On Integrated Peer-Assisted Learning Clusters Among Students in a Nigerian University

Peer interaction to assist and learn from each other has been extended online in recent times. This study was conducted to find the pattern of participation in integrated peer-assisted learning and to investigate factors known to affect such participation among students in their peer-assisted learning clusters. The pattern of participation was established through the frequency with which the respondent use their preferred mode of peer interaction. Structural equation modeling was implemented to study the relationship between participation and the factors considered. Social medial is the most prevalent among the online means of interaction considered. Conflict, cohesion and effective leadership in the clusters have more direct effects on the other factors considered. The frequency of participation does not correlate significantly with the other personal and interpersonal factors considered. These findings suggest that the decision for voluntary participation in peer-assisted learning clusters are possibly driven by other factors such as academic.

Attack of the snowclones: A corpus-based analysis of extravagant formulaic patterns

The concept of ‘snowclones’ has gained interest in recent research on linguistic creativity and in studies on extravagance and expressiveness in language. However, no clear criteria for identifying snowclones have yet been established, and detailed corpus-based investigations of the phenomenon are still lacking. This paper addresses this research gap in a twofold way: On the one hand, we develop an operational definition of snowclones, arguing that three criteria are decisive: (i) the existence of a lexically fixed source construction; (ii) partial productivity; (iii) “extravagant" formal and/or functional characteristics. On the other hand, we offer an empirical investigation of two snowclones that can be considered ‘prototypical’ on the basis of previous literature, namely [the mother of all X] and [X BE the newY]. We use collostructional analysis and distributional semantics to explore the partial productivity of both patterns’ slot fillers. In sum, we argue that the concept of snowclones, if properly defined, can contribute substantially to our understanding of creative language use, especially regarding the question of how social,cultural, and interpersonal factors influence the choice of more or less salient linguistic constructions.

Predictors of Custodial Grandparents’ Perceived Barriers to the Use of Services

Getting timely access to help, information, and a variety of services is paramount among the challenges of raising a grandchild, and grandparents face a variety of internal and external barriers in getting such help. The present pilot exploratory study focused on caregiving-related and personal resource variables best predicting grandparent caregivers’ perceptions of barriers to receiving services. Fifty-two grandparents (M age = 59.1) raising their grandchildren completed measures assessing caregiver strain, social support, resilience, self-care, psychosocial adequacy, health, depression, and grandchild relationship quality. They also completed measures of the extent to which they faced personal and caregiving-related difficulties giving rise to the need for services (e.g. health, grandchild well-being, support from others) as well as the extent to which they had experienced barriers to service (health/financial limitations, isolation, transportation, respite care, lack of knowledge of services) in the past 3 months. Correlations (p < .05) suggested that psychosocial adequacy (r = -.32), depression (r = .27), caregiver strain (r = .42) and difficulties (r = .48) were all related to greater perceived barriers. Regression analyses (F7, 40 = 2.81, p < .02) indicated that caregiver strain (Beta = .33, p < .05) and difficulties giving rise to the need for services (Beta = .32, p < .04) emerged as most salient in predicting barriers. These findings underscore the fact that personal, caregiving-related, and interpersonal factors exacerbate the barriers associated with grandparents’ accessing needed services and reinforce such factors’ impact on grandparents as targets for overcoming impediments to accessing services among them.

Workplace Mistreatment: A Review and Agenda for Research

Workplace mistreatment researchers study negative interpersonal behaviors under a plethora of different labels, including incivility, bullying, harassment, aggression, and violence. While negative interpersonal behaviors differ in their intensity, intent, and frequency, a common denominator of these behaviors is their adverse impact on employees and organizations. Research has identified the nomological network of workplace mistreatment, which illustrates individual and contextual factors associated with mistreatment behaviors. Authors have also highlighted outcomes of mistreatment, showing that mistreatment results in reduced psychological and physical health, worsened job attitudes, and diminished performance for both targets and bystanders. Further, enacted mistreatment is not without consequences for the perpetrators, and these consequences can be both negative and positive. While workplace mistreatment research has been steadily growing, many questions remain unanswered. There are unexplored topics, approaches, and methodologies. First, there is a need to understand the uniqueness and similarities of different mistreatment constructs to provide a more comprehensive approach for studying workplace mistreatment and highlight alternative ways of measuring mistreatment constructs. Novel methodological approaches, such as HotMap and artificial intelligence, could shed light on the dynamics between targets and perpetrators of mistreatment, allowing researchers to capture the dynamic nature of mistreatment behaviors. Second, the interactions among societal, cultural, and interpersonal factors are likely to shape enacted mistreatment. For instance, social networks within organizations and the interrelations between employees are likely to influence not only the individual who becomes targeted, but also the way in which bystanders are to take action against such mistreatment. Third, while the role of bystanders in the dynamics of workplace mistreatment is undoubtedly important, there is a need to critically investigate the role bystanders may play in curtailing or encouraging mistreatment. More specifically, bystander interventions can take both constructive and destructive forms. Finally, targets’ responses to experienced mistreatment are likely to be relevant to the understanding of the dyadic nature of workplace mistreatment, such that an aggressive target response is likely to cause a mistreatment spiraling. However, it remains unclear what type of target response, if any, would be beneficial in helping de-escalate destructive behavior from the perpetrator. Thus, more research is needed to help address the important question of the best ways to deal with experienced mistreatment.

The role of parenting, self-compassion and friendships in depressive symptoms among young people in the UK and China

Self-compassion, being kind to oneself in difficult times, is a way of relating to oneself that promotes better mental health, but little is known about how self-compassion affects interpersonal relationships. The current study examined the association between self-compassion and adolescent depressive symptoms from an interpersonal perspective in different cultural contexts. Adolescents (N = 422/570, Mean age = 14.44/13.41, UK/China) completed questionnaires about their perceptions of their parents' behaviour towards them, self-compassion, friendships and depressive symptoms. Structural equation modelling revealed that positive parenting was positively associated with higher self-compassion, positive friendship quality, and with fewer depressive symptoms in both samples. Additionally, we confirmed a negative association between self-compassion and depressive symptoms. The pathway from positive parenting to lower depressive symptoms via higher self-compassion was also corroborated in both cultures. Contrary to our hypothesis, positive quality of friendship was associated with higher depressive symptoms in both countries. Conflicts were associated with more depressive symptoms in the Chinese sample only. There was evidence of a negative association between self-compassion and conflicts in the Chinese sample only. Finally, the direct association between self-compassion and depressive symptoms was greater in the UK sample, whereas in the Chinese sample, interpersonal factors were more strongly associated with self-compassion and depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest that self-compassion may be a useful therapeutic target to improve social functioning and mental health among adolescents and that it may be necessary to account for cross-cultural differences in interpersonal factors when designing psychological interventions.

Psychological Distress on Mualaf

Psychological distress is a harmful condition that can affect individuals directly or indirectly over time and affect physical health conditions and mental conditions. This study aims to determine the description of psychological distress in converts. This type of research is qualitative research with a phenomenological model and data collection methods carried out by in-depth interviews and documentation. The informants of this study were three people, one man was 59 years old and had converted to Islam for 36 years and two women, the first was 40 years old and had converted to Islam for 18 years, the second was 66 years old and had converted to Islam for 41 years. The results of this study indicate that the religious conversion experienced by the informant has a relationship with psychological distress, where the process follows the interpersonal and situational factors shared by the informant. The informant decides to convert to Islam. The interpersonal factors experienced by the informants occurred in the second stage of religious conversion, namely, the phase of unease. In this phase, religious teachings are believed to bring peace no longer or cause psychological distress to him. Informants make comparisons from the previous instructions to the teachings of Islam. The peak was the situational factor he experienced, namely the stage of religious conversion (mualaf) because the teachings in Islam are considered the right way and are more capable of bringing life satisfaction.