Psychology (e-books)

E-book

Mária Bačíková - Anna Janovská

The textbook "Foundations of Methodology in Pedagogical-Psychological Research" is primarily intended for students of teaching academic subjects, but it will enrich anyone who needs to familiarize themselves with research methodology focusing on psychological and pedagogical sciences. In the textbook, students become acquainted with the basic principles of conducting research, the process of research implementation, and the basic methods of quantitative or qualitative approaches. The examples used in the textbook are mostly focused on research conducted in a school environment.

By mastering the basic knowledge presented in the textbook, the reader will be able to conduct simple research in school conditions. At the same time, understanding the principles of research methodology helps with the critical evaluation of information from various sources. In preparing the textbook, we utilized our long-term experience with teaching the subject of research methodology, as well as with implementing many research projects. We believe that the simple language of the textbook and the abundance of practical examples will help students understand the basics of such complex issues as research methodology.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the students of the Faculty of Arts and Natural Sciences at P. J. Šafárik University in Košice who attended the course "Foundations of Methodology in Pedagogical-Psychological Research" in the previous academic year for their inspiration, constructive comments on previous versions of the text, and ideas (or mistakes) that we drew upon in the textbook. We also thank other students who allowed us to use examples from their final theses in the textbook. The conclusion of the work is open because, as it turns out, we do not have a common denominator for both concepts that could decide on the correctness of one or the other concept. It is precisely in this that the Socratic question remains a serious philosophical problem today.

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E-book

Lucia Tóthová - Dušan Šlosár

The publication "Manifestations of Radicalism and Extremism in Social Relations" is an input analysis of the individual areas that the authors want to focus on in their research activities in the study of radicalism and extremism. The context of the study is in the possibility of social work in influencing radical and extremist tendencies in those areas that we can designate as working fields of social work.

The authors of the individual papers focus on the theoretical definition of extremism and radicalism, types and forms of extremism, factors affecting the formation of the radical and extremist thoughts, focusing on specific target groups (especially youth) and the role of social work in the issue of radicalism and extremism, and they also represent the results of research in the field.

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E-book

Veronika Vasiľová - Soňa Lovašová

The formation of social work as a scientific discipline is not a completed process because of with changes in society also change social problems that need to be identified and analyzed with the intention to develop methodological solutions aimed at preventing and interventing these social problems.For this reason, the field of social work as such is constantly expanding, as its dynamic nature makes it possible to respond to emerging social problems and react to the needs of society.

Social work in the school environment is a functioning science field abroad.In the conditions of the Slovak Republic, this area of social work is still missing.Therefore, the monograph deals with the possibilities of social work in the school environment in Slovakia. 

The monograph is primarily intended for the professionals working in the field of social work and in the third sector with children and youth.

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E-book

Margita Mesárošová - Jozef Bavoľár - Miriam Slavkovská 

The current situation in the world education system, which declares the need to educate students for knowledge society, for improving the graduate employability is behind the motivation of authors to address competencies and key competencies for the knowledge society.

The authors present theoretical and empirical investigations based on the application of scientific methods of competency assessment and the use of contemporary scientific paradigms. The starting point is the concept of competencies in the context of current approaches of scientific psychology, which resonates in the official documents of the European Union and has been elaborated and enriched by the authors. The monograph focuses on a selected set of competencies, namely: competence to act as a self-regulated person, self-development, decision-making competencies, social and metacognitive competencies in the context of motivation. Knowledge about nature, the structure of competencies are presented, as well as their relations with personal and environmental variables.

The effort of the authors is also aimed at making available knowledge about the possibilities of assessing these competencies using current methods. Authors communicate the results of the creation and verification of competency assessment methods. The implementation of the research results presented in the monograph is perspective in the education and counseling of the target group of university students.

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E-book

Lenka Lukáčová - Eva Žiaková

The burnout syndrome in the simplest sense is a state of total physical and psychological exhaustion. Its cyclical course may be misleading, often underestimated and neglected on the part of a burned-out individual, as well as by its surroundings. The neglection of warning signals strengthens the field of its occurrence and impact.

Monography is one of the methods with which we strive to draw attention to the problem of burnout syndrome in the performance of a helping profession. Based on this, we have focused on determining the frequency of occurrence of burnout syndrome in assisting professions based on predetermined risk factors (specific profesion, length of practice, motivators) in order to verify, confirm or refute  predefined factors. The subject of this research was also to examine the correlation between the aforementioned factors, the quality of professional life and the strategies for managing stress and stress situations.

The monography is intended for helping profesions e.g. social workers, nurses, doctors etc. We also believe that, this monography will be also benefit for a wider range of helping professions, as well for all those involved in the his problematics.

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E-book

Milena Barinková (ed.)

The complex of legal norms protecting work, ensuring safety and health protection at work, is very broad in scope, extending beyond the Labour Code to include other specific legal regulations, collective agreements, executive legal regulations, and internal corporate normative acts.

Health protection of employees from hazardous workplace influences is a central requirement stemming from fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the Slovak Republic. To ensure its universal enforcement across all employers in both private and public sectors, strict regulation through cogent norms is fully justified. The European Commission’s Communication to the European Parliament, Council, European Economic and Social Committee, and Committee of the Regions on the EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2014–2020 (COM(2014) 332 final) addresses the need to account for labor market changes arising from demographic shifts, aging populations, and technological advancements.

Work pace demands are intensifying, and all age categories of employees must adapt to new technologies, organizational changes, and evolving job structures. This increases requirements for maintaining health fitness throughout entire professional careers. Mental health fitness, which receives insufficient specific attention, is an inherent part of health fitness requirements. Prevention plays a critical role in mental health protection.

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E-book

Eliška Župová et al.

Research into justice in public administration organizations has not yet been conducted in Slovakia, not even in the scope of respondents addressed. Therefore, we consider the project cross-sectional, current, and beneficial for deeper exploration of this area.

The project is designed as interdisciplinary, combining insights from legal perspectives in defining justice from labor law aspects, psychological and ethical evaluations of fairness levels, and knowledge from public administration management fields.

The inspiration for selecting this topic stems from its academic relevance, confirmed by both domestic and international studies, as well as its public relevance, where laypeople most intensely perceive justice/injustice in relation to remuneration and appropriate labor-law conditions – exemplified by teachers’ strikes (2003, 2006, 2016), nurses’ strikes (2003, 2006, 2012, 2016), ŽSR employees’ strikes (2003), and doctors’ strikes (2011).

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E-book

Vladimír Lichner - Dušan Šlosár et al.

It is very difficult to refer to any act of extremism or action having extremist characteristics, or to exclude it unambiguously. The boundary between extremism and accepted, conformal behavior is very broad and vaguely worded. Each company tends to set certain criteria to determine what can be considered as unwanted, violent, radical or extreme, or what signs of such a manifestation do not have. Therefore, when comparing the individual countries of the European Union in this area, we come across a different definition of what is or is not considered to be radical or extremist. In essence, the level of tolerance to some of the manifestations and the setting of indicators for the evaluation of the proceedings as extremist.

The presented monograph aims to present the basic social contexts of extremism and radicalization in the form of their philosophical and theoretical backgrounds, influencing the factors, the basic directions. In the author's work, the authors focus on the target group of adolescents, which they consider to be one of the most endangered groups in society in terms of development of the radicalization process. At the conclusion of the monograph is also offered the criminal level of these phenomena, which is not unavoidable in terms of complex analysis.

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E-book

Lukáš Šutor (ed.)

The proposed anthology represents for many doctoral students their first entry into the publishing environment of scientific genres. The studies in such cases contain the essence of future dissertation works, which represent the creative pinnacle of doctoral studies. In addition to providing doctoral students with the opportunity to publish scientific outputs, we also consider the anthology a space for interdisciplinary encounters and mutual enrichment. However, interdisciplinarity is not merely a characteristic of the anthology as a whole but also of some studies.

Most notable interdisciplinary approaches are observed in literary studies. The traditional subject of research into artistic texts is enriched in individual studies by examining theatrical and film works (Peter Getlík), linguistic aspects of phrasemes (Ivana Hudiková), musical elements (Terézia Kulíková), visual art (Dominika Petáková), and digital spaces of new media (Alexandra Popovičová). From other disciplines, we highlight Miroslava Süčová Vernarská’s study, which extends psychological research into sociological and linguistically communicative contexts (the concept of metaphor), or conversely, Zuzana Šoltésová and Dušan Šlosár’s contribution, analyzing eating disorders from their disciplinary background in social work.

Both mentioned disciplines also include contributions with traditional research subjects. Nikola Fabiny from psychology analyzes consequence expectations in the context of goal selection and achievement. Jana Plavnická and Dušan Šlosár’s co-authored study from the Department of Social Work presents a multi-perspective analysis of integration barriers for immigrants in Slovakia. Within their own disciplines, both philosophy contributions operate: Juraj Brenišin interprets the ethical aspects of Avicbron’s Fons vitæ, while Michal Kručko examines Edmund Husserl’s unfinished work through a comparative lens of his students Jan Patočka and Roman Ingarden. The anthology concludes with Lukáš Lukačín’s study (written in English), which explores the semantic-grammatical category of modality in the verbs MAY and CAN within legal-administrative documents of the European Union.

The representation of academic disciplines and doctoral students’ individual creative outputs in Doktorandské miscelaneá 4 is thus appropriately diverse. We present this publication to the broader academic community as a representative overview of trends in young scholars’ thinking across the spectrum of humanities and social sciences doctoral programs at the Faculty of Arts, UPJŠ in Košice.

Lukáš Šutor

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E-book

Miroslava Köverová - Margita Mesárošová (eds.)

The publication „Helping professions and self-care from the perspective of psychology and social work“ includes research studies focused on self-care, and the positive and negative effects of helping among specific groups of helping professionals – psychologists and social workers.

A number of Slovak as well as foreign authors contributed to the book of proceedings. The contributions are theoretical studies, research studies and case studies. The theoretical and research studies are focused on important issues of professional helping: self-care, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, burnout, perceived stress, secondary traumatic stress, mindfulness, empathy, job satisfaction and turnover among psychologists and social workers.

Research interest in the phenomena is especially important in the context of the mental health of helping professionals and in reducing the negative consequences of helping. 

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E-book

Renáta Orosová - Katarína Petríková - Lucia Diheneščíková

Based on the analysis of self-reflection competences in future teachers, opinions of the mentor teachers and their recommendations and the set of pupil-oriented and educational process-oriented competences, a protocol for using self-reflection methods has been created. More precisely, it is a self-reflection teaching diary. It is an innovative method of self-reflection competence development in teaching students in their practical specialized preparation, particularly the self-reflective observation practice and conversation.

The Self-Reflection Teaching Diary is the outcome of the VVGS “Innovation in self-reflection competence development teaching methods in the practical specialized training of future teachers” grant project solving. It is an innovative and creative text-based tool not only for teaching students but also for university teachers specializing in their practical preparation as well as mentor teachers in primary and secondary schools. Its English version can be used by teaching students on their study stays abroad. It is also a transparent and unified tool in the practical preparation of future teachers aiming at the development of their self-reflection competences.

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E-book

Eva Žiaková (ed.)

Proceedings of the Scientific Conference with International Participation within the VEGA Project No. 1/0282/12 Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Meaning of Life and Its Components in Socially Significant Groups of Adolescents in Terms of Its Formation and Possible Intervention.

The introductory word is a very good opportunity for us to jointly evaluate what we have managed to achieve in addressing our common scientific research task focused on the study of the meaning of life in socially at-risk groups of adolescents. First and foremost, we asked ourselves what we have discovered about the meaning of life so far, that is, what we know about it.

The second question we asked was: what surprised us about the results we have obtained so far. The third question was about what we want to do to resolve the discrepancy between what we have discovered and what we want to achieve.

The final question in evaluating the solution of the scientific research task was: what do we (not) know about the meaning of life of adolescents and want to know in the future, or what should we focus on to develop the most effective logotherapeutic and sociotherapeutic methods for social workers working with socially at-risk groups of adolescents.

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E-book

Ján Juščák - Renáta Orosová - Zuzana Nováková

Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference February 5 -február 2014 6, 2014

Conference proceedings of abstracts is one of the outputs of the international scientific conference entitled Education 2014: Contexts of education in the current perspective held 5 to 6 Feb 2014 at University of Pavol Jozef Šafárika in Kosice. This conference focused on the issues of education and emphasizes the current state and prospects of educational practice, topical aspects of undergraduate teacher training, health psychology in educational practice, as well as pedagogical and psychological aspects of education in primary educational institutions in view of the broad educational community. It was aimed for scientists, young university teachers, PhD students as well as experts and teachers, to present trends in education and to stimulate discussion on topical issues presented in the field of education.

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