Coping is Crucial: Exploring Relations between K-12 Educators and Staff Coping Strategies, Perceived Stress and Psychological Wellbeing
Michael Savage and Vera Woloshyn
pp 3 - 18
This causal comparative study explored K-12 educators’ and school staff’s self-reported levels of well-being, perceived stress, and use of coping strategies. An online survey was administered to 686 educators consisting of teachers, school administrators, professional support staff, administrative support staff and other school staff in a medium-sized schoolboard in Southern Ontario, Canada. The results show that educators reported overall low scores of wellbeing and higher levels of perceived stress as compared to the general population. Female educators reported significantly higher perceived stress than their male colleagues. A k-means cluster analysis of the educators’ coping strategies identified four unique clusters which were significantly different from each other. It was shown that participants in two of the clusters, consisting of approximately 32% of the participants in this study, used maladaptive coping strategies more frequent and that the participants in these two clusters exhibited significantly poorer wellbeing and significantly more perceived stress than their colleagues in the other two clusters. The limitations and practical implications of this study are discussed.
Promoting the use of Social-Emotional Learning in Online Teacher Education
Noam Lapidot-Lefler
pp 19 - 35
The goal of this paper is to address the questions of how social-emotional learning [SEL] can be incorporated into online learning and what effect such integration can have on students. The COVID-19 outbreak significantly increased the use of online learning at all levels of education. However, research shows that the online learning experience may contribute to students’ feelings of distancing, alienation, and loneliness. The assumption underlying this study was that these negative feelings are not inherent to the online learning experience; rather, they can be avoided by using online-SEL (“O-SEL”) techniques that integrate SEL into online learning processes. This qualitative case study included 42 preservice teachers enrolled in a college of education in Israel, who participated in an online course that employed specific methods for integrating the SEL component. Analysis of students’ reactions to the course revealed that O-SEL not only improved students’ emotional experience but also enhanced their cognitive learning. These findings strongly suggest that models of online learning should include SEL. Additional research may confirm the positive O-SEL effects on students’ experience and achievements. In this context, the current study introduces the concept of “social-emotional presence,” which is necessary for learning and development to take place online.
Adolescent Cyberstanders’ Experience of Cyberbullying in the Era of Covid-19 in South Africa
Segun Emmanuel Adewoye
pp 36 - 52
Indications are that cyberstanders can be negatively affected by witnessing cyberbullying incidents and are even more likely than direct victims of cyberbullying to report symptoms of stress. However, cyberbystanders are understudied in the cyberbullying literature because most research predominantly focuses on perpetrators or direct victims of cyberbullying. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of adolescent cyberbystanders who witnessed cyberbullying in the COVID-19 era. Twenty adolescent cyberbystanders were purposely selected to participate in this study. The qualitative data was analysed using inductive thematic analysis. The findings demonstrated that cyberbullying has various detrimental effects that include educational, psychological, and emotional consequences for those exposed to it. It is recommended that anti-cyberbullying programmes should be incorporated into the curriculum so that teachers and educational psychologists can emphasise the negative impact of cyberbullying on bullies, victims and bystanders. With more awareness of the detrimental consequences of cyberbullying on all parties involved, adolescents may become more competent in respecting people’s rights and privacy within cyberspace.
Impact of Climate Change Awareness on Undergraduates’ Socio-emotional Well-being in Nigeria
Mulikat Ladj Abdulqadir Mustapha, Shuaib Abolakale Muhammed and Jamila Yusuf
pp 53 - 67
Students’ living conditions may suffer as a result of climate change. This research examined the impact of climate change awareness on undergraduates’ beliefs about socio-emotional well-being in Nigeria. The total number of undergraduate students in Kwara state made up the study’s population, with the sample size being 589. The Climate Change and Mental Wellbeing Questionnaire (CCMWQ) was used to collect data from randomly selected undergraduate participants for the study. The acquired data was evaluated using descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and PPMC at a significance level of 0.05. The results showed that most undergraduates are aware of climate change but have little understanding of its origins, effects, and preventive strategies. The results further revealed that the undergraduates’ level of climate change awareness influences their beliefs about their socio-emotional wellbeing. At different ages, participants’ opinions on how climate change would affect their socio-emotional health varied dramatically. Similarly, a correlation exists between climate change awareness and beliefs about socio-emotional well-being and awareness and attitude towards protecting the environment.
Measuring Emotional Knowledge: Assessment of Children’s Emotional Skills (ACES) with Spanish School-age Children
Ana I. Vergara, Natalia Alonso-Alberca, June Gutiѐrrez and David Schultz
pp 68 - 87
Emotion knowledge has attracted scientific interest in recent years due to its relevance to children’s adjustment. Although there is some controversy as to its definition and components, the term is often used to describe the set of abilities to process emotional information. We need rigorous tools to assess it in multiple languages and contexts. The Assessment of Children’s Emotional Skills-ACES was administered to 255 Spanish 8-to-11-year-old children along with, measures of adjustment and language. The Spanish ACES confirmed its three-factor structure; emotion recognition in faces, behaviours and situational emotional knowledge, and a second-order factor (i.e., overall emotional knowledge). The validity of this Spanish version of ACES was demonstrated in emotion knowledge relating to receptive vocabulary, age, sex and adjustment, with age, language and sex moderating relations between emotion knowledge and adjustment. The Spanish ACES can contribute to a greater understanding of the development of emotion knowledge in Spanish-speaking children; and help evaluate social and emotional intervention programmes.
Short Research Report: Coping Strategies in Hungarian School-Age Children
Aniko Zsolnai and László Kasik
pp 88 - 92
This longitudinal study aimed to analyse what coping strategies 8- and 12-year-old children use in frustrating situations. The participants were Hungarian students and their teachers. In the first investigation, children were aged 8 (N=52), and then they were re-examined four years later (N=45). Two Likert-type questionnaires (teacher and student versions) were developed and administered in the study. The instruments proved to be highly reliable (Cronbach’s α: .84-.86). The questionnaires enabled the researchers to investigate the following behaviourally observable strategies: physical aggression, verbal aggression, resistance, venting/crying, avoidance, teacher-seeking, peer-seeking, following the norms and following teacher’s instructions. In most frustrating situations, the frequency of physical and verbal aggression and venting increased with age. Both the self and teacher reports indicated that as students grew older, they were less inclined to seek peer or teacher’s help. The correlation between the teacher and self-ratings is weak, particularly in the 12-year-old cohort (p < .05).
Short Research Report: Relationship between Alexithymia as a Multi-dimensional Construct and Depression in University Students: Mediating role of Anxiety
Ayesha Akram and Tehreem Arshad
pp 93 - 97
This study investigated the relationship between alexithymia and depression amongst university students and how it is mediated by anxiety. Data was collected from a sample of university students (n= 74, Men = 41, Women = 33) aged 18 to 25 (Mean = 22.05, SD = .38). The findings revealed a statistically significant gender difference with men being more alexithymic than women. There was a significant positive correlation between the alexithymic subscales difficulty identifying feelings (DDF) and difficulty describing feelings (DIF), depression and anxiety. DDF and DIF along with anxiety predicted depression. Anxiety partially mediated the relationship between DIF and depression but completely mediated the relationship between DDF and depression. Alexithymic features DDF and DIF predict depression in the sample but Externally Oriented Thinking (EOT) did not. Anxiety was found to be an underlying mechanism operating in the between alexithymic features and depression.
