Level of Stress and Coping Strategies Seen Among Parents of Neonates Admitted in NICU

Aim To assess the level of stress and coping strategies in parents of neonates admitted in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at a tertiary care centre in North India. Materials and methods It was a descriptive/observational cross-sectional study of 3 year duration with a sample size of 224. All parents willing to participate and who could understand English or Hindi were included in the study after the informed consent. Stress levels and coping strategies were assessed using a validated questionnaire between 2nd to 7th day of admission. Demographic data was collected and parental stress and coping was quantified using likert scale. The data was analyzed using SPSS Version 20.0. Results Most of the parents were moderately stressed (93.3%). The most impactful stress domain was ‘Emotional’ and the most impactful question out of that domain was ‘constant fear of child’s recovery’. Of all the coping strategies, cognitive strategy was mostly used by parents. There was a negative correlation between stress and coping strategies (r = –0.09) but the result was statistically insignificant (p-value = 0.16). Of all the demographic variables, the birth order of the baby was significantly related to stress (p-value < 0.05), while parent’s education, monthly family income and area of residence were significantly related to coping (p-value < 0.05, <0.05 and <0.001, respectively). Conclusion Most of the parents were moderately stressed, with cognitive strategy being the most used by parents as the coping mechanism.

Evidence that endpoint feedback facilitates intermanual transfer of visuomotor force learning by a cognitive strategy

Humans continuously adapt their movement to a novel environment by recalibrating their sensorimotor system. Recent evidence, however, shows that explicit planning to compensate for external changes, i.e. a cognitive strategy, can also aid performance. If such a strategy is indeed planned in external space, it should improve performance in an effector independent manner. We tested this hypothesis by examining whether promoting a cognitive strategy during a visual-force adaptation task performed in one hand can facilitate learning for the opposite hand. Participants rapidly adjusted the height of visual bar on screen to a target level by isometrically exerting force on a handle using their right hand. Visuomotor gain increased during the task and participants learned the increased gain. Visual feedback was continuously provided for one group, while for another group only the endpoint of the force trajectory was presented. The latter has been reported to promote cognitive strategy use. We found that endpoint feedback produced stronger intermanual transfer of learning and slower response times than continuous feedback. In a separate experiment, we found evidence that the aftereffect is indeed reduced when only endpoint feedback is provided, a finding that has been consistently observed when cognitive strategies are used. The results suggest that intermanual transfer can be facilitated by a cognitive strategy. This indicates that the behavioral observation of intermanual transfer can be achieved either by forming an effector-independent motor representation, or by sharing an effector-independent cognitive strategy between the hands.

On College Students’ Listening Anxiety and Listening Strategy

Research on college students’ listening anxiety and listening strategy has become a hot issue and attracts much concern of scholars and experts in the second language acquisition. Some researches prove that listening anxiety is universal and pervasive in the language learning process and listening strategy plays a crucial role in lowering or reducing college students’ listening anxiety and improving their listening ability. In order to study college students’ listening anxiety, listening strategy and the correlation between college students’ listening anxiety and listening strategy, an empirical study is carried out on the 2020th English majors. This study combines quantitative method and qualitative method and adopts “Questionnaire about English listening strategy” and “Questionnaire about English listening anxiety”. The study reveals that: firstly, among the listening strategy, meta-cognitive strategy is the most frequent strategy that college students use; cognitive strategy is more frequent than social or affective strategy used by college students; social or affective strategy is the least frequent strategy that college students use. Secondly, although college students suffer from universal listening anxiety, the level of listening anxiety is low. Thirdly, the correlation between college students’ listening anxiety and listening strategy is not significant. It also means that listening anxiety is not related to social or affective strategy, related to meta-cognitive strategy. This study aims to help Chinese college educators and students to realize the effect of listening anxiety and the appropriate use of listening strategy.

Analisis Kemandirian Belajar Mahasiswa Sistem Informasi Pada Mata Kuliah Statistika Inferensial

Pembelajaran statistik inferensial sangat penting untuk mahasiswa program studi Sistem Informasi pada Fakultas Ilmu Komputer di Universitas Banten Jaya. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui seberapa besar kepercayaan diri mahasiswa dalam belajar statistik inferensial, dan juga seberapa besar motivasi yang dimiliki mahasiswa tersebut. Karena mata kuliah statistik inferensial merupakan mata kuliah yang di anggap sulit dan tidak bisa di aplikasikan dalam kehidupan sehari-hari Sampel pada penelitian ini adalah 86 peserta kelas statistik pada program studi Sistem Infomasi di Universitas Banten Jaya. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kuantitatif, juga menggunakan instrument yang digunakan untuk mengukur strategi motivasi belajar adalah instrument baku MSLQ (Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionaire). Faktor-faktor dari motivasi dan pembelajaran regulasi diri adalah: Self Efficacy, Intrinsic Factor, Test Anxiety, Cognitive Strategy Use, Self-Regulation. Pada mean atau rerata dari hasil output SPSS versi 23 adalah menunjukkan bahwa Self-Efficacy, Intrinsic Factor, Cognitive Strategy Use, dan Self-Regulation dengan hasil yang baik, serta pada Test Anxiety menghasilkan nilai yang cukup baik.

Intermanual transfer of visuomotor learning is facilitated by a cognitive strategy

Humans continuously adapt their movement to a novel environment by recalibrating their sensorimotor system. Recent evidence, however, shows that explicit planning to compensate for external changes, i.e. a cognitive strategy, can also aid performance. If such a strategy is indeed planned in external space, it should improve performance in an effector independent manner. We tested this hypothesis by examining whether promoting a cognitive strategy during a visual-force adaptation task performed in one hand can facilitate learning for the opposite hand. Participants rapidly adjusted the height of visual bar on screen to a target level by isometrically exerting force on a handle using their right hand. Visuomotor gain increased during the task and participants learned the increased gain. Visual feedback was continuously provided for one group, while for another group only the endpoint of the force trajectory was presented. The latter has been reported to promote cognitive strategy use. We found that endpoint feedback produced stronger intermanual transfer of learning and slower response times than continuous feedback. In a separate experiment, we confirmed that the aftereffect is indeed reduced when only endpoint feedback is provided, a finding that has been consistently observed when cognitive strategies are used. The results suggest that intermanual transfer can be facilitated by a cognitive strategy. This indicates that the behavioral observation of intermanual transfer can be achieved either by forming an effector-independent motor representation, or by sharing an effector-independent cognitive strategy between the hands.

The Intentional Stance Test-2: How to Measure the Tendency to Adopt Intentional Stance Towards Robots

In human-robot interactions, people tend to attribute to robots mental states such as intentions or desires, in order to make sense of their behaviour. This cognitive strategy is termed “intentional stance”. Adopting the intentional stance influences how one will consider, engage and behave towards robots. However, people differ in their likelihood to adopt intentional stance towards robots. Therefore, it seems crucial to assess these interindividual differences. In two studies we developed and validated the structure of a task aiming at evaluating to what extent people adopt intentional stance towards robot actions, the Intentional Stance task (IST). The Intentional Stance Task consists in a task that probes participants’ stance by requiring them to choose the plausibility of a description (mentalistic vs. mechanistic) of behaviour of a robot depicted in a scenario composed of three photographs. Results showed a reliable psychometric structure of the IST. This paper therefore concludes with the proposal of using the IST as a proxy for assessing the degree of adoption of the intentional stance towards robots.

Transforming the Online Learning Experience

Background College instruction has experienced a significant movement toward increased online learning course options. Without appropriate supports, students in virtual learning environments often face greater challenges with self-regulation, motivation, and recognizing the personal relevance of course content. Objective The current study focuses on the prevalence of personal relevance and its associated impact on cognitive and motivational variables including achievement emotion, intrinsic value, self-efficacy, test anxiety, cognitive strategy use, self-regulation, and metacognition in a virtual learning environment. Method Students in two online graduate level human development courses completed a series of questionnaires ( N = 73) for course credit. Results Results show the high transformative experience (TE) group reported significantly higher positive emotions, interest, intrinsic value, self-efficacy, cognitive strategy use, test anxiety, and self-regulation, giving them more cognitive and motivational benefits than those who experienced low levels. They also show no relationship between TE and course grade. Conclusion Future research in this area may benefit from focus on ways to intentionally increase TEs from online contexts to real-life contexts. Teaching Implications Such research would allow instructors intentionality in pedagogical endeavors while allowing students to integrate course information into their daily lives.

Eliminating the Low Prevalence Effect in Visual Search with a Remarkably Simple Strategy

The low prevalence effect in visual search occurs when rare targets are missed at a disproportionately high rate. This effect has enormous significance in health and public safety and has proven resistant to intervention. In three experiments (Ns = 41, 40, 44), we document a dramatic reduction of the effect using a simple cognitive strategy requiring no training. Instead of asking participants to search for the presence or absence of a target, as is typically done in visual search tasks, we asked participants to engage in “similarity search” – to identify the display element most similar to a target on every trial, regardless of whether a target is present. Under normal search instructions, we observed strong low prevalence effects. Using similarity search, we failed to detect the low prevalence effect under identical visual conditions across three experiments.

The Effects of Reading Strategy Awareness on L2 Comprehension Performance among the Rungus in North Borneo

The Rungus are the indigenous people in Sabah, Malaysia. Malay as a second language and the primary instruction in schools seems inevitable. The study aims to determine the effects of reading strategies in the L2 reading comprehension tests on textual content and vocabulary. Participants consisted of twenty-six Form Four Rungus tribe pupils from Kudat Sikuati II Government Secondary School. The study used an ex-post facto research design. The researchers employed cognitive and metacognitive strategy questionnaires and two reading comprehension tests on L2 textual content and vocabulary. The researchers applied Cronbach alpha reliability statistics, paired sample test, and regression analysis. The study indicates that the L2 reading comprehension test on textual content and cognitive strategy were linearly related. Also, the factors related to L2 vocabulary in the reading comprehension test and metacognitive strategy are statistically significant. There is a very substantial relationship between past knowledge and reading comprehension among the participants. This study found that the use of cognitive strategies facilitates L2 reading comprehension with first language translation. The participants use translation strategies at a high level. However, they often use the metacognitive strategy more than the cognitive strategy. There is a significant positive relationship between metacognitive awareness and high-skilled readers’ performance. Low-level skilled readers choose the cognitive strategy. Meanwhile, the regression analysis between the L2 reading comprehension test on textual content and cognitive strategy revealed a positive association (β=.435) that is statistically significant (p<.05). The regression analysis between the L2 reading comprehension test on vocabulary and metacognitive strategy indicated a positive association (β=.440) and statistically significant (p<.05). Reading strategies facilitate students to understand the text, thereby improving their reading comprehension tasks. In addition to demonstrating positive implications on teaching students to read a second language, the findings are essential for teaching Malay language vocabulary. The schema theory employed in the study implicates that reading comprehension performance is generated from the interaction between top-down strategy (metacognitive) and bottom-up strategy (cognitive). A large-scale study could potentially reveal the use of translation strategy as a strategic trait associated with high-achievement readers or is, in fact, a bilingual additive.

A-88 College Students with Depression or Anxiety: Greater Subjective Cognitive Concerns, Lower Academic Self-Efficacy, but Comparable Compensatory Cognitive Strategy Use

Objective This study examined whether college students with and without depression or anxiety differed in subjective cognitive concerns, college self-efficacy, and compensatory cognitive strategy use, hypothesizing that students with depression or anxiety would report greater cognitive concerns and lower self-efficacy in coursework, but comparable frequencies of compensatory cognitive strategy use. If confirmed, this finding would imply that, despite greater cognitive and academic problems, students with depression or anxiety do not implement behaviors in their everyday lives to address these problems. Method Participants (N = 582; age: 19.0 ± 1.0 years-old; 79.4% women; 81.9% White) completed online self-report questionnaires on subjective cognitive functioning, academic self-efficacy, compensatory cognitive strategy use, and depression and anxiety symptoms, which were used to categorize participants as having anxiety or depression based on established clinical cutoffs. Results Participants with anxiety or depression reported higher rates of elevated cognitive concerns, χ2 = 108.70, p &lt; 0.001, OR = 7.75, and lower academic self-efficacy, t = 8.46, p &lt; 0.001, d = 0.71, compared to participants without anxiety or depression, but these groups differed only modestly in compensatory cognitive strategy use, t = 2.42, p = 0.016, d = 0.20. Conclusion(s) Most students with depression or anxiety had elevated subjective cognitive concerns (52.0%), compared to a minority of participants without these conditions (12.3%). Despite substantially elevated cognitive concerns, participants with anxiety or depression reported only modestly greater compensatory cognitive strategy use. There appears to be a need to address cognitive concerns in college students with psychiatric conditions, and compensatory cognitive training may be a valuable supplemental service for clinicians working with college students in mental healthcare settings.