scholarly journals Secondary Education in COVID Lockdown: More Anxious and Less Creative—Maybe Not?

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Patston ◽  
JohnPaul Kennedy ◽  
Wayne Jaeschke ◽  
Hansika Kapoor ◽  
Simon N. Leonard ◽  
...  

Secondary education around the world has been significantly disrupted by covid-19. Students have been forced into new ways of independent learning, often using remote technologies, but without the social nuances and direct teacher interactions of a normal classroom environment. Using data from the School Attitudes Survey—which surveys students regarding the perceived level of difficulty, anxiety level, self-efficacy, enjoyability, subject relevance, and opportunities for creativity with regards to each of their school subjects—this study examines students' responses to this disruption from two very different schools with two very different experiences of the pandemic. This paper reports on the composite attitudinal profiles of students in the senior secondary levels at each school (Years 10–12, n = 834). The findings challenged our expectation that the increased difficulty and anxiety caused by the disruption would reduce perceived opportunities for creativity. Indeed, our analyses showed that the students at both schools demonstrated generally positive attitudes toward their learning and strongly associated opportunities for creativity with other attitudinal constructs including enjoyability, subject relevance, and self-efficacy. These complex associations made by the students appear to have buffered the impacts of the disruption, and they may even have supported creative resilience.

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina L. Rusinova ◽  
Viacheslav V. Safronov

This study is devoted to psychologically mediating the social structuring of health. According to theoretical views, which have not yet received a convincing justification, the decline in the social status of an individual is accompanied by the loss of the psychological resources necessary to overcome the difficulties of life and the stresses caused by them, which leads to deteriorating health in the lower social strata. The verification of this assumption was carried out using data from the European Social Survey — representative surveys of the population of 27 countries conducted in 2012–2013. Studying indirect psychological effects has demonstrated that in many of these countries such a psychological characteristic as self-efficacy is indeed a mediator of the social structuring of health, especially prominent in many post-communist societies, but not in the most developed western countries where mediating effects turned out to be weak or completely absent. A two-level analysis of psychological mediation, depending on the factors of the economic well-being of countries, the development of a social state and cultural identity, does not support the assumption of the importance of an individualistic culture for the manifestation of mediation, and convincingly demonstrates that indirect effects are related to the social and economic context. In countries with a strong economy and social state, the distribution of psychological resources is barely related to the social structure — the relative well-being of the lower social strata, due to the developed system of state social guarantees, allows for many of them to maintain self-respect and optimism. Psychological resources, the distribution of which does not reflect social stratification, lose the role of a mediator. In the less developed part of Europe, where the lower strata cannot rely on comprehensive government assistance, the hardships of life and the stresses they generate lead to a loss of faith in themselves and in the possibility of changes for the better among people with low status, resulting in psychological resources acting as a mediator of health social structuring.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2 (176)) ◽  
pp. 53-70
Author(s):  
Bartłomiej Walczak ◽  
Nikolaos Lampas

This article performs a cross-national analysis of the causes of refugee-related threat perception. We examine the hypotheses that the number of terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists should negatively coincide with positive attitudes toward refugees in a country. Secondly, we assess the relationship between the number of suspects arrested in relation to Muslim terrorist attacks and prejudicial attitudes toward refugees in a host country. In order to answer these hypotheses, we adopted a quantitative approach. Using data from the Pew Research Center Survey of 2016 we analyze the relationship between the number of terrorist attacks and arrests of Muslim extremists and their impact on the perception of the population in ten European countries. The findings suggest that there is no correlation between the number of terrorist attacks, arrests of Muslim extremists and prejudicial attitudes toward refugees. Among countries which experienced most fundamentalist Muslims attacks, the portrait of people sharing the stereotype is more nuanced. Political convictions were found to be the strongest and most common significant predictor, while age, gender and religiosity were significant in some countries only.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maykel Verkuyten ◽  
Kumar Yogeeswaran

Abstract. Multiculturalism has been criticized and rejected by an increasing number of politicians, and social psychological research has shown that it can lead to outgroup stereotyping, essentialist thinking, and negative attitudes. Interculturalism has been proposed as an alternative diversity ideology, but there is almost no systematic empirical evidence about the impact of interculturalism on the acceptance of migrants and minority groups. Using data from a survey experiment conducted in the Netherlands, we examined the situational effect of promoting interculturalism on acceptance. The results show that for liberals, but not for conservatives, interculturalism leads to more positive attitudes toward immigrant-origin groups and increased willingness to engage in contact, relative to multiculturalism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-59
Author(s):  
Nona Nurfadhilla

This article aims to look at how to improve self-efficacy through guidance and counseling services at SMP 1 Pleret, Yogyakarta. This type of research is qualitative descriptive, data collection methods through interviews and observations. Data analysis techniques using data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. Results and discussion that there are still many students who have low self-efficacy so they are difficult to achieve good learning outcomes. This is proven by some students rarely doing school work and rarely doing homework also do not have the motivation to excel. BK teachers try through guidance and counseling services in the form of a preventive approach for those with high self-efficacy and a curative approach for students with low self-efficacy. Such as helping students to convince themselves that students are able to do tasks even though it is difficult and able to excel and to convince students to avoid feeling inferior about themselves. Guidance and counseling provided by BK teachers shows significant changes in some students who already have high self-efficacy. So it can be concluded that through guidance and counseling can be an effort to improve student self-efficacy.


Author(s):  
Guoliang Yang ◽  
Zhihua Wang ◽  
Weijiong Wu

Little is known about the relationship between social comparison orientation and mental health, especially in the psychological capital context. We proposed a theoretical model to examine the impact of ability- and opinion-based social comparison orientation on mental health using data from 304 undergraduates. We also examined the mediating effect of the four psychological capital components of hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism in the relationship between social comparison orientation and mental health. Results show that an ability (vs. opinion) social comparison orientation was negatively (vs. positively) related to the psychological capital components. Further, the resilience and optimism components of psychological capital fully mediated the social comparison orientation–mental health relationship. Our findings indicate that psychological capital should be considered in the promotion of mental health, and that the two social comparison orientation types have opposite effects on psychological capital.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Atsurou Yamada ◽  
Fujika Katsuki ◽  
Masaki Kondo ◽  
Hanayo Sawada ◽  
Norio Watanabe ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Although caregivers of patients with eating disorders usually experience a heavy caregiving burden, the effects of social support on caregivers of patients with eating disorders are unknown. This study aimed to investigate how social support for mothers who are caregivers of patients with an eating disorder improves the mothers’ mental status and, consequently, the symptoms and status of the patients. Methods Fifty-seven pairs of participants were recruited from four family self-help groups and one university hospital in Japan. Recruitment was conducted from July 2017 to August 2018. Mothers were evaluated for social support using the Japanese version of the Social Provisions Scale-10 item (SPS-10), self-efficacy using the General Self-Efficacy Scale, loneliness using the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale, listening attitude using the Active Listening Attitude Scale, family functioning using the Family Assessment Device, depression symptoms using the Beck Depression Inventory (Second Edition), and psychological distress using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. Patients were evaluated for self-esteem using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, assertion using the Youth Assertion Scale, and their symptoms using the Eating Disorder Inventory. We divided the mothers and patients into two groups based on the mean score of the SPS-10 of mothers and compared the status of mothers and patients between the high- and low-scoring groups. Results High social support for mothers of patients with eating disorders was significantly associated with lower scores for loneliness and depression of these mothers. We found no significant differences in any patient scores based on mothers’ level of social support. Conclusions For patients with eating disorders, social support for a caregiver cannot be expected to improve their symptoms, but it may help prevent caregiver depression and loneliness.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 386
Author(s):  
Jennie Gray ◽  
Lisa Buckner ◽  
Alexis Comber

This paper reviews geodemographic classifications and developments in contemporary classifications. It develops a critique of current approaches and identifiea a number of key limitations. These include the problems associated with the geodemographic cluster label (few cluster members are typical or have the same properties as the cluster centre) and the failure of the static label to describe anything about the underlying neighbourhood processes and dynamics. To address these limitations, this paper proposed a data primitives approach. Data primitives are the fundamental dimensions or measurements that capture the processes of interest. They can be used to describe the current state of an area in a multivariate feature space, and states can be compared over multiple time periods for which data are available, through for example a change vector approach. In this way, emergent social processes, which may be too weak to result in a change in a cluster label, but are nonetheless important signals, can be captured. As states are updated (for example, as new data become available), inferences about different social processes can be made, as well as classification updates if required. State changes can also be used to determine neighbourhood trajectories and to predict or infer future states. A list of data primitives was suggested from a review of the mechanisms driving a number of neighbourhood-level social processes, with the aim of improving the wider understanding of the interaction of complex neighbourhood processes and their effects. A small case study was provided to illustrate the approach. In this way, the methods outlined in this paper suggest a more nuanced approach to geodemographic research, away from a focus on classifications and static data, towards approaches that capture the social dynamics experienced by neighbourhoods.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089484532199596
Author(s):  
Markus P. Neuenschwander ◽  
Jan Hofmann

We applied the social cognitive model of work satisfaction to the transition from lower secondary education to work in Switzerland and combined career decision and adjustment to work. The model assumes that self-efficacy affects career decision outcomes and adjustment after transition to work. Self-efficacy interacts with parental support during career decision making. We tested the model using a longitudinal sample of 603 adolescents who filled out questionnaires in seventh grade, ninth grade, and 1 year after starting work. Structural equation models showed that parental support weakens the effect of self-efficacy on anticipated person–job fit and expectations of work conditions (moderation). Expectations of work conditions and a company’s support help newcomers to attain a high perceived person–job fit. These findings have several implications on how to support adolescents’ school-to-work transition.


2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 1410-1429
Author(s):  
Claire Wilson ◽  
Tommy van Steen ◽  
Christabel Akinyode ◽  
Zara P. Brodie ◽  
Graham G. Scott

Technology has given rise to online behaviors such as sexting. It is important that we examine predictors of such behavior in order to understand who is more likely to sext and thus inform intervention aimed at sexting awareness. We used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine sexting beliefs and behavior. Participants (n = 418; 70.3% women) completed questionnaires assessing attitudes (instrumental and affective), subjective norms (injunctive and descriptive), control perceptions (self-efficacy and controllability) and intentions toward sexting. Specific sexting beliefs (fun/carefree beliefs, perceived risks and relational expectations) were also measured and sexting behavior reported. Relationship status, instrumental attitude, injunctive norm, descriptive norm and self-efficacy were associated with sexting intentions. Relationship status, intentions and self-efficacy related to sexting behavior. Results provide insight into the social-cognitive factors related to individuals’ sexting behavior and bring us closer to understanding what beliefs predict the behavior.


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