the university work of students. In this respect, a conceptual model has been tested that has two inter-correlated latent variables: the withdrawal syndrome, measuring the Facebook dependence and the negative consequences onto the university work. The analysis of results has been done onto three groups featuring the user{\textquoteright}s profile according to the network size (number of Facebook friends) of students. The findings show that the larger the Facebook network, the higher the frequency and duration of Facebook use. The analysis of measurement invariance shows that the model exhibits factorial, metric, and scalar invariance on the three user profiles. The comparison between groups shows that students having larger networks and spending more time on Facebook have a higher level of dependence and their university work is more affected.},
	keywords = {e-learning process, educational value, formative measurement models, motivation to learn},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/16.73.62},
	url = {http://journals.indexcopernicus.com/abstract.php?icid=1224699},
	author = {Gabriel Gorghiu and Costin   Pribeanu and Vincentas  Lamanauskas}
}
@article {489,
	title = {CHALLENGES IN EVALUATING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE WITH NOVEL TECHNOLOGIES},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {51},
	year = {2013},
	month = {March/2013},
	type = {Editorial},
	chapter = {5-6},
	abstract = {The shift towards constructivism in e-learning creates new opportunities in the modern school and favors the introducing of novel technologies able to promote a learner-centered approach and increase the students{\textquoteright} motivation to learn.
 In general, novel technologies are expensive and the costs are not only related to the hardware and software platform. The implementation in the traditional school requires additional costs for maintenance, content development, and training. Therefore, the first key concern when evaluating such e-learning systems is to capture the added value brought in by the novel technology.
 The second key concern is the usability of a novel technology.
 The third key concern is the acceptability of a new system. The evaluation of technology acceptance requires a quantitative approach based on larger models that include several factors, such as: characteristics of the system, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, relevant social aspects, and perceived enjoyment.},
	keywords = {learning experience, methodology of evaluation, usability evaluation},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/13.51.05},
	url = {http://oaji.net/articles/2014/457-1419346123.pdf},
	author = {Costin   Pribeanu}
}
@article {869,
	title = {SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {57},
	year = {2013},
	month = {December/2013},
	pages = {Discontinuous},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {61-78},
	abstract = {The use of social networking websites is becoming increasingly popular. While there are many reasons for this, the rapid spread of ICT is one of the most determining factors.  New technologies provide various possibilities for education and in relation to social networking websites it is worth emphasizing their diverse possibilities. The functionality of social networking websites is increasing, and this, in its own way, opens many possibilities for the consumers, a factor encouraging the usage of social networking sites. 
This research relates to the usage of social networking websites. The purpose of the research is to ascertain how university students from a range of European countries (Lithuania, Romania, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Turkey) use social networking websites; how they value them; what opinion they have about various social networking websites; what they know about them. 
A questionnaire, Social Networks, with 16 questions was used in the research. The breakdown of the questions is as follows: 3 questions were allotted to establishing the characteristics of the respondents and 5 open ended type questions were to possible advantages and disadvantages of SNW. The 6th question was assigned to evaluate the frequency of social networking website usage. A list of 23 main networking websites was presented. The 8th question was to evaluate the functions of social networking websites (e.g., communication, advertisement, friend search, information exchange and so on). In addition, the questionnaire also presented 26 various type statements about social networking websites and respondents were asked to evaluate these by applying the interval Likert scale (from {\textquotedblleft}Completely agree{\textquotedblright} to {\textquotedblleft}Completely disagree{\textquotedblright}). The original questionnaire was translated into the national languages by the local researchers involved in the study. 
This education research was carried out in 2012-2013, recognizing that it is especially important to understand the essential motives of using social networking websites, to analyze their probable advantages and disadvantages, to make some comparisons among students from the different countries. 
The findings illustrated that the respondents knew a lot of social networking websites, with the most frequently visited and most popular being: You Tube, Facebook and Google+. The most important functions put forward by the university students were: communication, learning and exchanging information, texting. Gender differences were noted in the case of valuing social networking websites.
The university students pointed out the following SN website advantages: 
(a)	the possibility to communicate with many people at one time, 
(b)	to get in touch with the people seen long ago also with the friends and relatives living abroad, 
(c)	the possibility to find proper information and share it, etc.
The respondents also noted that SN website had disadvantages. They indicated: lack of information publicity, a lack of privacy, insecurity in presented data, possible lies, deceptions, etc. 
},
	keywords = {comparative analysis, ICT, social networking websites, university students},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/13.57.61},
	url = {http://oaji.net/articles/2014/457-1420056732.pdf},
	author = {Vincentas  Lamanauskas and Violeta  {\v S}lekiene and Loreta  Raguliene and Dragos Iordache and Costin   Pribeanu and Martin Bilek and Bulent Cavas and Tatyana Mazurok}
}
@article {813,
	title = {USING FORMATIVE MEASUREMENT MODELS TO EVALUATE THE EDUCATIONAL AND MOTIVATIONAL VALUE OF AN AR-BASED APPLICATION},
	journal = {Problems of Education in the 21st Century},
	volume = {50},
	year = {2012},
	month = {December/2012},
	type = {Original article},
	chapter = {70-79},
	abstract = {With the explosion of new technologies for e-learning there is an increasing demand to assess the educational and motivational value of a new application. Augmented reality (AR) is a promising technology that creates new learning experiences by integrating real objects from the traditional school into a computing environment. A research challenge is to better understand the relationships between various factors of interest for the successful deployment of educational systems in primary and secondary schools. There are several approaches to evaluation that are based on quantitative methods. In recent years there is an increasing interest in taking an alternative perspective to measurement by using formatively measured constructs. This paper will highlight several benefits in using formative measurement models to evaluate the educational and motivational value of an AR-based e-learning application. The evaluation target is a Chemistry learning scenario that has been developed in the European project ARiSE {\textendash} Augmented Reality in School Environment. Based on our previous work we developed a new evaluation instrument that includes both reflectively and formatively measured constructs to evaluate the ergonomic, educational, and motivational quality of a desktop AR application. The preliminary results from a pilot study show the extent to which specific features of the Chemistry scenario are positively influencing the educational and motivational value.},
	keywords = {augmented reality, educational value, formative measurement models},
	issn = {1822-7864},
	doi = {https://doi.org/10.33225/pec/12.50.70},
	url = {http://oaji.net/articles/2014/457-1419345838.pdf},
	author = {Costin   Pribeanu}
}
