Szabolcs Halasi

Integrating sustainability education into teacher training remains a key challenge, particularly in minority language contexts where environmental and cultural dimensions intersect. This study examines how education about sustainability can be effectively integrated into teacher training in such a setting. Specifically, it examines the effects of three elective environmental education courses ‒ introduced during the 2020 curricular accreditation ‒ on the environmental attitudes of students enrolled in Hungarian-language teacher training in Serbia. The research involved a sample of 150 students over three academic years (2022–2025) and employed a quantitative design using three validated psychometric instruments (RevNEP, ENV, and CHEAKS) to assess ecological worldviews, environmental values, emotions, and behavioural intentions. Data were analysed through descriptive and inferential statistics, revealing statistically significant positive changes in students’ environmental attitudes: RevNEP indicated stronger ecological worldviews, ENV showed growth in pro-environmental values, and CHEAKS demonstrated the development of affective and behavioural dimensions. The results suggest that the substantive characteristics of the specialization itself, and the students’ motivations have a greater influence on attitude formation than the academic year itself. The study underscores the dual function of minority teacher education: fostering sustainability-oriented awareness while preserving cultural identity. These findings, based on multi-year quantitative evidence, strengthen the empirical understanding of attitude formation in sustainability education and hold direct implications for curriculum development and international discourse on teacher training. Keywords: attitude formation, education for sustainable development, environmental education, quantitative longitudinal research, teacher training

Background: While previously a university education career seemed like a predictable, relatively stress-free, flexible, socially recognized profession, this today is no longer the case. Where it once was a job which protected its teachers from all sorts of workplace sources of stress like uncertainty, low work control, it now no longer offers such shielding. Methods: In our study, based on the Jobs-Demands and Resources Theory, we examined the backgrounds and predictor roles of institutional stress sources and resources, and physical activity as an individual asset, in the wellbeing of teachers. For our analyses, we used the CEETHE 2023 research database. Within its framework and with the help of an online survey, we mapped the teacher work characteristics of Hungarian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Romanian, and Serbian higher education institution teachers (N = 821). Result: According to our results, emotional exhaustion is the most critical negative predictor, while work engagement is the most important positive predictor of teachers wellbeing. In an indirect way, physical activity contributes to wellbeing by decreasing certain sources of stress. Conclusions: If the university seek to improve its employees’ wellbeing, it would be equally important to emphasize institutional management support. This support would provide clear-cut expectations and tasks, transparent institutional strategies, goals, and plans.

The Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2) was developed to assess the motor development of children aged 3–10 focusing on motor skills. The TGMD-2 is widely used in research and clinical settings. The aim of the study was to investigate the content, criteria, and construct validity and reliability of the TGMD-2 for children aged 7–8 in Serbia. The study involved 214 children (47.19% girls) from the northern part of Serbia. The two-factor model was confirmed by factor analysis. Internal consistency reliability was high: for locomotor score (.76), object control score (.77) and total composite score (.81). The test-retest reliability ranged from .31–.79, and it was significant (r = .55; p ≤ .00). This study highlighted that TGMD-2 can be used with confidence to assess motor skills of children in Serbia aged 7–8.

Background: The goal of this research is to identify correlations of motivation and physical self-concept with physical activity among students of younger school age, as well as the level of prediction of motivation and physical self-concept with physical activity of students in physical education classes. Methods: The sample of respondents consisted of 411 students of the third and fourth grades from the territory of the Zlatibor district. A modified Self-Regulation Questionnaire was used to assess students’ motivational orientations, while appropriate subscales of the Self-perception Profile for Children measuring instrument were used to assess physical self-concept. Physical activity is shown as volume and intensive physical activity (vigorous physical activity (VPA)), measured with a Suunto memory belt pedometer and heart-rate monitor. Results: Boys’ motivational predictor variables accounted for 14% (volume) and 28% (VPA) of their physical activity in class, with intrinsic motivation, introjective regulation (just for the level of physical activity), and identified regulation as the most important determinants of physical activity. For girls, the identified regulation variable (from the system of motivational predictor variables) was shown to be the primary predictor variable on both criterion variables (R2 = 0.34 and 0.36). Conclusion: The teaching of physical education for students of younger school age should be conceived by creating a motivational climate, in order to encourage physical activity.

By participating in some organized physical activities, even at school or in a sports association, children will have an impact on their intellectual, emotional and socialization abilities, as well as develop their motor skills and abilities. As a result, an athlete’s health will also be at a higher level and their Healthrelated quality of life (HRQOL) will change. In the survey, we were researching if there is a difference in the results of the HRQOL dimensions of lower-grade athletes and non-athletes at Ferenc Gál University’s Szarvasi Training Primary School and Training Kindergarten. In the cross-sectional study, 89 parents responded to questions in the Kidscreen-27 / proxy questionnaire, which asked about their child’s subjective quality of life and its relationship with sports. Based on the statistically processed data, it can be shown that young athletes have higher HRQOL values compared to their non-athlete counterparts in all dimensions. From this, we can conclude that sport has a positive impact on the health and well-being of athlete students, their relationships with family and friends, and their effectiveness at school.

The aim of the study was to examine changes in obesity prevalence among primary school children in Serbia between 2015 and 2019 rounds of the national WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI-Serbia). Cross-sectional studies were conducted in 2015 and 2019. The nationally representative samples of primary school children were measured for body height and weight, following the COSI protocol. Body Mass Index was calculated, and the IOTF and WHO definitions were used to classify children as overweight or obese. Participants were children of both sexes aged 7.00–8.99 years (n = 6105). Significant differences in overweight (obesity included) prevalence between two COSI rounds were identified regardless of definitions applied. According to the WHO definitions, prevalence of overweight and obesity combined increased in 7–9-year-old children in Serbia from 30.7% in 2015 to 34.8% in 2019 (z = −3.309, p < 0.05), and according to the IOTF standards, the increase from 22.8% to 30% was registered (z = −6.08, p = 0.00). The childhood overweight/obesity rate is increasing in Serbia, which places monitoring and surveillance of children’s nutritional status high on the public health agenda.

The dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity in developed and developing countries has become a major health care concern. Accordingly, there is growing recognition of the relationship between health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and obesity in the pediatric population. This study aimed to explore the relationship between HRQOL and different indicators of obesity in children aged 7–8 years. In total, 182 children participated in this study (mean age 7.71 (0.29) years, 48.91% girls). To assess obesity, an InBody 230 analyzer was used to calculate body mass index (BMI) and body fat percentage (BFP). The proxy version of the KIDSCREEN-27 questionnaire was used to assess HRQOL. Among boys, 17.2% were overweight and 4.3% were obese according to BMI, while in terms of body fat percentage (BFP), the corresponding percentages were 12.9 and 9.7%, respectively. Among girls, the prevalence of overweight and obesity was 11.2 and 9.0% by BMI and 10.1 and 7.9% in terms of BFP, respectively. The analysis of BFP showed a significantly higher score in normal weight boys than in obese boys in the Social Support & Peers domains (KW H-test = 10.472, p = 0.03), while in girls, there were no significant differences between weight categories and any HRQOL dimensions. Obesity at 7–8 years of age could negatively affect some HRQOL domains; in particular, obese boys may have low social support and peer functioning.

Using complex training for developing strength is a method which is becoming more frequently used with athletes and one which is simply defined as a combination of heavier and lighter (pliometric) load within one series. The scientific study is is based upon the assumption that complex training has given positive results in the development of explosive strength of professional athletes. The methodical procedure included an overview of research on the affects of complex training done in the last twenty years and up to now, using Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. The results of the reviewed studies mostly show that complex training has given positive effects with professional athletes, which were physically prepared.