Aspects of self-regulated learning and their influence on the mathematics achievement of fifth graders in the context of four different proclaimed curricula

Metacognition is a part of the models of self-regulated learning. The consideration of a broader context resonates with a social cognitive perspective approach to learning which dominates the educational academic field with the theory of self-regulated learning. Metacognition is considered a crucial factor influencing mathematics achievement. Furthermore, the affective field including pupils' self-efficacy, interest and motivation are the phenomena involved in mathematical problem-solving. On the other hand, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulations are not a regular part of mathematics education in the Czech Republic. The main aim of this study was to investigate the relation between pupils' attitude toward mathematics; metacognitive knowledge; self-efficacy and motivation; metacognitive monitoring; and their achievement in solving mathematical problems. All together 1,133 students of Grade 5 from four types of Czech schools participated in the study. There were traditional schools; schools teaching mathematics by genetic constructivism, i.e., Hejný's method; Montessori schools; and Dalton schools were involved. The assessed variables, namely relation to mathematics; metacognitive knowledge; self-efficacy and motivation; metacognitive monitoring; and mathematical achievement were used as an input to regression analysis. Item-response theory was used for assessing the performance of the students and demands of the tasks. The metacognitive monitoring was detected as the most significant predictor of mathematics achievement for higher- and lower-performing students as well as for the item with high and low demands. The study reveals how the different mathematics curricula (un)support the metacognitive processes involved in mathematical problem-solving. The information allows teachers to spend sufficient time with particular types of mathematics problems whose solutions is determined by activation of metacognitive processes. This demonstrates the importance of including the activities for development of metacognitive monitoring in mathematics education.

Metacognition is a part of the models of self-regulated learning. The consideration of a broader context resonates with a social cognitive perspective approach to learning which dominates the educational academic field with the theory of self-regulated learning. Metacognition is considered a crucial factor influencing mathematics achievement. Furthermore, the a ective field including pupils' self-e cacy, interest and motivation are the phenomena involved in mathematical problem-solving. On the other hand, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulations are not a regular part of mathematics education in the Czech Republic. The main aim of this study was to investigate the relation between pupils' attitude toward mathematics; metacognitive knowledge; self-e cacy and motivation; metacognitive monitoring; and their achievement in solving mathematical problems. All together , students of Grade from four types of Czech schools participated in the study. There were traditional schools; schools teaching mathematics by genetic constructivism, i.e., Hejný's method; Montessori schools; and Dalton schools were involved. The assessed variables, namely relation to mathematics; metacognitive knowledge; self-e cacy and motivation; metacognitive monitoring; and mathematical achievement were used as an input to regression analysis. Item-response theory was used for assessing the performance of the students and demands of the tasks. The metacognitive monitoring was detected as the most significant predictor of mathematics achievement for higher-and lower-performing students as well as for the item with high and low demands. The study reveals how the di erent mathematics curricula (un)support the metacognitive processes involved in mathematical problem-solving. The information allows teachers to spend su cient time with particular types of mathematics problems whose solutions is determined by activation of metacognitive

Introduction
The level of metacognitive knowledge in relation to achievement in mathematics was investigated in primary and secondary students (Desoete et al., 2001;Montague, 2008), adolescents (Kramarski and Mevarech, 2003), gifted students (Risemberg and Zimmerman, 1992;Swanson, 1992), and students with special needs (Grizzle-Martin, 2014;Lai et al., 2015). Several studies have shown the positive impact of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation on the students' achievement in mathematics (Swanson, 1990;González Castro et al., 2014) or mathematical problem solving (Schoenfeld, 1992). Yet, the training aimed at metacognition is not a usual practice in all primary schools in the Czech Republic. Since 2005, the schools have been allowed to vary the structure of their curriculum in grades (FEP, 2021), i.e., subsidize weekly lessons or group selected subjects into the one whole (e.g., science comprising chemistry, geography, biology, and physics). Commonly, schools do not use this option and design their curriculum in a more traditional way, while others are committed to innovative or alternative concepts, including respective activities focused on the development of metacognitive monitoring and metacognitive teaching. In this study, we do not discuss the definition of participating schools as "alternative" or "traditional." The terminological inconsistency in viewing depends on the point of view of the relevant issues, including the policies and socio-economic issues (Prucha, 2012). We reflect the pedagogical point of view, where the term "alternative schools" means such institutions where they apply those educational approaches that differ in the content and form from the "traditional" approach, e.g., Montessori, Jena, Dalton, Decroly, Freinet, and Waldorf schools. Regardless of it, as to whether a school adheres to a traditional or alternative concept, the quality of the educational process depends on the teacher rather than on the affiliation of the school institution as such (Kasíková, 1994).
This study raises the question of how the individual aspects of self-regulated learning rehabilitate the pupils' mathematical performance at the end of the ISCED level 1 (5th grade) in schools with a traditional or alternative approach.
According to a review by Puustinen and Pulkkinen (2001), it is possible to divide all the models of self-regulated learning into the following two categories: goal-oriented and metacognitively oriented. In general, these models assume the existence of four phases: planning (preparatory phase), monitoring, control, and reaction-reflection involved in these 4 areas: cognition, motivation, behavior, and context. Therefore, there is the so-called double processing of information. First, at the level of the person, we include all internal prerequisites to achieve completion of the task as such (e.g., personality traits, metacognition, self-efficacy). Subsequently, the interaction between the task and the person takes place through the metacognitive processes regulating just the cognitive processes, and at the same time, there is the regulation and monitoring of affective and motivational processes. Thus, the processes interact with each other completely, resulting in the individual awareness and subsequent self-regulation of the learning process (Efklides, 2011(Efklides, , 2019Panadero, 2017).
As several meta-analyses (Dignath et al., 2008;de Boer et al., 2018;Muncer et al., 2022) demonstrate the link between the various aspects of self-regulated learning and mathematical performance, we were interested in how the aspects of self-regulated learning of Grade 5 pupils related to their mathematical achievement.

Theoretical background Metacognition
Metacognition can be understood as the ability to think about knowing oneself and the world around us, where the main purpose of this thinking is to improve one's own cognition. It is a conscious control and management of cognitive abilities. Interestingly, Cera et al. (2013) understand metacognition as the ability to control how we obtain information and how we further can process and store it in the mind. On the other hand, in this context, Winne (2018) sees thinking (not only thinking as a process, but also its properties) as the main interest of metacognition. According to Flavell (1979), metacognitive knowledge itself has a dual nature consisting of the knowledge of cognitive processes (metacognitive knowledge) and the knowledge that can be used to control cognitive processes (metacognitive regulation). While metacognitive regulation according to Flavell refers to the procedural components (goal setting, prediction, planning, application of strategies, selfquestioning, organization, etc.), the metacognitive knowledge itself includes the knowledge and beliefs (entering the affective dimension) that an individual has about their cognitive Ř íčan et al. .
/fpsyg. . resources (strategies, heuristics), the nature of the tasks, and the knowledge and beliefs about oneself and others as learning beings. This dual concept, despite some terminological inconsistencies, is still accepted across the professional discourse (Hong, 2020). Several studies demonstrated the correlation between the ability to solve mathematical problems and both components of metacognition from grade one (Vo et al., 2014;Cornoldi et al., 2015) to grade three (Veenman et al., 2005;Van der Stel et al., 2010).

Metacognitive knowledge
According to Flavell and Wellman (1975), metacognitive knowledge means an explicit content of long-term memory. It is a more static component of metacognition, being activated before the start of any cognitive enterprise (offline). In the current literature, there is a division of metacognitive knowledge into the three areas (McCormick, 2003;Winne and Azevedo, 2014): declarative knowledge (any knowledge about oneself and factors influencing one's own cognition; knowledge about characteristic task situations; knowledge of strategies); procedural knowledge (knowledge referring to the way the task situation is performed); and, conditional knowledge (a knowledge of when, why and under what conditions it is appropriate to deploy a determined strategy). Borkowski et al. (2000) define relational metacognitive knowledge as well. Then, metacognitive knowledge is closely related to the specific field-domain knowledge. As stated by Veenman et al. (2006), metacognitive knowledge is built based on the acquisition of experiences and knowledge in a certain area, that over time makes it practically unrealistic to have an adequate metacognitive knowledge in a certain area without the individual having attained their own domain-specific knowledge. Therefore, the importance of metacognitive knowledge lies in the initiation of cognitive activities, meaning, how an individual uses them through the information processing and behavior in general. Although some results indicate a direct rate of development of declarative (Schneider, 2008) or relational and contextual metacognitive knowledge with age (Artelt and Neuenhaus, 2010), for example, in the case of the development of procedural knowledge, this ratio is not entirely clear. On the other side, declarative knowledge has been improved since the beginning of basic education, but the intensity of improvement decreases with age (Schneider and Löffler, 2016). Similarly, Annevirta et al. (2007) in their longitudinal study focused on kindergarten children to the first years of primary school pupils concluded that entering into school leads to an accelerated development of metacognitive knowledge. However, what types of mechanism lead to the described increase directly remained secret.
In recent years, other alternative approaches Mitsea, 2020, 2021) have emerged to relate this concept to the ordinary functioning of the individual in the 21st century to a view of metacognition that incorporates both already highly regarded characteristics of the metacognition construct (e.g., distinction between cognition and metacognition, selfmonitoring, self-regulation), but also expanding and integrating the view of metacognition to include new aspects such as findings from cognitive neuroscience or the emphasis on the affective component. This approach is conventional with the view emerging in the late 1980s emphasizing the hot nature of cognition, i.e., that an individual's reasoning is influenced by their affective dimension (Brand, 1985).
In the field of mathematics education, Carr (2010) emphasizes the development of declarative knowledge for the development of conceptual knowledge. He claims that the quality of this knowledge supports the procedural knowledge and strategy building. Schneider and Artelt (2010) summarize the findings of several studies, stating that "metacognitive knowledge . . . predict mathematics performance in primary and secondary school settings even after differences in intellectual abilities have been taken into account" (pp. 158-159).

Metacognitive regulation
Although metacognitive knowledge is an important prerequisite to assessing the real complexity of the tasksituation and selecting appropriate strategies for a specific learning situation , optimization of this process can occur only when the strategy is successfully applied, i.e., when the knowledge of strategy is translated into a strategic learning behavior. Usually, this component of metacognition is divided into the three following areas (McCormick, 2003;Winne and Azevedo, 2014): planning (choosing goals and strategies before starting the work on the task); monitoring (conscious understanding of the task during its execution, including continuous monitoring through the self-instruction, self-testing and self-questioning); and evaluation (revision and control of the processes and products after the end of the activity), while in the empirical part of this work we focus on the aspects of metacognitive monitoring, because, in agreement with other authors (Winne and Hadwin, 1998), we find the construct as the central core of metacognition.
Metacognitive monitoring expresses a degree of agreement between the self-assessment of one's own learning, problemsolving, reading and memory performances, and the proven performance. Thus, it is a specific way the internal assessment of a task performance (Ackerman and Thompson, 2017) can be obtained in the course of different moments in the learning process (before, during, and after) and therefore associated with the different cognitive processes (Leonesio and Nelson, Ř íčan et al. . /fpsyg. . 1990). Regardless of the moment (before, during, after), just the metacognitive monitoring provides the student with their internal feedback on their personal learning progress, thus enabling the adaptation of learning processes as such. We refer to the assessment act as metacognitive judgments (Nelson, 1996;Dunn, 2004), that can be considered as an indicator of the level of metacognitive monitoring, distinguishing between the judgments of learning and post-dictions (confidence judgments). These are the two distinct cognitive processes (Metcalfe and Dunlosky, 2009), since the monitoring capabilities are divided on the basis of the three learning phases: (1) acquisition; (2) remembering; and (3) reproduction; where judgments of learning appear in the first phase and confidence judgments in the third phase (Nelson and Narens, 1990). Any personal performance prediction allows individuals to intervene in the learning mode by revealing some discrepancies between the current and desired target states and is therefore more relevant to an outcome of the current learning than postprediction, that is primarily an assessment taking place at a time when the learning process has already ended, and its formative function points to the future (feedback, reflection, and lessons). In the empirical part of the work, we use confidence judgments, because it is not about the regulation of the ongoing learning process, but about the evaluation of the completed learning process. At the same time, post-diction is a much more accurate act than prediction (Hacker et al., 2000), and what we find more relevant for the purposes of this study. The degree of certainty that one's own solution is correct may relate to either an overall estimate, i.e., overall score in the test, or a local estimate, i.e., correct solution to a particular problem. Although empirical studies suggest that the global estimate is more accurate and consistent than the local estimate (Schraw, 1994;Nietfeld et al., 2005), we find, based on the apparent differences in the accuracy of the local estimate between the more and less able students (Ibid), there is a higher expressing value in the context of taking into account the types and complexity of test items, including formative potential (specific identification of non-problematic items), in our opinion. Confidence-based data can be used to identify the 5 indices (Schraw, 2009) that refer to other dimensions of metacognitive monitoring, and there is no one-size-fits-all dominant method (Nietfeld et al., 2006). In the empirical part of this work, we focus on the discrimination index evaluating the degree within an individual can distinguish between confidence judgments for their correct answers and confidence judgments for their incorrect answers. Only in the first years of the primary education some pupils indicated a higher degree of certainty for correctly answered items than of certainty for incorrectly answered items (Pressley et al., 1987). The results in the 7and 9-year-olds demonstrate this finding (Roderer and Roebers, 2010). While there were significant differences between the age groups in the confidence judgments area for the correct and incorrect answers, no differences appeared when only the confidence judgments for the correct answers were analyzed. That is why sometimes only the confidence judgments value for the incorrectly answered items is used as an indicator of the level of metacognitive monitoring (von der Linden and Roebers, 2006;Roebers et al., 2014).

Motivation
The motivation theory and related empirical research suggest that just motivation plays an important role in the students' learning and academic performance at school (Wigfield and Cambria, 2010). Numerous researchers have studied the actual relationship between motivation and performance at school (Soenens and Vansteenkiste, 2005).
Certainly, elements such as engagement, motivation, and academic achievement are vital aspects in academic research as such. Interestingly, evidence suggests that the student involvement and motivation are positively associated with the improved quality of learning (Mohamed Mohamed Bayoumy and Alsayed, 2021). Such students who are truly motivated can see learning as an opportunity to fulfill their own curiosity and eagerness for knowledge (Rose, 2011). From this point of view, it is assumed that motivation in a certain area can lead to an increased involvement in related tasks. Therefore, a greater engagement is expected to lead to success gains on various measures (Skinner and Pitzer, 2012). In this context, it should be noted that such students generally have a complex relationship with mathematics as such (Mean and Maciejewski, 2021). This is due to the fact that they often do not see the relationship between learning mathematics and real life (Akbuga and Havan, 2021;Hecht et al., 2021). Research shows that students' motivation is to some extent related to a specific domain or subject in school (Hornstra et al., 2016). It has been found that the strength of the relationship between motivation and success varies across disciplines (Hornstra et al., 2016). These differences may not necessarily be due to the nature of the subjects themselves but may also be due to the students' assessment of the subjects. This statement is closely related to anxiety, where considerable research, for example, shows a negative association between mathematical anxiety and motivation for mathematics (Namkung et al., 2019;Zhang et al., 2019;Li et al., 2021).
Various studies have emphasized the importance of motivation in the field of cognitive performance as well as its relationship to metacognitive development (Lara Nieto-Marquez et al., 2021). Although it is recognized that the poor academic skills and math problems pose a risk to the development of school motivation (Klauda and Guthrie, 2015), studies on school motivation in children and young people with low math or reading skills are still rare (Parhiala et al., 2018).

Self-e cacy
The concept of self-efficacy was first introduced by Bandura (1977) in an effort to elucidate changes in human behavior, defining the construct as a belief in one's own ability to organize and carry out activities to achieve set goals. Bandura (1994Bandura ( , 2011 also defined the four main ways in which self-efficacy affects human functioning (cognitive, motivational, emotional, and selective processes). Chan and Lam (2010) mention the two basic aspects of self-efficacy, namely (i) self-expectation (an individuals' belief in their own ability to take the necessary steps to achieve the desired result) and, (ii) expectation of the result (belief that a particular action or behavior will lead necessarily to the desired result). According to some authors (Williams and Rhodes, 2016), self-efficacy can be considered as a focal point, especially due to its strong predictive abilities. Together with the hope and optimism, self-efficacy is thus associated with some expectations about achieving future positive states (Feldman and Kubota, 2015;Unrau et al., 2018). Bandura (2011) points out that a high level of self-efficacy is manifested in the person's fearlessness in overcoming obstacles, setting higher goals, and persevering to achieve them (Pajares and Graham, 1999;Schunk and Meece, 2006). If such persons fail, then they do not give up and, on the contrary, rather, add to their effort, for example by acquiring new skills to meet the set goal. On the other hand, numerous individuals with a low level of self-efficacy are convinced that they are not able to achieve the set goals and so they do not even strive to do so. There are four main sources for this purpose (mastery experiences, social modeling, social persuasion, and physical improvement). In this regard, the whole feedback system is important, providing information about the evaluation of individuals' performances and affecting academic self-efficacy and self-regulation of learning (Brown et al., 2016). Cera et al. (2013) link the high levels of self-efficacy to the high levels of metacognitive abilities, with negative learning experiences underlying the low self-efficacy, critical thinking, and metacognitive involvement.
Several authors have already tried to define mathematical self-efficacy. Burnham (2011, p. 4 in Smetáčková andVozková, 2016) speaks of it as an individual's confidence in their ability to perform successfully in mathematics. Betz andHackett (1983 in Pajares, 2005, p. 300) add that it is "individuals' judgments of their capabilities to solve specific mathematics problems, perform mathematics-related tasks, and succeed in mathematics-related courses." The predictive potential of self-efficacy in the context of mathematical achievement is well-documented (Coutinho and Neuman, 2008;Chang, 2015). Garofalo and Lester (1985) stressed that the description and analysis of cognitive strategies alone was not enough to understand problem solving and highlighted metacognitive processes. They considered including the metacognitive activities described in their framework (entitled Cognitive-Metacognitive Framework for Studying Mathematical Performance) the most useful form of introducing these processes into teaching. Their problem-solving framework comprised the four activities present in solving any mathematical task: orientation, organization, execution, and verification, while the individual steps perceived from a theoretical point of view correspond to the various aspects of metacognition activation. The importance of this classification derives from the fact that any metacognitive actions are more likely to occur in one phase than in another, depending on the nature of the mathematical task. In order for the students themselves to master this general procedure, it is necessary to pay strongly-focused attention to the application of this model in different subjects as well; the use of various mathematical tasks, and the use of various teaching techniques embedded in the framework of teaching metacognition is not for mathematics alone.

Metacognitive knowledge
The MAESTRA 5-6+ tool is based on the qualitative standard emphasizing the relative adequacy of the chosen strategy in the context of task specificity, opposed to the quantitative standard emphasizing the frequency of using the strategies (Wirth and Leutner, 2008). Specificity of the strategies can be achieved through increasing the specificity of tasks (Leopold and Leutner, 2002;Samuelstuen and Bråten, 2007). Therefore, questionnaires investigating the frequency of use of various strategies often fail to predict the students' performance. Clearly, the correlation questionnaires measuring the frequency of use of school-based strategies are negligible (Sperling et al., 2002;Lind and Sandmann, 2003;Cromley and Azevedo, 2006). The tool MAESTRA 5-6+ requires an answer (1) what strategy will somebody use (declarative knowledge); (2) in relation to other disposables (relational knowledge), but also (3) when/under what conditions (conditional knowledge) will it apply in the context of understanding the characteristics of the described, and (4) task situation (declarative knowledge)? Therefore, any real deficit in any of the above areas may lead to erroneous strategic evaluation (Artelt and Neuenhaus, 2010;Neuenhaus, 2011). The tool contains the 5 specific mathematical scenarios that correspond to the framework model of the four phases of cognitive activity in solving mathematical problems (Polya, 1957): (i) understanding the task assignment (understanding the problem and defining it), (ii) planning the individual solution steps (design of solution strategies), (iii) implementation of the plan (implementation of strategies), and (iv) evaluation and reflection of the solution (looking back to verify the conclusions, checking the results).
. /fpsyg. . Polya (1957) assigned the cognitive strategies leading to the goal of the current phase of processing the problem for each step, accepting the problem-solving non-linearity. Later, Garofalo and Lester (1985) added the metacognitive strategies in the end. The five or six different strategic alternatives varying in functionality and efficiency are assigned to the five specific mathematical scenarios. Thus, pupils themselves can evaluate the effectiveness of the alternative regarding the quality and adequacy not only in relation to the submitted task scenario, but also in relation to other offered alternatives on a sixpoint scale. As a comparative measure for the respondents' judgments (projection of their own experience about strategies and conditions of their use), expert opinions were obtained within the content validation of the tool construct (Chytrý et al., 2014). If the statement is in accordance with a predetermined expert opinion, the comparison of the pair is considered correct (1), unless it is inconsistent as incorrect (0). The criterion limit was set at 80 %, i.e., that at least the 4 out of 5 experts had to agree that, for example, in scenario 1, strategic alternative a is more appropriate than another strategic alternative b (a > b). The criteria boundaries and selectivity then led to the expected reduction in the number of pairwise comparisons. Finally, there are a total of the 34 comparisons and the participant can score 0-34 points.

Self-e cacy and motivation
The authors (Smetáčková and Vozková, 2016) of the Czech version of the self-efficacy mapping tool standardized and constructed according to the Bandura recommendations (Bandura, 1997), stated the reliability of the tool α = 0.953 (α = 0.72 in the presented research). The self-efficacy mapping tool contains the thirty items, answered using a fivepoint Likert scale (Likert, 1932). The motivation tool (α = 0.922) comprises the six-items, and also uses a five-point Likert scale. For both tools, it was not possible to discuss the issue of an even or odd number of scales, as stated by Rod (2012), as they were already piloted in the Czech environment. The tools are evaluated through the sum of responses for all items (ordinal data). In this case (sum) we will proceed from the conclusions and the way of using the given scale by a number of authors (Maurer and Pierce, 1998;Vickers, 1999) and consider the given variable as an interval. Boone and Boone (2012) add that the parametric statistical methods need to be used when processing data on an interval scale. As the part of selfefficacy, the participant can obtain 30-150 points. The lower the final score, the higher the level of mathematical self-efficacy. In case of motivation, the scale is 6-30 points. It is true that the lower the value obtained, the worse the student's relationship is to mathematics.

Math achievement
The tool was created by combining the two different tools tested in CERMAT (a company designing the national testing) research, MA2ACZZ506DT (test A) and M5PZD15C0T01 (test B). The renumbering of individual items and their adjustment is described in detail in Chytrý et al. (2020). To verify the content validity, expert opinions were considered. We obtained the feedback from six experts, mathematics didacticians, fulfilling the requirements defined by Ríčan and Chytrý (2016) based on the work of Neuenhaus (2011). The expert was understood as a person demonstrating their direct relationship to the strategic learning in context of reading comprehension (university teacher of the subject; finished PhD degree in relevant field). We have adapted and partially modified this approach in our survey. In addition to the Neuenhaus's analogous approach, we also addressed the people who published at least 3 relevant articles related to strategic learning in the last 5 years. The Bloom's revised cognitive goal taxonomy by Krathwohl and Anderson (2010) was used to classify questions according to cognitive demands. The classification of the task as a lower or higher cognitively intensive category was specified when at least four of the six experts agreed on the assignment. In total, 83% of the items correspond to the higher cognitive demands, particularly important due to metacognitive monitoring. The responses were evaluated as 0 (incorrect), 1 (correct) or NA (missing). The arithmetic mean of the measured values is then a suitable point estimate of the parameter p of the alternative distribution, the probability that the randomly selected student will answer the question correctly. According to Chráska (1999), the Difficulty Index was calculated according to the relation p = x s x and the difficulty value then q = 1 − p. The suitable tasks are included in the interval p ∈ 0.20; 0.80 , and the tasks with p < 0.20 or p > 0.80 are considered suspicious. In this study there were only the 4 tasks considered suspicious tasks. The instrument itself shows the high reliability examined based on Kudera-Richardson Formula 21, KR 21 = 0.807 (split half with the division into the even and odd items 0.771 and after correction by Spearman-Brown formula 0.871). Thus, the values meet the required properties (Tavakol and Dennick, 2011). Moreover, sensitivity was solved using a point biserial sensitivity coefficient. Compared to our previous study , one item was excluded, due to the incorrect use of confidence scales by pupils. Pupils could achieve 0-20 points in the final version of the math achievement test.

Metacognitive monitoring
Each item was assigned by a difficulty scale, a line where pupils marked how confident they were that they had answered the mathematics question correctly. In the context of determining the level of metacognitive monitoring, we used . /fpsyg. . the so-called discrimination index D i through the confidence judgments that can be calculated according to the formula.
Where N c corresponds to the frequency of correctly answered items, N i is the frequency of incorrectly answered items, c icorrect corresponds to the degree of certainty for correctly answered and c iincorrect to the degree of certainty for incorrectly answered items and N is the overall number of items (correctly and incorrectly answered). Any positive value of discrimination index indicates that the individual is more confident in the correctly answered items than in incorrectly answered items. The positive value of discrimination index can be interpreted as metacognitive awareness of the correct performance, as the respondent provided greater certainty for the correctly answered items (compared to the incorrectly answered items). Conversely, a negative value indicates that the individual is more confident in the incorrectly answered items than in correctly answered items (Dougherty and Sprenger, 2006).

Sampling and data collection
As the first part of data collection, we selected those schools in the Czech Republic where mathematics is taught by the genetic constructivism approach, in the Czech and Slovak Republics known as the Hejný's method (Artigue et al., 2020). Respondents from these types of schools were selected based on multi-stage random sampling, so that we first randomly selected a school and then a class in it. The basic unit of research sample selection was not individual students, but entire school classes. Subsequently, the collection at other types of schools had to be regulated by certain predetermined criteria so that the proportionality, social status (this part was mapped based on an interview with the teacher), resulted in equal conditions for each of the respondents to the greatest possible extent. The given proportionality lies in the fact that each of the four types of schools (traditional schools; schools teaching mathematics using genetic constructivism, i.e., the Hejný method; Montessori schools; and Dalton schools) were always from one place (village, city, region); e.g., if the school where mathematics is taught with the approach of genetic constructivism is a school of small size and village type, there were also other types of schools of similar size and from the village, town, or city located closest to the original school.
The data collection took place in June 2021 (Tuesday to Friday). The tools were not distributed during the first lesson of the school-day, the regular teaching unit was inserted between the first and second lessons of data collection, and during the data collection day the pupils were not evaluated in any way.
The basic unit of selection of the research sample was not the individual pupils, but the entire school classes. The most important information and instructions included: (i) Sequence of distribution of individual tools, namely the metacognitive test of mathematical knowledge, mathematical self-efficacy (completion of these tools took place in one lesson), as well as the didactic test in mathematics (completion of this tool took place in the second lesson); (ii) Transmission of information on how the individual instruments are completed; (iii) Definition of time requirements, where the time for individual tests was defined as 20-25, 20, and 40-45 min, respectively.
From the total of 1,133 respondents, students of Grade 5, only the responses without any missing values were analyzed. We analyzed the data from 36 schools out of which: (i) 179 pupils were educated according to the Hejný's method, (ii) 292 pupils from an ordinary primary school, and (iii) 177 pupils completing the Dalton teaching plan. After all responses with missing values were removed, data from 648 respondents were analyzed.

Results
The descriptive analysis of the sample is summarized in Table 1. The item characteristic curves (ICC), item information curves (IIC) for all items, and test information for the test of mathematics achievement are in Figure 1. In our data, all the ICCs for the test items have an "S" -shaped curve, illustrating that their degrees of difficulty and discrimination vary within a reasonable fit range. Most of the IICs for the test items show a broad coverage of students' abilities. The test information curve suggests that the test of mathematics achievement that was used provided almost the same information on students with the higher abilities as on students with the lower abilities.
The regression analysis was performed by the ENTER method, that first addressed the issue of detection of outliers, normality of residues, testing of homoscedasticity, and multicollinearity. The aim was to determine an influence of the independent variables: (i) Pupil's relation to mathematics; (ii) Metacognitive knowledge; (iii) Self-efficacy; and (iv) Metacognitive monitoring focused on the achievement in mathematics (dependent variable). Those independent variables for which the partial t-tests were insignificant were gradually excluded from the model and subsequently the parameters of the resulting model were estimated.
The table shows that the models will differ for each preferred learning management strategy. Given the parameters (Table 2), the model is considered suitable to capture the variability of the variable y for all cases. The shapes of the respective regression equations are then as follows: Hejný: y = 8.196 + 0.041 · X 2 + 13.010 · X 4 Ordinary elementary school: y = 7.388 + 0.050·X 1 + 12.553· X 4 Dalton: y = 9.837 − 0.023 · X 3 + 12.992 · X 4 . /fpsyg. .   The analysis continued assuming that the items are divided into the lower and higher complexity of the items of a mathematical achievement test according to the Rasch's model. The reliability value for items of the higher difficulty is equal to 0.751 for (split half) and 0.727 for KR 20 . In the case of items of the lower cognitive intensity, the reliability value is then 0.723 (split half) and 0.716 for KR 20 . Further analyses are divided into several sections, namely, the same models, but with the difference that the items are divided into the lower and higher difficulties ( Table 3).

Hejný Ordinary school Dalton
As in the case of the first table, the models will differ for each of the preferred learning management strategies. The shapes of the respective regression equations are then as follows: . /fpsyg. . 12.9 0.00*** 12.4 0.00*** 12.9 0.00*** 13.01 <0.00*** 12.55 <0.00*** 12.99 <0.001*** Regression analysis according to the preferred learning management strategies at different types of schools (all variables): * ten percent level of significance, ** five percent level of significance, *** one percent level of significance.

Discussion
Regardless of the demands of the tasks, metacognitive monitoring saturated the performance in mathematics at the statistical level of significance p < 0.01. This finding is in partial contradiction with the research showing that the benefits of involving metacognitive processes occur primarily in the midrange tasks (Prins et al., 2006). The results of this study also demonstrate that regardless of the type of school, the aspect of metacognitive monitoring is a strong determinant (p < 0.01) of mathematical achievement. Therefore, these findings underline the crucial role of metacognitive monitoring in the field of mathematics education and suggest that schools should look for different ways to implement, definitely and without delay, a metacognitive monitoring in their curricula.
Thus, metacognitive knowledge proved to be a significant predictor (p < 0.10) for the more challenging tasks across all types of schools. Interestingly, lower-achieving students did not benefit from activating metacognitive knowledge alone. In the case of higher-achieving pupils, metacognitive knowledge was significant (p < 0.05) in the case of more demanding tasks. On the other hand, Meneghetti et al. (2007) stated that there is a discrepancy between the knowledge of a strategy and appropriate choice of a strategy, especially for the lowerachieving pupils. It is possible that lower-achieving pupils in this study failed to choose a suitable strategy that would help them to solve mathematical problems of a higher difficulty. We recommend focusing on the aspects of metacognitive knowledge in the context of adequate choice of strategies especially for the less able pupils. As Rozencwajg (2003) states, teaching metacognitive strategies, especially for the less-achieving pupils, could be one way to improve their academic success.
On the other hand, the importance of self-efficacy varied depending on the difficulty of the item, the pupils' achievement in the mathematical test, and the type of school. While statistical significance showed a different degree of intensity across the individual schools (Hejný p < 0.10, ordinary primary school p < 0.05, Dalton p < 0.01), in the case of the lower intensity items, statistical significance only showed in pupils from the Dalton elementary schools (p < 0.05). The results of this study also show that, whether they are mainstream schools or schools enrolling in a specific educational program (Hejný, Dalton), the aspect of metacognitive monitoring is a strong determinant (p < 0.01) of mathematical performance. This finding underscores the crucial role of metacognitive monitoring, regardless of the non-specific curriculum or program the school subscribes to.

Limitations
Even though the sampling was not and could not be purely random for the all the mentioned types of schools, it was managed according to certain predetermined criteria. The obtained sample contained the 36 schools from all regions of the Czech Republic and may be considered as representative. We also focused on the limits of the strongest predictor across the individual schools and the level of difficulty of items and confidence judgments as an indicator of metacognitive monitoring. The pupils' confidence judgments are strongly influenced by the (un)conscious heuristics, e.g., familiarity, fluency, font (Finn and Tauber, 2015) used when working with the given teaching material. The familiarity of the task in the context of the pupils' previous knowledge is a potential intervening variable increasing the value of confidence judgments (Metcalfe and Finn, 2008). Thus, the confidence judgments are not only the (cognitive) result of (non) present knowledge, but it is a pervasive concept that also includes factors such as feelings, metacognitive experiences, or epistemic beliefs alone. The findings of research by Miele et al. (2013) show that when students believe that the intelligence is an innate ability, they perceive some difficulties (reduced fluency) during the processing as an indicator that they are reaching their limits and the result is a lower confidence judgment in the end. On the other hand, students who believe that intelligence is a malleable factor usually do not interpret the processing of difficulties as the limits of their inner abilities at all (their confidence . /fpsyg. . judgments do not tend to decline or fluctuate). For this reason, in the subsequent regression models, we recommend capturing other (mediating) variables (e.g., socio-economic status, prior knowledge, epistemic beliefs).

Conclusions
The metacognitive monitoring alone is important to identify any difficulties in the learning process (and to respond appropriately by implementing a proper and useful learning strategy) and to adapt the available learning time to the learning requirements or to complete the learning process in time when it is successful or in current settings without prospects for a successful solution (Metcalfe and Dunlosky, 2009).
For the immediate educational reality, discrimination is an important indicator for the time of learning various parts of the curriculum. Discrimination thus creates a springboard for deciding (1) what is not yet sufficiently controlled (what passages of the curriculum and for how long they are to be studied) and, conversely, what already is controlled enough (it is effective to abandon the study of these passages) and at the same time, which questions in the test need to be returned to reveal which answers are correct and which need to "cross out" and start searching again in the memory or in the assigned text. Therefore, the pupils being aware of what they already know and do not know can spend a redundant amount of time on the passages they have already mastered and at the same time can pay an increased attention and amount of time to those sections they do not understand or do not remember thoroughly. "[T]he . /fpsyg. . monitoring process informs the learner about [their] learning progress and therefore builds a defining basis for their selfinitiating learning behavior." (Roebers et al., 2014, p. 142). Thus, through the discrimination, we can gain information about what we know and do not know, and then we have access to designing respective and proper strategies and choosing between those who can help us to succeed. Rhodes and Kelley (2005) conclude that, as the part of completing a test, a follow-up process for incorrect answers is far more crucial to output than a follow-up process for correct answers.

Data availability statement
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics statement
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Ethics Committee of J. E. Purkyne University in Usti nad Labem Czech Republic. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/next of kin.


Impact of a Preparatory Year Programme on the Students of Health Professions Education Colleges

Objectives The preparatory year programme (PYP) at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is a one-year programme for students preparing for a full multi-year degree curriculum at a university. It offers a bridge between high-school and university-level studies of the students. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the King Abdulaziz University PYP on students of the health professions education colleges from the viewpoints of the students and the faculty. Methods This descriptive study was conducted between May 2019 and January 2020 at King Abdulaziz University, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and was based on data collected from both students and faculty to assess their perceptions. The data were collected from students through self-administered questionnaires and from faculty members through structured interviews. Descriptive statistics were used for analysis. Results A total of 633 students responded to the questionnaire (response rate: 88.3%), of which almost half agreed that the PYP made them self-confident and reinforced their discipline (49.2% and 46.9%, respectively). Less than two-thirds agreed that the preparatory year reinforced their sense of responsibility and helped them adapt to the university educational environment (60.6% and 64.3%, respectively). Conversely, more than half (58.5%) disagreed that the preparatory year classes helped them select their majors as well as that the preparatory year prepared them for their major classes (57.2%). A total of 24 faculty members who taught PYP students claimed that there should be careful consideration of the contents of the courses offered to the students in the preparatory year programme, especially the content related to the healthcare profession education. They argued that it is better to have a separate track in the PYP that includes subjects directly related to the study of health professions (such as molecular sciences, genetics, medical terminology, English for medical purposes, etc.). Conclusion The impact of the PYP on students attending the health professions colleges was found to be weak as per the perceptions of both students and faculty members. In-depth studies are necessary for further investigation of this impact.

S everal higher education theories and cognitive models have tried to explain the factors involved in students' transition from high school to university and help this group adapt to a new academic context. [1][2][3][4][5] The preparatory year aims to help students transition from the high school system of teaching/learning to that of a university, familiarise students with various academic disciplines at the university and integrate them into the university environment before they choose the right academic discipline to pursue from the various options given to them. 6 The programme also prepares students psychologically for their prospective fields of study in subsequent years. 7,8 It was reported that foundation courses for first-year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery students helped in reducing student anxiety and boosting confidence. 9 Furthermore, these courses offer intensive training programs to put students' professional careers on the right track and enrich their cultural backgrounds. 6 Among such courses are English language courses, which have a huge impact on student learning and assessment in subsequent college years. 10, 11 Astin's involvement theory indicated that pre-college academic experiences could help students' participation in college experiences. 2 The role of the preparatory year programme (PYP) can be explained based on this theory.
The PYP at King Abdulaziz University is a oneyear programme that helps students prepare for a full multi-year degree curriculum. It offers a bridge between students' high-school and university-level studies. It has been reported that the existence of the PYP indicates the weaknesses of general education in real-world settings. 12,13 One established aim of the PYP is to enable new students to explore the academic disciplines of a university and be familiarised with the campus environment. 7,14 As a result, they are provided with the necessary support to become meaningful contributors, both personally and professionally, at the university and beyond. 6 Moreover, the preparatory year seeks to help students develop a good relationship with the community through official visits to private and governmental institutions and build student's selfconcept to become an effective person in society. 7,15 The following is a quote summarising the many goals of the PYP: "The PYP is but a springboard over which ambitious and hardworking students leap energetically, assisted by their experienced faculty, towards their prospective careers, availing themselves of every moment and making full use of all affordable resources. " 16 It is an open invitation for both students and faculty to always be active and on the alert to attain the aspired goals. 17,18 At King Abdulaziz University, the subjects taught in the PYP include English, biology, chemistry, physics, communication skills, math, statistics and computer skills. These subjects help build a foundation for the scientific track, helping students get into health, engineering and science colleges.
Not too much is known about the overall impact of the PYPs in Saudi universities and on the preparation of health professions education students. Only a few studies have addressed certain aspects of the PYPs in some Saudi universities. Kaliyadan et al. addressed the topic of English language learning in the PYP. 10 However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, the overall impact of the PYP has not been studied till date. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the perception of students and faculty members of the impact of the preparatory year at King Abdulaziz University on students attending health professions education colleges (medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing and applied medical sciences) in order to make further improvements to the PYP.

Methods
The study used a descriptive cross-sectional design and was conducted at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, between May 2019 and January 2020. Data were collected from both male and female students (n = 633; 261 males and 372 females) during their first year at medicine, dentistry, applied medical sciences and pharmacy colleges and who had completed the PYP the previous year. Additionally, faculty members who taught PYP students (n = 24) were also included in the study.
The instruments used for data collection were as follows: 1) a questionnaire based on a 5-point Likert scale consisting of 30 items used for obtaining student responses developed and validated by Al-Rabia et al; 19 2) structured interviews administered to faculty members to obtain their views on the different aspects of the preparatory year. The structured interviews were based on a list of 10 open-ended questions to explore the view of PYP teachers on the preparatory year [ Table  1]. Responses to each question were qualitatively analysed by the authors by reading them critically, linking them to the aim of the study and categorising them according to the three pre-established themes: 1) content of the PYP; 2) value of the preparatory year in getting students ready to study in health professions colleges; and 3) need for a separate track for health professions colleges.
Quantitative data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), Version 24.0 (IBM Corp., Chicago, Illinois, USA). Descriptive statistics were applied and a P value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Qualitative data (viewpoints of faculty members) were analysed and thematic descriptions were applied to the collected data. Conversations were recorded by the authors; subsequently, the recordings were transcribed and assessed. Data relevant to the pre-established themes were taken into consideration in the analysis.
This study is part of a research project approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University. Verbal consent was obtained from all participants in this study.

Results
The study was conducted on a sample of 633 students (response rate: 88.3%) from different health professions education colleges at King Abdulaziz University and faculty members who taught students in their preparatory year of university. Approximately half of the study's sample agreed that the preparatory year made them self-confident (49.2%) and reinforced their discipline (46.9%). Less than two-thirds agreed that the preparatory year reinforced their sense of responsibility and helped them adapt to the university educational environment (60.6% and 64.3%, respectively). Conversely, more than half of them (58.5%) disagreed that the preparatory year classes helped them select their majors and more than half (57.2%) disagreed that the preparatory year prepared them for their major classes [ Table 2].
Nearly two-thirds (64.8%) of the students disagreed that the preparatory year provided opportunities to engage in activities that developed their various personal skills (e.g. social, physical, cultural and creative). More than half of them disagreed that the faculty motivated them to develop their creative and innovative abilities (56.4%), the academic counsellor was helpful (58.5%), the interaction with the academic counsellor was adequate and fruitful (57.7%) and teaching was interactive rather than spoon-fed (53.4%). Regarding the ease of communication with faculty, 40.6% answered affirmatively, approximately a quarter of them (24.5%) were neutral and one-third (34.9%) disagreed [ Table 2]. In general, the mean scores of student responses were low, except for ease of communication with faculty, which was a bit higher.
Greater percentages of the sample agreed that the assessment tasks were appropriate (45.7%), adequate awareness sessions were planned for newcomers (45.7%), student guidebooks were informative (55.8%), teaching timetables were set appropriately (49.7%) and the academic affair services were easily accessible (41.4%). On the other hand, less than one-third of them (28.9%) agreed that student support services were adequate. Almost two-thirds of the students (63.5%) agreed with the appropriateness of the available facilities such as the library, computers, data shows and smart board. While approximately half of them (45.6%) agreed with the appropriateness of the resting areas designed for students, more than half of the students (56.4%) disagreed with the suitability of food-purchasing areas for students [ Table 2].
Approximately half of the students agreed that after the preparatory year, they had confidence in their abilities to research information (51.9%), their thinking skills had improved (46.6%), their computer skills had become more sophisticated (46.1%) and they could access and use learning resources (53.5%). Notably, the percentages of people agreeing that their research and scientific writing skills had improved and those who disagreed were more or less similar to each other [ Table 2].
In all cases, however, it could not be assumed that these changes in the different skills were caused by the involvement in the PYP as there could have been some other confounding factors.
There were statistically significant differences among male students from different colleges in their responses to different individual factors studied as part of the questionnaire (P <0.05). However, there was no statistically significant difference among male students of different colleges in terms of their perception of the overall effect of the preparatory year (F = 2.05; P = 0.108) [ Table 3]. Statistically significant differences appeared between pharmacy and dentistry colleges with regard to the following factors: 'university conduct' , 'administrative and regulatory matters' and 'general perception after completing the preparatory year' . All the differences were due to the higher means scores with regard to the College of Pharmacy, specifically. This indicated that there was a bigger effect of the preparatory year on male pharmacy students than that on male dentistry students [ Table 4].  *The 5-point scale was collapsed to 3 points for easy interpretation of results and increasing cell sample size. Both "Agree" and "Strongly Agree" were considered as "Agree" while both "Disagree" and "Strongly Disagree" were considered as "Disagree".
There were statistically significant differences between female students from different colleges with regard to their responses to different individual factors of the questionnaire (P <0.05), except for the 'facilities and services' factor. Furthermore, there was also a statistically significant difference among female students from different colleges in their perception of the overall effect of the preparatory year (F = 3.24; P = 0.012) [ Table 5].
There were differences between female students of dentistry and medicine with respect to 'university conduct' , 'perception of faculty, teaching and assessment' and the sum of the whole questionnaire. Moreover, there were differences between female students of dentistry and nursing in a few factors, namely 'perception of faculty, teaching and assessment' , 'general perception after completing the preparatory year' , and the sum of the whole questionnaire. Furthermore, there were differences between female students of dentistry and pharmacy in terms of factors such as 'general perception after completing the preparatory year' and the sum of the whole questionnaire. The perception of female dentistry students appears across all of the mentioned observations indicating that there was a greater effect of the preparatory year on female dentistry students than those from the colleges of medicine, pharmacy and nursing [ Table 6]. The success of planning for the PYP requires careful consideration of the content of the courses offered to students. According to the 24 included faculty members, revision and update of such courses with the knowledge and skills needed by the students are required. One faculty member indicated, "Arabic language is one of the subjects taught to the students in the preparatory year. It is good. However, in the Arabic language, the students study only some irrelevant topics to their health professions studies. " Another member stated, "some topics studied by the students in biology are outdated. I think we need to pay more attention to the specific and up-to-date medical sciences like molecular biology. "   The PYP consists of general subjects that are similar to those studied at the high school level. The content of subjects related to health professions studies (i.e. biology, chemistry and physics courses) is small and general in nature. For preparing health professions students, such content should be strengthened and made up-to-date. This was clearly indicated in the responses of some of the faculty members interviewed. One of the members indicated, "most of the courses in the preparatory year program are general courses that don't help prepare the students to study in the health professions colleges. Attention should be paid to such courses to make them relevant to the goal of that program. " A faculty member also mentioned, "we are preparing students to study medical sciences so it is better to give them the background knowledge for such sciences in the preparatory year, and no need to waste their time in studying irrelevant content. " In general, faculty members felt the need for a separate track in the preparatory year for health professions colleges. They claimed that the presence of a separate track would provide a better chance to include subjects that were directly related to the study of health professions (such as molecular sciences, genetics, medical terminology and English for medical purposes). A faculty member indicated, "a separate track for health professions students would be a great idea that will better help them be prepared for further studies in that sensitive field of study. " Another member also stated, "having a separate track for health professions students will help avoid wasting the time of the students in studying irrelevant content that will not fit well in their preparation for studying in health professions education colleges. "

Discussion
A primary principle upon which the PYP was originally based is that it is an important transitional stage between high school and university that prepares students for a new academic context by alleviating the anxiety of studying in a university, giving them a solid linguistic base of the foreign language used for instruction and helping them shift from adolescent education to adult learning. 10,21,22 However, results from the current study indicate that the impact of the PYP on the students, in general, was weak. These findings are similar to those found by Alkathiri in his evaluation of the PYP. 20 Although teaching, assessment and student support are the most important activities in the PYP and as such, special attention should be given to them, it is clear from the student responses that they perceive teaching, faculty and assessment negatively and are unsatisfied. As stated by Alkathiri, it seems to be a big challenge to attract and train qualified faculty for the success of the PYP. 20 Zeller and Zlotkowski argued that universities should strive to appeal to qualified faculty for the preparatory year, else the effectiveness of the programme may be questioned continuously, which will be reflected in the impact on the quality of the outputs of the preparatory year. This, in turn, may affect the review of the importance of such programmes in the future. 23,24 Students in the preparatory year are in need of guidance and assistance. Student support services are one of the most important services these students need to support their transition into university life. To offer good support to these students, policies and practices should be in place and be consistent with academic policies. Starting from admissions to the end of the year, preparatory year officials must regard clear instructions, effective communication and support for the achievement of all means of success as their responsibilities. 12,25,26 For the success of any academic curriculum, suitable and enough educational facilities should be made available to students. 27 In a similar study, Alghamdi reported an average level of satisfaction of preparatory year students with the services offered by the university. 28 Although cafeterias and food purchasing areas are not educational facilities, they are considered to play a very important role in making students' on-campus life easier. Furthermore, the influence of the academic advisor is very important, and as such, their role should be strengthened such that the students can benefit well from it. The academic advisor should be more interactive with the students and help them in different aspects of their lives. This is important as the preparatory year is the first university year for the students and they may feel lost and need much help from their academic advisors. These advisors can orient students to the rules and regulations of the institution and also guide them through the academic processes in the university.
The current study showed that more than half the students did not perceive the teaching process as being interactive. In this regard, the preparatory year faculty members need to make their lectures more interactive and give the students an active role in their learning as adults in order to help them change their mindset from dependent pupils to independent learners. This will lead to the development of students' cognitive skills and help them navigate medical studies at the university that require the use of higher cognitive skills. 29 Additionally, the preparatory year faculty need to promote creative skills in students by creating a safe learning environment. This could be done by intellectually stimulating the students to discover, develop and use their creative and critical thinking skills. 20 The mean scores for the female students were greater than those for males across all factors, except the 'general perception after completing the preparatory year' factor, where the mean scores were more favourable for the male students. The differences were statically significant indicating that although female students reported more satisfaction than male students in the preparatory year, the preparatory year was reported to have a greater impact on the latter.
In Saudi Arabian universities, there is a separation between male and female campuses. The faculty within each of these campuses are also different from each other. This is expected to be the primary reason for the differences in mean scores of different factors. The reason behind high scores for females may be that there is a better educational and aesthetic environment on their campus. On the other hand, male students' mean scores were potentially higher on the 'general perception after completing the preparatory year' factor in relation to the other factors as they do not seem to depend mainly on the preparatory. This finding would need further explanatory research.
Regarding the remaining two factors, namely 'perception of faculty, teaching and assessment' and 'facilities and services' , the differences appeared between male dentistry students and both male medicine and male applied medical sciences students indicating that there was a greater impact of the preparatory year on male dentistry students than that on medicine and applied medical sciences male students in terms of those two factors.
Dentistry students (both males and females) perceived the effect of the preparatory year more positively than the students in other health colleges. This might be due to the fact that the former group believed that the subjects they studied in that year (especially physics) benefited them greatly in their dentistry subjects.
Much like any study of this sort, this study has its limitations too. Firstly, the study focused only on a single university. Although King Abdulaziz University is the biggest government university in Saudi Arabia, findings would have been more valuable and generalisable had more universities been included. Secondly, the study regarded students and faculty members as the most important stakeholders when considering participant selection; however, it would have been of great value to also include university officials responsible for the PYP as part of the interviews or via focus groups.

Conclusion
The impact of the preparatory year on students attending health professions education colleges at King Abdulaziz University was weak. This seemed to be the opinion of both students and faculty members. Additionally, there was no statistically significant difference between males and females. Special courses for health professions students should be included in a year often regarded as being important for a student. The authors recommend further in-depth studies in this field to understand the effect of different components of the preparatory year on students and to formulate recommendations for improvement and reformations for decision-makers.


The importance of a correct management in a tennis organization. How to create, expand and stay in the business COACHING & SPORT SCIENCE REVIEW

Running a tennis business must consider different elements to be successful. The purpose of this article is to name several factors that can assist to establish a tennis organization, expanding it, and staying in the business long term. The possibilities and nature of the business in the tennis world are wide. Given the impossibility of covering all of them, this article will focus only on running the tennis programs in a recreational tennis club as a contractor partner.

INTRODUCTION
There are several elements that need to have in consideration when running a business. Tennis coaching is not an exception, and it is not just about the performance implemented on a tennis court that matters but managing many other important factors. From the creation to the consolidation and expansion of the company there is a process of a few different stages that need to be ensured to succeed in the long term. Let's define what those stages are and what are the steps to follow in every one of those phases.

Conduct a market research
Before getting into any business adventure it is essential to spend time analyzing how many tennis clubs there are located in the area where you want to set up your company. Try to gather as much information as possible from the clubs and find out about other companies operating in the region. Gather also information about potential customers and use all those data to understand if there is a business opportunity.
Make a business plan. Define the mission, vision, and values of the company.
The business plan is a written document that describes the nature of business, target, market and business advantages. It is a tool that we use to start and run a business that requires material, financial and human resources (Jarmila Guta, 2014).
As an enterprise, it is important to establish what is the purpose or the goal of the company. That defines the mission and answers questions such as "who are we?", "what do we do?" or "How do we do it?". Pretty much it gives a full description of the company.
The vision will assist to grow the business by taking important strategical decisions that will make the company more competitive and put it in a good position in the market in the future.
Punctuality, education, health, transparency, honesty, and integrity are just some examples of the values that you might want to have in your tennis organization.
All of that together is the starting point to define your business plan which is basically a roadmap to structure, run and grow the company in the short and long term. Prepare a document (PowerPoint or similar) to convince any tennis club that you have a solid project and a professional team to run the tennis programs in their facilities.
Choose a name for the company and proceed with the registration.
It sounds simple but the name plays a very important role in the growth of the company and in the people's perception. Company builds its business image on its business name and that very name makes it recognizable in the market (Bulatovic et. al, 2016). Understand what the registration process is and how long it is going to take to be able to start operating in the business. Every country got different procedures and different costs to open a new company. Open a professional e-mail account to start operating from day one.

Financial situation
Starting a business implies having some initial costs. Make a list of your financial assets and add those payments that are necessary to be operational from the beginning (marketing campaigns, hiring people, buying products, courts rent, etc.). Determine for how long the company could potentially last with no income and establish relationships with banks in case some funding is needed.

THE TENNIS CLUB
There are a few things you must highly consider when you are looking for tennis courts to run your business:

Location of the club
The location of the club is crucial, and it is going to affect indeed the future of your tennis company. Depending on the location we need to attend to the following aspects:

• Climate
The weather has a massive influence on the design of any outdoor project. Rain, snow, wind, humidity, and temperature are conditions that can have an enormous impact on our business. All the programs should be prepared and have enough capacity to respond to every predictable situation, with the aim to reduce the potential repercussions that could affect the customers.

• Geography
Find the benefits of the geographical situation. Beach, mountains, or cities can offer different business opportunities. Do not just see inside the fences of the club. We will show some examples: ▪ Beach: Beach tennis programs or workout programs along the beach.
▪ Countryside: overnight events at the club (no noise restrictions at night time).
▪ City: schools, financial district, restaurants, etc. Create programs that can benefit the people working around before work, in their lunch break, or after work. For example, if there are many restaurants around, It might be interesting to open group programs for low-income waiters and waitresses. But if there is a financial district around, offering private session packages might be more suitable for the executives. Make deals with the schools to offer tennis programs in their facilities (you don't even need a tennis court to run a kids tennis program).

• Transportation
Study what are all the options to access to your club and find opportunities to facilitate the transportation to your customers. As an example, if there is enough volume it could be interesting to coordinate with a nearby school a mini-bus transportation to attend your evening tennis program after their class.

• Culture
In every region of the world, there might be significant cultural differences that should be considered when designing programs. For instance, In Hong Kong, the Ladies League is very popular (doubles format) and it contains multiple teams composed of 6 to 10 ladies split into 6 different divisions. Therefore, you can find many tennis programs with coaches specializing in recreational doubles for women. Find what culture is predominant in your area and create programs according to that.

Courts and facilities
Every club has different facilities according to the extension of its territory. Analyze and negotiate what facilities can be used. The number of tennis courts, the size of the gym, or even alternative sports like squash, padel, or badminton need to be considered when managing a tennis program.
Check the green areas or the full space that the club can offer. Creativeness is key and using the whole capacity of the facility is critical to increasing the benefits. A tennis court itself is not a mandatory requirement to run a tennis program. Street tennis is a perfect example of maximizing the space of any venue.
Also negotiate the possibilities of running other non-racquet sports through your company such as CrossFit, yoga, football, etc.

Maintenance
The correct use and maintenance of the tennis courts and the rest of the facilities might be directly or indirectly related to the role of your company. Either way, this can have a very important influence on the development of the organization. Make sure that the courts and the rest of the space (changing rooms, green areas, etc.) are well conserved and in good condition to be used by the members. When negotiating with the club do not hesitate to ask about the renovation plans for the different facilities. If investing in that renovation from your own funds is an option, this can be indeed a good asset during the contractual negotiation.

International Tennis Federation Coaching & Sport Science Review
The negotiation Once you have found the facility where you would like to run your tennis programs, there are a few tips to follow when starting any negotiation: • Start building up relationships with the clubs before you need them.
• Use your networking: Some estimates suggest that up to 70% of all jobs are not published on publicly available job search sites, and research has shown that anywhere from half to upwards of 80% of jobs are filled through networking (Freeland Fisher, 2020). Use your connections to knock on the right door.
• Try always to have an alternative option in case the negotiation does not go the way you expect. Do not look desperate to close a deal.
• Prepare well your business plan and show confidence in it.
• Make the numbers and be the one preparing an initial offer to use the facilities.
• Look for a win-win agreement.
• Do not expect to maximize the profit in an early stage but to establish a long-term relationship.

YOUR TENNIS COMPANY
Crespo (2020) presented some strategies that coaches can use to create added value to the services and products they offer and emphasized the consideration of tennis and tennis coaching as a business. He presented suggestions in four different main areas: quality of service, variety of tools used, interaction with their clients, and adequacy of the services offered to the clients.
Here we recommend some helpful actions to add to your tennis organization. Most of these actions will have an impact on the staff or employees, but some others on the customers directly.

Human Resources
Tennis organizations normally are not big or profitable enough to afford an HR department. However, it is crucial to have a qualified person taking care of this role to achieve success. Let's define the role that an HR department should have in a tennis organization: • The coaching Team

▪ Strengths and weakness
Determine what the strengths and the weakness are within your coaching team. There might be some coaches more passionate and energetic in working with kids, others more experienced to deal with adults, and others that might be more capable to organize events or attending tournaments. Matching the coach with their preferred program is highly recommendable to keep coaches motivated, happy students, and attract more clients creating a positive environment.

▪ Promote teamwork
To run efficient and effective tennis programs, get teams of work that get along together and share similar ideas of coaching.

• Career Path
Having a clear structure of the positions that your company (in collaboration with the club) can offer to the staff makes a big difference. Make sure that the coaches are aware of that structure and give them the opportunity to grow in Figure 3. Example of career path within a tennis organization.
International Tennis Federation Coaching & Sport Science Review their careers within the organization. Care about their CV and develop a long-term relationship culture with the employees so they see a clear benefit of staying in the company.

• Professional Development
Coach education has been identified as key to raising the standard of coaching practice (Avner et al., 2017). The following actions can be taken as part of professional development: ▪ Qualifications: Help your coaches to get the highest qualifications in tennis mainly throughout the national tennis associations or international organizations like ITF, ATP, WTA, etc.
▪ Courses: They might be related directly to tennis itself or maybe to different areas like first aid, communication skills, team management, strength and conditioning, languages, etc.
▪ Conferences: Bring qualified and prestigious coaches to your club to give speeches to your staff.
It is the responsibility of the company to have a professional team motivated and updated in knowledge. Having a team well prepared will have a positive impact on the results of the company. Online learning is a perfect solution for those coaches who cannot attend educational events due to the lack of time or/and economic resources. Some studies have concluded that there are no significant differences in results between online training and classroom (Barry, Runyan, 1995).
Career path and professional development are two important factors to consider in negotiation and turn aside the salary as the only important matter of the contractual agreement.
• Establish KPI, regular meetings, reflection, and feedback A Key Performance Indicator is a type of performance measurement. Every coach or staff member should have their own KPI. KPIs evaluate the success of an organization or of a particular activity in which it engages (Wikipedia). Set up goals and sit with your team in a regular basis to analyze whether you are achieving or not those company objectives.

Marketing and Communication
The purpose behind marketing management is to enhance the sales volume, to develop new markets, and to reach new costumers (Chandra Bose, 2010).
Define the services and products that the company wants to offer and create an efficient, solid, and regular marketing strategy. Define also the price policy of the programs and activities. Having an accessible website and a welldesigned Instagram or Facebook account is crucial. Social media has obviously redefined communications. It has a tremendous impact on the way information is shared between organizations, players, users, and tournaments (Lebel and Danylchuk, 2019). With the democratization of communications, users are likely to express almost instantly their experiences about any product or service, which can affect directly the reputation of the company (Venturino, 2011).
Do not forget to launch campaigns to attract new clients such as "Fun day" or "bring a friend competition" (the beginner friend serves the ball underarm to initiate the point and the experienced member plays the rest of the point).

Customer Service
There is no business without a customer. Show a pleasant attitude towards them by offering them empathy, understanding, and caring. Be patient and a good listener, respect their time and find their needs. Keep an open and clear communication without invading or affecting their private life. A happy customer is the first step to bringing you a new one in the future. Be open to asking customers about the quality of your service and accept the critics to improve and offer a better service. You can use surveys for this purpose.

Programs and Events
Probably one of the main keys to our business. Let's propose a list of some potential and creative programs that could be useful in a tennis club: • Private sessions. lessons. This program provides to families spend time together while doing some activity. Kids will feel more relaxed when their parents are on the court with them. Use the parents to help the kids while doing some drills, picking up the balls, etc. It will make the lesson much easier.
▪ Multi-sport program: Create a program with not only tennis but also football, basketball, gymnastics, etc. The multisport practice in teaching is a very means for the development of general coordination to be able to generate transfers between different sports and racket sports to end up in the practice of tennis (Letort, 2002). Young athletes' development must focus on the development of fundamental motor skills rather than on an early specialization sport (Balyi, 2005).
▪ Racket Olympics: Promote different racket sports through a few rotations (Padel, Squash, Badminton, Touch tennis, etc.) ▪ Tennis for elderly: Programs for 70+ years old with soft balls and 2 bounces allowed on the court. It can be combined with a strength program, joint mobility, and flexibility sessions. Tennis & Yoga is also a good option for this sector of the society.
▪ Tennis for disabled people: include the fundamental principles of human rights such as the principle of non- Using the slower balls ensures that starter players can rally with other starter players and guarantees more success, more rallies, more fun, and a great workout (Miley, 2017). Create express programs that last 3-4 days for people to initiate themselves in the sport.

• Events. Let's see another short list of examples:
▪ Grand Slam Championship: Use the Grand Slam calendar to organize some tennis competitions with the members. Watch (for example) the Wimbledon final at the end of the event with food and drinks.
▪ Summer or holiday camps: Establish commercial agreements with hotels to attract their customers during those periods of time.
▪ Social events: Create social events for certain dates like Halloween, Christmas, etc.
▪ Charity events: Help and raise money for those in need or help poor people that cannot afford to play tennis.
• Leagues and competitions

• Others
We are just living one of the most unique periods of all time with COVID-19. Different innovative actions that have used digital media, such as online training from home or distance learning, are allowing tennis activity to continue despite the limitations we all went through (Crespo et al., 2021).
In summary, be creative and open to define what are the best programs, events, and competitions that your organization should promote in the club to keep the members engaged with the sport and satisfied at their tennis club. Adapt your business to the environment, stay flexible and attend to the needs of the people to offer attractive deals.

Methodology
Stay updated with the methodologies recommended by the leading tennis organizations in the world. Game-based approach and constraints-led methodology are recommended rather than traditional coaching. Follow the approach of the ITF, National Federations, or some prestigious tennis academy to support the methodology run by your organization. Teach that methodology to your coaches and structure the training programs following those guidelines.

Equipment and use of technology. The importance of modified equipment
The good image and the efficiency of every program will also depend on the amount, quality, and condition of the equipment to be used. One of the most important and beneficial changes for the tennis industry was the appearance of modified tennis equipment. This new model of playing tennis supports the increase in the number of player, the retention of players, and the overall technical, tactical, and physical improvement of players, especially at the young ages (Davies, 2017). Nowadays we also have to count on free or low-cost apps for portable devices that are easy to use, in tablets or smartphones (Quinlan, 2013).

Branding
Provide uniforms to the coaching staff and to the players who represent the club in national or international competitions. Provide also business cards to the whole team of the company so they can sell your business to their friends and other contacts.
Sell hats, tops, jackets, etc. with the logo of the company.

Sponsorship
Make deals with those brands that they can provide all the equipment you need (i.e. providing clothes for the coaches, rackets, balls, etc.). This is extremely important to save budget. Stablish commercial agreements with other companies creating a win-win relationship.
Relationship with the Regional and National Association.
Stablish an open relationship with the main body organization in the region. Organize tournaments, educational courses, etc. Stay active and be a positive asset for the promotion of tennis in the country.

Recycle and sustainability
There are thousands of balls that a club or tennis organization will use every year. Find if there is any organization around the area that recycles all the material that is not needed anymore. Study the possibility of taking the initiative to start leading the project if there is nothing around. Initiate conversations with other clubs to solve the situation. Our business needs to look after the planet and we all must contribute.

Legal and consulting department
Establish a relationship with a legal or consulting company to get advice in: • Contractual relationships with employees and other organizations.
• Liability in case of an accident during running a tennis lesson: For a more rigorous and comprehensive study visit the ITF Coaching and Sport Science Review 2018; 75 (26): 20 -22 by Alejandro Valiño.

Revenue and Accountability
The main goal of every business is to make a profit. Study deeply what your selling points are and which are your spends. Stablish a budget for every year following the vision of the company. Same as the other departments, depending on how big the tennis company is, it might be recommendable to have a person specialized in accountability.

EXPANSION OF THE COMPANY
Once you are well establish in a club and you have acquired a good reputation, you might want to extend your business by making new agreements with other clubs of the region.
Also, doing a good job with the color ball programs will potentially lead to opening a high-performance tennis program in the future.

CONCLUSION
An average of 70% of the business will fail within the first 10 years of life. To safeguard a new or an established business, it is necessary to understand what can lead to a business failure and how each obstacle can be managed or avoided altogether (Horton, 2022). The most common reasons small business fail is: • Lack of passion, energy, or not enough work delivered.
• Ineffective leadership or wrong strategy.
• Hiring the wrong people or having a negative teamwork environment.
• Lack of flexibility or innovation.
• Not delivering enough value.
• Failure to understand the market.
• Lack of authenticity and transparency.
• Lack of personal or professional growth.
• Lack of cost control and accountability.
• Lack of concrete business systems.
• Not paying attention or not being able to compete with the competitors.
• Failure to create a sense of trust with the employees or customers.
If you want to stay alive in the business, stay alert and well organized, be creative, energetic, flexible, and willing to adapt to the changes and new circumstances. Get surrounded by a good team of people and work together as a team trying to achieve the goals of the company.