Professionals’ Digital Training for Child Maltreatment Prevention in the COVID-19 Era: A Pan-European Model

The responsiveness of professionals working with children and families is of key importance for child maltreatment early identification. However, this might be undermined when multifaceted circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, reduce interdisciplinary educational activities. Thanks to technological developments, digital platforms seem promising in dealing with new challenges for professionals’ training. We examined a digital approach to child maltreatment training through the ERICA project experience (Stopping Child Maltreatment through Pan-European Multiprofessional Training Programme). ERICA has been piloted during the pandemic in seven European centers involving interconnected sectors of professionals working with children and families. The training consisted of interactive modules embedded in a digital learning framework. Different aspects (technology, interaction, and organization) were evaluated and trainers’ feedback on digital features was sought. Technical issues were the main barrier, however, these did not significantly disrupt the training. The trainers perceived reduced interaction between participants, although distinct factors were uncovered as potential favorable mediators. Based on participants’ subjective experiences and perspectives, digital learning frameworks for professionals working with children and families (such as the ERICA model nested in its indispensable adaptation to an e-learning mode) can represent a novel interactive approach to empower trainers and trainees to tackle child maltreatment during critical times such as a pandemic, and as an alternative to more traditional learning frameworks.

Yoga inner beauty as a lifestyle women in Ghanta Yoga Asram Kertalangu Village, East Denpasar

Balinese women today want to feel more beautiful and acceptable in society. Therefore, women do yoga inner beauty which makes practitioners healthy, someone's beauty will shine clearly, and lead to a healthy and harmonious life. In addition, women also need their self-actualization in the form of a career path for them. This study uses a qualitative-analytic method with an interactive approach. The results obtained are as follows. First, the reason why women choose inner beauty yoga at the Ghanta Yoga Asram Denpasar is because women believe that doing inner beauty yoga and meditation every day can radiate inner beauty energy, making the body healthy, beautiful, and youthful. Second, the process of applying inner beauty yoga for women at the Ghanta Yoga Asram Denpasar is starting from socialization, initiation process, worship, the yoga implementation process is carried out from level I to level V and level of purification. Third, the implication of the application of yoga inner beauty for women at the Ghanta Yoga Asram Denpasar is that after participating in yoga, women become more patient, healthier, more beautiful, more harmonious, and more sincere in accepting the situation, and full of confidence.

Hidden in Plain Sight? Men's Coping Patterns and Psychological Distress Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Individuals cope with stress using multiple strategies, yet studies of coping profiles are rare. We draw data from a longitudinal study of Australian men (n = 272; 30–37 years), assessed before (T1) and during (T2) a nation-wide COVID-19 lockdown. We aimed to: (1) identify men's multi-strategy coping profiles before and during the pandemic; (2) assess cross-sectional (T1-T1, T2-T2) and prospective (T1-T2) associations between profiles and symptoms of psychological distress (stress, anxiety, depression, and anger); and (3) examine relationships between coping profiles and appraisals of pandemic-related stressors and options for coping. In latent profile analyses of 14 coping strategies, three profiles emerged that were largely consistent across T1 and T2: (1) Relaxed Copers (low use of all strategies), (2) Approach Copers, and (3) Dual Copers (high avoidant and moderate-high approach-oriented strategies). Compared to Relaxed and Approach Copers, men who were Dual Copers had elevated psychological distress cross-sectionally before (T1) and during (T2) the pandemic, but not prospectively. Post hoc analyses suggested this was because many men changed coping profiles in the context of the pandemic. Men with stable (T1-T2) or new (T2 only) Dual Coping profiles experienced greater psychological distress and more negative appraisals of pandemic stressors and options for coping. In sum, at the sample level, the composition of men's coping profiles and associations with mental health risk were relatively stable over time and contexts; however, many men appeared to respond to pandemic conditions by changing coping profile groups, with mostly positive mental health outcomes. Of concern were men who adopted more avoidant strategies (e.g., denial, self-distraction, disengagement, substance use, and self-blame) under pandemic conditions. These Dual Coper men also engaged in commonly observable approach-oriented behaviours (e.g., planning, active coping, humour, seeking practical social support) that may mask their vulnerability to mental health risk. Our findings highlight the clinical importance of enquiring about escalating or frequent avoidant coping even in the presence of more active and interactive approach-oriented behaviours.

An Interactive Approach to Emotional Expression Through Musical Cues

Previous literature suggests that structural and expressive cues affect the emotion expressed in music. However, only a few systematic explorations of cues have been done, usually focussing on a few cues or a limited amount of predetermined arbitrary cue values. This paper presents three experiments investigating the effect of six cues and their combinations on the music's perceived emotional expression. Twenty-eight musical pieces were created with the aim of providing flexible, ecologically valid, unfamiliar, new stimuli. In Experiment 1, 96 participants assessed which emotions were expressed in the pieces using Likert scale ratings. In Experiment 2, a subset of the stimuli was modified by participants (N = 42) via six available cues (tempo, mode, articulation, pitch, dynamics, and brightness) to convey seven emotions (anger, sadness, fear, joy, surprise, calmness, and power), addressing the main aim of exploring the impact of cue levels to expressions. Experiment 3 investigated how well the variations of the original stimuli created by participants in Experiment 2 expressed their intended emotion. Participants (N = 91) rated them alongside the seven original pieces, allowing the exploration of similarities and differences between the two sets of related pieces. An overall pattern of cue combinations was identified for each emotion. Some findings corroborate previous studies: mode and tempo were the most impactful cues in shaping emotions, and sadness and joy were amongst the most accurately recognised emotions. Novel findings include soft dynamics being used to convey anger, and dynamics and brightness being the least informative cues. These findings provide further motivation to investigate the effect of cues on emotions in music as combinations of multiple cues rather than as individual cues, as one cue might not give enough information to portray a specific emotion. The new findings and discrepancies are discussed in relation to current theories of music and emotions.

Seeking the right balance between three teaching approaches: a quasi-experimental study in the context of learning about thermal phenomena

In this study, we investigated which teaching approach may be optimal to facilitate learning about thermal phenomena in primary school. Concretely, we conducted a pretest-posttest quasi-experiment that included 45 eighth-grade students divided into three groups. In the first group (a non-interactive teacher-centered approach), the teacher gave an experiment-based lecture on converting thermal energy into mechanical work. In the second group (a teacher-centered interactive approach), the teacher gave the same experiments-based lecture, but interacted much more with the students and encouraged them to think about the demonstrations. Finally, in the third group, the student-centered interactive approach was applied. The results of the ANCOVA showed that the three teaching approaches were equally effective in developing students’ understanding of thermal phenomena. However, closer analyses showed that students who learned from the teacher-centered interactive approach significantly outperformed their peers when it came to understanding basic thermal concepts approach, students worked in small groups to conduct the same experiments and “discover” the same relationships that the teacher had introduced in the previous one.

Religious Instruction for Students with Autism in an Inclusive Primary School

This study describes religious instruction for students with autism conveyed by classroom teachers, Islamic Education teachers, shadow teachers, and parents through a mentoring program in school and family environments. This qualitative phenomenological study was carried out in an inclusive primary school in Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia. Five students with autism and their parents, five classroom teachers, five shadow teachers, and three Islamic Education teachers were involved in this study. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, participant observation, documentation, and focus group discussions (FGDs). They were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis and an interactive approach. This study reveals that optimal outcomes of religious instruction entail collaboration among Islamic Education teachers, classroom teachers, shadow teachers, and parents with the assistance of psychologists, counsellors, therapists, pedagogues, and school policies. Such collaboration is particularly required in the implementation of an adaptive curriculum, lesson plans, learning implementation, evaluation, mentoring and the habituation of worship. The modification of learning methods, media, and evaluation is also required.

RGB-D-Based Method for Measuring the Angular Range of Hip and Knee Joints during Home Care Rehabilitation

Home-based rehabilitation is becoming a gold standard for patient who have undergone knee arthroplasty or full knee replacement, as it helps healthcare costs to be minimized. Nevertheless, there is a chance of increasing adverse health effects in case of home care, primarily due to the patients’ lack of motivation and the doctors’ difficulty in carrying out rigorous supervision. The development of devices to assess the efficient recovery of the operated joint is highly valued both for the patient, who feels encouraged to perform the proper number of activities, and for the doctor, who can track him/her remotely. Accordingly, this paper introduces an interactive approach to angular range calculation of hip and knee joints based on the use of low-cost devices which can be operated at home. First, the patient’s body posture is estimated using a 2D acquisition method. Subsequently, the 3D posture is evaluated by using the depth information coming from an RGB-D sensor. Preliminary results show that the proposed method effectively overcomes many limitations by fusing the results obtained by the state-of-the-art robust 2D pose estimation algorithms with the 3D data of depth cameras by allowing the patient to be correctly tracked during rehabilitation exercises.

Theoretical and practical researches of interactive method in learning a foreign language

The article discusses the features of using interaction as methodological basis of organisation of interactive approach and its role in interactive learning. The author compares different points of view and suggests methodological assumptions about the reorganisation of the traditional approach to the practice of learning how to work out the skills of interpersonal communication. The author notes that interactive approach means interaction of all members of learning process which helps to exchange authentic information in a foreign language. The author gives methodological grounds developing skills of informational exchange in a foreign language and possessing experience of communication using interactive exercises. The article analyses principles of interactive learning a foreign language via interaction which results in the development of social processes in the society. The author considers it conforming that in the past years in the methodology of teaching foreign languages, there has been a tendency to change the position and to move from the communicative approach to its variety – the interactive approach, since interactive learning of a foreign language proposes the usage of training, role and business-like games, competitions, performances, warming-up, discussions, brainstorming, which will enlarge the level of interaction in a foreign language. The author believes that interactive learning will permit to solve many problems in the development of communicative skills and promote success in learning a foreign language which is the aim of its usage.