B a c k g r o u n d: The digital rectal examination (DRE) is a part of the standard physical examination and a useful diagnostic tool for detecting various lower gastrointestinal tract abnormalities. However nowadays it has been observed that medical students might not be properly prepared for performing and interpreting of DRE. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the knowledge and experience of Polish medical students about DRE.

Ma t e r i a l a n d M e t h o d s: A prospective study was carried out using a questionnaire accessible via internet platform. The survey consisted of 12 questions and considered experience as well as practical and theoretical knowledge about DRE. 976 responses from nine Polish medical universities were included in the study.

R e s u l t s: 38.68% of students have never performed DRE with “lack of opportunity during courses” (71.09%) as the most common reason. Among responders who performed this examination only 12.72% had done it more than two times. Usefulness of DRE was mostly assessed as high and very high (55.63%). Students in the self-assessment part indicated low and very low (18.72% and 39.61%) technical abilities and also low (25.34%) interpretation skills.

C on c l u s i o n: The knowledge of Polish medical students about DRE is insuffi cient. Medical universities should pay particular attention to this fi eld of examination to improve theoretical as well as practical skills of future doctors.

O b j e c t i v e s: Patient-centered care (PCC) is associated with better doctor-patient relationships, resulting in a decrease in symptoms, hospitalizations and health costs. However, studies analyzing factors infl uencing patient-centered attitudes show ambiguous results. The purpose was to assess the impact of the Clinical Communication Course (CCC) in Jagiellonian University, Cracow and other factors on Patient-Centered Attitudes (PCA) and Attitude toward Clinical Skills Learning (CSLA).

M e t h o d s: We retrospectively compared Polish-speakers (CCC+, n = 160), English-speakers (CCCen+, n = 55) aft er the CCC and upperclassmen Polish-speakers without it (CCC–, n = 122). Validated questionnaires to measure PCA (Leeds Attitude Toward Concordance II and Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS)) and for CSLA (Communication Skills Attitude Scale with negative subscale (CSAS-N)) were used. The higher the scores, the more PCA, and negative CSLA respectively. Students completed questionnaires and answered questions regarding age, sex, motivation to study (coded as humanitarian — MotHUM, financial — MotFIN, combination — MotMIX) and considered specialization — coded as with more human contact (family medicine, psychiatry, pediatrics — SpecHUM) and others (SpecNHUM). Statistics were prepared in R.

R e s u l t s: CCC+ scored higher in PPOS (2.91 vs. 2.74; p = 0.003) than CCC– and higher in CSAS-N than CCCen+ (31.22 vs. 28.32; p = 0.004). In CCC+ SpecHUM scored lower than SpecNHUM in PPOS (2.65 vs. 2.94, p = 0.012). MotFIN scored higher then MotMIX in PPOS (3.01 vs. 2.7, p = 0.036). Correlations were statistically significant.

C o n c l u s i o n: CCC improved PCA in CCC+. Th ey showed more negative CSLA than CCCen+. Among CCC+, surprisingly, SpecNHUM presented more PCA than SpecHUM as well as MotFIN compared to MotMIX.

This study analysis is aimed at examining the relationship between logical thinking, metacognitive skills, and problem-solving abilities. To accomplish the research purpose, 100 senior secondary school students were surveyed. A descriptive survey method was adopted to examine the study results. Logical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and metacognitive skills scales were used to assess students' skills. These three scales have been pretested and have good reliability and validity. The collected data was analysed using correlation and multiple regression techniques. Pearson product-moment correlation results show a significant relationship between study variables. Further, results of the comparison show that problem-solving abilities differ significantly on the basis of gender and stream of the students. Mediation analysis revealed that logical thinking fully mediates the relationship between metacognition and problem-solving abilities. In the present study, logical thinking accounts for 52.4% of the total effect. Moreover, the result of the interaction of metacognition and logical thinking skills on problem-solving abilities is significant, which leads to the conclusion that logical thinking also works as a moderator between the predictor and outcome variable.

Over the past few years, a great deal of research has been conducted concerning the mathematical skills of children after the first stage of education. In my report, I present a selection of results from this research in order to illustrate the most typical didactical effects of the style in which mathematical education is performed in our schools. Comparing some detailed results from research in a number of chosen fields, I also try to assess whether or not, and how, the level of schoolchildren’s skills has changed in the recent years.

The text deals with the counterfactual thinking of preschool children. The theoretical justification for the research can be found in the nativist concepts of Alan Leslie and Alison Gopnik, which assumes that even very young children have a natural ability to accept the strangest creations of the imagination and to connect them together into one amazing whole. During the research, recognizing children’s metaphorical meanings required me to act as an interpretively involved observer-as-participant. In doing so, educational interventions enabled me to be situated within the observed phenomena, in close relationship with the children being studied. The observation, meanwhile, embraced the spontaneous activities of the children engaged in symbolic playing and the effect of these activities (mainly artistic concretizations). The liberation of counterfactual thinking in preschoolers being induced with literary texts. The collected material has allowed me to draw conclusions applicable to educational practice.

The purpose of the paper is to substantiate the expediency of diversifying educational services in the context of energy transformation and to highlight the modern approaches and teaching methods that contribute to the implementation of changes in the coal industry in the context of its reform to support the country’s energy balance. The article investigates trends in the modern development of the coal industry, as well as the potential of this field based on the energy transformation, taking into consideration the directions and prospects of the development of educational services as the meanings of adaptation to the reforming changes. Examples of coal-industry reform in Ukraine, Poland and Kazakhstan are considered, highlighting the question of retraining retired workers. The results of the conducted survey of respondents’ attitudes regarding the importance of training in the energy sector that can be used in the case of energy transformation, namely coal industry reform,

The need for innovative approaches to the training of future teachers is determined by the renewal and creation of the content of the educational process in higher education institutions, taking into account the creative development of the individual. Unfortunately, the traditional methods and forms of teaching used in higher education do not provide full and continuous effectiveness of professional training of future teachers. While the specialists of the new formation are required to acquire thorough professional knowledge and skills, a high level of intellectual development and civic position, the ability to constant personal and professional self-improvement. The purpose of the study is to reveal the essence of the creative potential of future teachers as a mental basis for professional self-improvement of high school teachers and experimental analysis of the components of the creative potential of future teachers, the study of teachers’ attitudes to professional development. Based on the results of the research, the criteria and indicators of the formation of the creative potential of future teachers were determined; developed diagnostic and methodological tools for certain criteria and indicators. Psychological and pedagogical diagnostics were carried out to differentiate the levels of formation of the creative potential of students of pedagogical specialties.

The topic of intra-European youth mobility has been under investigation for some time. This contribution discusses a particular youth migration, that of the children of immigrants who leave Italy to move to Northern Europe. What are the motivations behind this de facto migration? How much do discrimination processes count in the decision to move abroad and under what conditions and for what reasons do people leave Italy? This paper – based on my extensive qualitative research on young people of foreign origin, born and/or raised in Italy – discusses the opportunities and limits of these young people’s coping strategies in the face of difficulties in inclusion and entry into the labour market. It does this based on the broader research project, by taking into account the mobility ideas, drivers and relationships between mobile youth and their (ethnic or not) social networks.

This article analyses the strategies of adaptation used by highly skilled Latvian migrants to make the best of their situation abroad. As empirical data, 26 semi-structured in-depth interviews with highly skilled Latvian nationals in finances, management, IT and the health sector are analysed. The study reveals how migrants negotiate the value of their cultural capital in the new country’s labour market. Different adaptation strategies are typical for the pre-migration phase, the phase of transition and initial settlement and of establishment in the host country. The main conclusion of the study is that pre-migration cultural capital (education, work experience, language knowledge and general and specific skills) is important but not sufficient to be successful in new country’s labour market – in the UK, Germany, Norway and the USA. The labour-market outcomes are a result of the interplay between migrants’ individual resources and decisions on extensive investments in country-specific human capital and structural constraints – such as typical recruitment patterns in a particular occupation and host country.

This article investigates the post-return experiences of highly skilled Belarusian professionals. I con-centrate on the socio-cultural aspects of highly skilled migration and view returnees as carriers of new experiences, ideas, and practices by studying the ways in which they apply various socio-cultural re-mittances to the different spheres of their lives. In particular, I argue that the formation and transmission of socio-cultural remittances are strongly heterogeneous and selective processes, which manifest them-selves to varying degrees not only in different people, but also in different aspects of people’s lives. The analysis of several socio-cultural remittances in private and public spheres shows that in some cases the socio-cultural remittances display strong gender differences. Moreover, the highly skilled returnees appear to be proactive remitters: some of them re-interpret and transform the socio-cultural remittances before transmitting them. The research draws on the analysis of 43 in-depth interviews with highly skilled professionals who returned to Belarus after long periods of time spent abroad.

The main purpose of this paper is to describe the specificity of Polish academic institutions that employ foreign-born scholars. The empirical material comes from a two-year research project, involving 100 qualitative in-depth interviews with “international” employees and additional 20 with their Polish colleagues, mainly supervisors. The study demonstrated that the organizational units of universities and research institutes employing foreign-born scholars could be divided into four basic types: language departments, “special units” (focused on international cooperation or advanced studies), laboratories, and the “islands.” An additional category is composed of the centers where the academic staff shortage is a serious problem, but this category, unlike the others, is likely to be seriously affected by the ongoing higher education reform. The article adopts a neo-institutional perspective, which enables to analyze these types of units in terms of institutional work (including construction of normative networks, defining, vesting), done by the foreign-born employees.

The persons with intellectual disability have serious difficulties in language skills and consequently in the process of learning. The problems can be caused by Central Auditory Processing Disorders. In this paper we present research results on effectiveness of the Warnke method as a supporting tool in the development of language skills and in the process of education of children with such intellectual disabilities of mild degree.

Based on 25 interviews with high-skilled migrants, this article examines the migration of IT profession-als from Ukraine in Australia. Their migration experience – identified as ‘migration for achievement’ – is examined in three ways. First, the article sets out the structural context for migration and the formation of the achievement life strategy: (1) the emergence and growth of the IT industry in Ukraine, in combination with (2) shifts in Australian migration policy triggered by the growth of the innovation economy and demand for highly skilled migrants. Second, it examines migration decision-making and the individual motivations, values, aims and agency of migrants. Third, the article explores how achievement life strategies are recreated or transformed after migration by looking into the migrants’ adaptation, occupational outcomes, language and national identity, future plans and aspirations. The narratives of the ‘achievement migrants’ in Australia form a story of well-integrated members of Australian society and active agents of social and economic life. Given their capacity to successfully main-tain their social and economic status after migration, along with their positive contributions to Australian society in terms of social cohesion, innovation and economic production, this group can be considered a ‘brain-gain’ for Australia.

Objectives: The OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) is a common method of assessing clinical skills used at many universities. An important and simultaneously difficult aspect of good examination preparation is obtaining a properly trained and well-motivated group of assessors. To effectively recruit and maintain cooperation with assessors, it is worth knowing their opinion. The aim of this study was to investigate the opinions of teacher-examiners about the OSCE and to identify the factors that could shape this opinion and influence on motivation.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a questionnaire on teachers who participated as OSCE examiners. This questionnaire consisted of 21 questions about their perceptions. Answers were rated in a five-point Likert-type scale. Chi-square or Fisher’s exact test was used to analyze the data.

Results: A total of 49 (out of 52) teachers participated in this study. Nearly 90% of examiners believed that it is fair, and more than 90% that it is transparent. Despite the fact that 67% of examiners believe that the examination is difficult to organize and 71% believe it is stressful for students; according to 72% of respondents the OSCE has a positive effect on learning. More than 91% of examiners believed that the OSCE is an appropriate test to assess students’ skills. Opinions about the examination were independent of specialty, seniority, gender or having taken the OSCE as students.

Conclusion: Teacher-examiners viewed the OSCE as a fair and transparent examination, adequate for the assessment of skills and, despite it being difficult to organize, worth doing as it is appropriate to assess practical skills and positively influences students’ motivation to learn tested skills.

The aim of this article is to analyze both the motivations of foreign scholars to come to work in Poland – specifically Kraków – and their ways of adapting to this significant Polish academic center. Most studies on highly skilled migrants (HSMs) concentrate on the flows between developing and highly developed countries. We concentrate on Central and Eastern Europe. This paper, based on in-depth interviews with 23 foreign scholars working full-time at four universities in Kraków, is a follow-up to a study presenting a 2015 analysis of websites of universities from Kraków. We look closely at barriers to and facilitators of foreign scholars’ adaptation to Poland and their perceived image of Poland and Polishness, their national identification and international contacts. We propose a typology comprised of “cosmopolitans”, “status seekers”, “enthusiasts”, and “commuters”. Our investigations reveal who decides to move to a semi-peripheral country such as Poland, and why. Certain parts of the narratives can be used in building a strategy of attracting more international scholars to academic centers such as Kraków.

The article is a result of a complementary advanced publication workshop accompanying the curriculum course exercises for PhD students, on the role of ICT in the research work of a scientist. To fulfill the extended course requirements the participants decided to write relevant paper, if possible, related to their individual research endeavors and their relations to the digital world. The paper consists of a collection of short chapters written by young researchers. They express their own views, based on early research experience, relevant generally to the inclusion of critical digital age components in their theses. The chapters are only moderately consulted by the tutor in the direction of finding a common denominator related to social sciences.