Teachers have an important role in promoting the development of metacognition and self-regulated learning in students. This study aims to reveal the beliefs and practices of preuniversity teachers regarding the best teaching strategies that can be used in the classroom to facilitate the development of students' metacognition and self-regulated learning skills. Teachers from pre-primary and school levels (ISCED 02-3) (International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) - Statistics Explained (europa.eu) participated in this research. Participants, 120 teachers, had to filled in an online form of the adapted version of the 'Self-Regulated Learning Opportunities Questionnaire', developed by Vrieling, Bastiaens, and Stijnen (2012), and to answer three open-ended questions. The questionnaire assessed the extent to which teachers use the following two strategies to promote metacognition and self-regulated learning in their classroom: planning (including goal-setting, metacognitive knowledge activation, task value activation, and time management) and monitoring of the learning process (including metacognitive awareness and monitoring of cognition). The open-ended questions aimed to reveal the participants' opinions about the best teaching practices that facilitate the development of metacognition and selfregulated skills of students, the factors that hinder the development of these skills and how teachers can promote self-regulated learning in their classrooms. Data were analyzed using the SPSS software for the quantitative data, and the thematic-analysis for the qualitative ones. Results show that teachers create some opportunities for students to develop their self-regulated learning skills, but face various problems in trying to develop these skills in the classroom context. The results of this study are discussed in relation to both classroom and school contexts, and the broader level of educational policies.

Difficulties in reading comprehension and gender differences are increasing concerns for the educational systems. The purpose of this study is to investigate gender differences concerning reading enjoyment, perceived competence, perceived reading difficulty and performance in reading. Using a secondary data analysis of the 2018 PISA survey, this research paper assessed the differences between boys and girls in reading literacy on a sample of Romanian students. Difficulties in reading comprehension were found to be an issue for most of the Romanian students while gender differences were present for all the analysed dimensions, girls outperforming boys in the reading performance, reading enjoyment and perceived competencies in reading but scoring lower levels of the perceived difficulty in reading. Further research is needed to develop intervention programmes.

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This study presents the results of an investigation focused on the university position towards innovation. 219 students, future teachers for preschool and primary education, have been involved in the survey and voluntarily filled in an online questionnaire. The results indicate that most students agree that the development of innovation skills has to be an aim of the current educational system and that it's an important objective of their university. Still, a high percent of students disagrees with the fact that they have enough time to be innovative and that university is a proper environment to be innovative. However, most participants agreed that teachers can stimulate the students' interest for innovation and they also have an active role in cultivating their capacity for innovation. Participants believe that all students should benefit from programs focused on the development of their innovation skills, not only those students with an innovative potential. The answers of participants suggest that university is theoretically opened toward innovation and the development of students' innovative skills. However, in practice there are some malfunctions, as the results of the study indicate.

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