Below you can find the latest news about Project activities.
5. 9. 2023.
Participation at the 20th Conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI)
At the end of August (22 to 26, 2023), the 20th conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) was held in Thessaloniki, Greece. The conference was attended by a large number of researchers in the field of education and educational sciences from different countries, including the representatives of our project - the principal investigator Irena Burić and collaborator on the project Aleksandra Huić.
They presented three papers on the results of the longitudinal research that was conducted in the school year 2021/2022 within the project: (1) Genuine, Faked, and Hidden Teacher Emotions in the Classroom: Are they Transmitted to Students? (authors: Burić, Huić, Balaž) and (2) Self-Efficacy and Emotions in Teachers: A Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model (authors: Balaž, Burić, Šimunović), and (3) Are Student Engagement and Disaffection Important for Teacher Wellbeing? A Longitudinal Examination of the Within-Person Effects (authors: Aleksandra Huić, Irena Burić, Izabela Sorić).
The conference marked a new academic year in the most beautiful way and inspired us for undertaking new and exciting project activities.
20. 6. 2023.
Participation at the 21st EAWOP CONGRESS
Maja Parmač Kovačić, PhD, participated at the „21st EAWOP CONGRESS: The Future is now: the changing world of work“ which was held in Katowice in Poland (24 to 27 May 2023). The conference was organized by the European Association for Work and Organizational Psychology. Maja Parmač Kovačić presented the paper titled „Four-Wave Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Analysis“ which she prepared in collaboration with Irena Burić, Krešimir Jakšić, and Zvjezdan Penezić.
14.4.2023.
Lisa E. Kim visited Department of Psychology
From 13 March to 11 April 2023, a member of the research team, Lisa Kim from University of York (UK), visited the principal investigator Irena Burić at the Department of Psychology of University of Zadar. Her research visit was supported by the European Association for Personality Psychology (EAPP). During her stay, Lisa visited the Elementary school Šime Budinić in Zadar, Department of Teacher Education at University of Zadar, and Institute for Social Research in Zagreb. Also, Lisa participated in project research and dissemination activities.
3.3.2023.
Presentation at the 1st Conference of School Psychologists
On Friday, March 3, 2023, a member of our research group, Barbara Balaž, PhD, presented a part of the results of the longitudinal study at the 1st Conference of School Psychologists held at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. The presentation entitled "Professional well-being of secondary school teachers across the school year" was prepared with the principal investigator Prof. Dr. Irena Burić, PhD. Presented results stimulated a fruitful discussion about possible reasons for obtained differences in levels of teacher well-being throughout a school year. We were very happy to see that many school psychologists and teachers were in the audience. We sincerely thank all of them once again for their help with project data collection and we look forward to new meetings at future conferences.
8.12.2022.
Lisa E. Kim presented a paper at the Australasian Congress on Personality and Individual Differences
On Friday, December 2, 2022, Lisa E. Kim gave a presentation at the Australasian Congress on Personality and Individual Differences held in Australia. Together with Irena Burić, she prepared a presentation entitled "Teachers who are well teach better: An examination of the association between teacher self-reported well-being and student-reported teaching quality". The obtained results indicate that those teachers who are more satisfied with their work are also evaluated by students as teachers who have a higher quality of teaching in all dimensions. On the other hand, those teachers who declare that they are more emotionally exhausted are evaluated by the students as those who show less attention, are less fair and less often provide them with useful feedback, give them fewer opportunities to determine the material well and have difficulty keeping their attention, but they do not have less control and clarity. You can read the abstract of the work at the following link.
16. 11. 2022.
Preparing for an experience sampling study which will take place in Spring 2023
In the second phase of the project, we plan to conduct an experience sampling study in Spring 2023. Teachers and students from grammar schools are invited to participate. Any new and important information about this research will be regularly published on our website.
14. 11. 2022.
Symposium held at the 29th Annual Conference of Croatian Psychologists
At the 29th Annual Conference of Croatian Psychologists, a symposium titled Personal and contextual determinants of teacher professional well-being: What does the latest research in Croatia show us? was held in Tuheljske Toplice, Croatia. Irena Burić gathered active researchers in Croatia who investigate teacher professional well-being. Iris Marušić discussed the importance of investigating motivation and wellbeing of early career teachers. Boris Jokić and Zrinka Ristić Dedić presented the results on job satisfaction of teachers in Croatia and their perceptions of societal value of the teaching profession. Irena Burić and colleagues discussed the importance of teacher personality traits in explaining their professional well-being. Lastly, Barbara Balaž and colleagues presented the results on the role of student engagement in shaping teacher wellbeing. The symposium was an excellent opportunity for conference attendees to learn about the latest and ongoing research projects in Croatia that tackle teachers’ professional well-being. We thank Iris Marušić and Boris Jokić from the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb for their valuable contribution to the symposium as well as to colleagues in the audience for their interest.
25. 10. 2022.
Maja Parmač Kovačić gave lecture to psychologists working in secondary schools in Croatia
On Wednesday, October 19, 2022, Maja Parmač Kovačić held an invited lecture at the County Professional Council and the Inter-County Council for Zagreb, Sisak-Moslavina and Karlovac Counties for psychologists working in secondary schools. In her lecture, Maja Parmač Kovačić presented project data from the first measurement wave of a longitudinal study involving samples of teachers and students from 73 secondary schools in Croatia. In addition, she talked about the relationships between teacher emotions, personality characteristics, and their job performance. This was also an opportunity to present the results of the project to psychologists whose schools did not participate in the research. We are very happy that we had the opportunity to discuss with professionals about important topics related to the job performance and teacher wellbeing.
21. 10. 2022.
Presentation at the 5th Days Of Educational Sciences
The 5th Days of Educational Sciences conference was held from October 19th to 20h in 2022 in Zagreb. The conference was organized by the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb - Centre for educational research and development. Barbara Balaž, Irena Burić, and Mara Šimunović, presented a paper titled How is the teacher-student relationship related to students' achievement emotions. The obtained results emphasize the importance of students establishing a high-quality relationship with their teacher for their emotional wellbeing in the classroom.
5.10.2022.
World Teacher's Day
Today, October 5, is World Teacher's Day. In the last few years, marked by the challenges of the pandemic and other events, it has become even clearer how important the role of teachers and educators is for ensuring a high quality education. Therefore, we use this opportunity to thank them for all the effort they put into their daily work. In addition, we would like to thank them for their willingness to participate in research activities and helping scientists and policymakers to better understand educational processes and improve their overall quality. We hope that our project will contribute to reaching this goal as well and that our results will provide important and useful guidelines for preserving teachers' professional well-being and their job performance!
On behalf of the entire research group, I wish all the teachers and educators a happy Teachers' Day!
Irena Burić, PhD
23. 6. 2022.
The presentation of the results of the longitudinal research in schools has begun
Upon completion of the four-wave longitudinal study, we prepared an overview of the most interesting results to be presented to teachers, school principals, school psychologists and pedagogists from 73 participating secondary schools in Croatia. We have started with the presentations in June, and through August, September, and October we plan to visit the remaining schools. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we rarely had an opportunity to present our research in person to teachers, so we are extremely happy that we will now meet our participants and answer to their questions.
We place great emphasis on the practical implication of our research results. Thus, we hope that presenting the results in participating schools could help teachers and educators in raising the awareness of their personal characteristics that can shape classroom processes and students’ outcomes. In addition, in coming months we will start preparing workshop materials and a manual with specific guidelines for increasing professional well-being and job performance of teachers.
20. 6. 2022.
The longitudinal study has been completed
It is our great pleasure to announce that the longitudinal part of the research has been completed. The data was collected at four measurement points: October 2021, December 2021, March 2022, May-June 2022). In total, 1107 teachers and 19 607 students from 73 secondary schools in Croatia participated in the study.
Hereby, we would like to sincerely thank to all school principals, school coordinators, and especially to teachers and students for recognizing the importance of our project and their participation in the research.
This Fall, we continue with the implementation of our further research activities. More information about them are coming soon.
1. 6. 2022.
Participation at the 23rd Psychology Days in Zadar, Croatia
We are proud and happy to announce the first presentations of our project results at the 23rd Days of Psychology in Zadar conference, which was held from 26-28 May 2022. The poster presentation Teacher personality and teacher efficacy: Investigating the incremental value of personality facets was authored by Irena Burić, Ana Butković, Krešimir Jakšić, Lisa E. Kim, and Maja Parmač Kovačić. The oral presentation entitled Perceived teaching quality and academic emotions: The mediating role of cognitive appraisals of control and value was authored by Barbara Balaž, Irena Burić, Aleksandra Huić, Izabela Sorić, and Mara Šimunović. Presentation abstracts can be found at the link.