A 1-year longitudinal study on experiencing workplace cyberbullying, affective well-being and work engagement of teachers: The mediating effect of cognitive reappraisal

Research on experiencing workplace cyberbullying (WCB) and its underlying mechanisms that impact the well-being of teachers is scarce. We propose that cognitive reappraisal, which is a useful and adaptive emotion-regulation strategy for reinterpreting emotion-eliciting situations, is a mediator explaining the inverse relationships between experiencing WCB and well-being. A three-wave longitudinal survey (baseline, T1; 3 months, T2; and 1 year, T3) was conducted with a sample of 444 primary and secondary schoolteachers in Hong Kong, China. Exposure to WCB, cognitive reappraisal, affective well-being and work engagement of participants was assessed. In line with the hypotheses, results showed that cognitive reappraisal mediated the associations between WCB and well-being. WCB at T1 was negatively associated with cognitive reappraisal at T2, which in turn was positively associated with positive affect and work engagement and negatively associated with negative affect at T3. Findings suggest that the intrusive nature of WCB renders its victims emotionally exhausted and helpless, thus negatively impacting the process to reinterpret the situation in a positive light, resulting in undesirable consequences. This study has illuminated WCB's inhibitory mechanism and its long-term detrimental impact. Practical implications are discussed.

Integrating Fundamental Movement Skills and Mathematics in Early Childhood: A Pilot Study

This project involved a co-design process involving researchers and kindergarten teachers to produce learning activities that integrated fundamental movement skills (FMS) and mathematics. We piloted the co-designed activities (i.e., motor-math program) in a local kindergarten and examined the effects on FMS proficiency, mathematics skills, and accrued physical activity (PA). The participants comprised pupils (N = 39) from two matched kindergarten classes, in which we compared the motor-math program with typical mathematics lessons. All participants wore pedometers to measure their number of steps during class, one day per week. FMS proficiency (i.e., locomotor, object control) and mathematics skills (numeracy, geometry, math problem solving) were measured before and after implementation. Significant improvements in locomotor and object control skills were found only in the pilot group (p < 0.001); there were no differences in the changes in mathematics skills between the pilot and comparison groups. During implementation days, the participants in the pilot group accrued significantly greater step counts (p < 0.001) than those in the comparison group. Participating in the motor-math program appears to have benefits associated with improvements in FMS proficiency and accrued PA time, suggesting a promising potential for integrated activities as a means of PA promotion in kindergarten settings. Future work that examines the effects of the integration of movement with mathematics should consider randomization, greater sample size, and a longer intervention period.

A sleepless night disrupts the resolution of emotional conflicts: Behavioural and neural evidence

The present study aims to investigate the influence of 24-hr sleep deprivation on implicit emotion regulation using the emotional conflict task. Twenty-five healthy young adults completed a repeated-measures study protocol involving a night of at-home normal sleep control and a night of in-laboratory sleep deprivation. Prior to the experimental session, all participants wore an actigraph watch and completed the sleep diary. Following each condition, participants performed an emotional conflict task with electroencephalographic recordings. Emotional faces (fearful or happy) overlaid with words ("fear" or "happy") were used as stimuli creating congruent or incongruent trials, and participants were instructed to indicate whether the facial expression was happy or fearful. We measured the accuracy and reaction time on the emotional conflict task, as well as the mean amplitude of the P300 component of the event-related potential at CPz. At the behavioural level, sleep-deprived participants showed reduced alertness with overall longer reaction times and higher error rates. In addition, participants in the sleep deprivation condition made more errors when the current trial followed congruent trials compared with when it followed incongruent trials. At the neural level, P300 amplitude evoked under the sleep-deprived condition was significantly more positive compared with the normal sleep condition, and this effect interacted with previous-trial and current-trial congruency conditions, suggesting that participants used more attentional resources to resolve emotional conflicts when sleep deprived. Our study provided pioneering data demonstrating that sleep deprivation may impair the regulation of emotional processing in the absence of explicit instruction among emerging adults.

Irrelevant information enhances a sense of knowledge and curses our understanding of other minds

This study shows that exposure to topic-related but irrelevant information enhances both estimates of peer knowledge and our own sense of knowledge. In Experiment 1, participants were more confident in their answers to general knowledge questions and gave higher estimates of peer knowledge when such questions were accompanied by short paragraphs containing topic-related yet nondiagnostic information than when they were not. The inflated peer knowledge estimates were independent of the classic curse of knowledge. Experiments 2, 3, 5, and 6 demonstrated that irrelevant information biases knowledge estimation via its semantic relatedness to the test questions; response latencies were measured in Experiments 5 and 6 to examine the possible role of retrieval fluency in the semantic relatedness effect. Experiment 4 attributed the bias to information content (e.g., "it is generally known that keratin is responsible"), not comments on knowledge popularity (e.g., "what is responsible is generally known"). Importantly, the effect of irrelevant information on estimates of peer knowledge was fully mediated by confidence in own knowledge in Experiments 1, 2, 4, and 5. Experiment 6 manipulated retrieval fluency and failed to find conclusive evidence for its involvement in the semantic relatedness effect. We conclude that irrelevant information boosts peer knowledge estimation through its semantic relatedness to the problem at hand, and the effect is mostly explained by a corresponding increase in the individual's own sense of knowledge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Intergenerational Interactions and Relationship Quality: A Daily Study Among Mothers and Their Adult Children

OBJECTIVES

The parent-child relationship is one of the most long-lasting relationships in human life. Such relationship is particularly adaptive during public health emergencies that threaten human life. However, few studies have examined the effects of daily exchanges in support between aging parents and adult children on the relationship quality during public health emergencies. Using data collected during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, we examined the relationship between daily support and relationship quality among middle-aged and older mothers and adult children.

METHODS

Seventy-seven dyads of middle-aged and older mothers (age range: 44-80 years, Mage = 53.78, SDage = 9.57) and adult children (age range: 18-54 years, Mage = 26.61, SDage = 9.46) participated in the study. They reported their daily exchanges with the other (i.e., support they had received from and given to each other) and daily relationship quality (i.e., relationship satisfaction and trust) each day for 14 consecutive days.

RESULTS

The perception of being underbenefited on Day N was associated with daily relationship satisfaction on the concurrent day in children but not mothers. It was associated with daily trust toward the relationship partner in both mothers and children on Day N. Both providing and receiving more support on Day N was associated with better relationship satisfaction for both mothers and children on Day N. Only receiving (not providing) more support on Day N was associated with greater trust toward the partner on Day N for both mothers and children. The time-lagged associations were not significant.

DISCUSSION

The findings highlight the importance of daily reciprocity and daily support exchanges on relationship quality during a public health emergency.

Grit, academic engagement in math and science, and well-being outcomes in children during the COVID-19 pandemic: A study in Hong Kong and Macau

There is evidence showing that the triarchic model of grit and its dimensions (i.e., perseverance of effort, consistency of interests, and adaptability to situations) predict engagement and well-being outcomes in high school and undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. However, there has been limited research on how this model of grit relates to engagement and optimal psychological outcomes in primary school students. This research investigates the association of grit's dimensions with academic engagement in math and science as well as well-being outcomes (i.e., positive emotions, negative emotions, and flourishing) in primary school students. Participants were primary school students (Mage = 10.42; SDage = 1.26) from Hong Kong (n = 279) and Macau (n = 124). Results showed that perseverance of effort positively predicted cognitive and behavioral engagement in math as well as positive emotions even after controlling for demographic covariates (i.e., age, gender, setting, and year level), conscientiousness, and achievement goal orientations. Adaptability to situations positively predicted cognitive and social engagement in math and flourishing. Consistency of interests negatively predicted both cognitive engagement in science and negative emotions. Indeed, this study indicates that perseverance and adaptability may facilitate children's positive academic and psychological functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

Conceptualizing psychological resilience through resting-state functional MRI in a mentally healthy population: a systematic review

Conceptualizations and operational definitions of psychological resilience vary across resilience neuroimaging studies. Data on the neural features of resilience among healthy individuals has been scarce. Furthermore, findings from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies were inconsistent across studies. This systematic review summarized resting-state fMRI findings in different modalities from various operationally defined resilience in a mentally healthy population. The PubMed and MEDLINE databases were searched. Articles that focused on resting-state fMRI in relation to resilience, and published before 2022, were targeted. Orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, insula and amygdala, were reported the most from the 19 included studies. Regions in emotional network was reported the most from the included studies. The involvement of regions like amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex indicated the relationships between emotional processing and resilience. No common brain regions or neural pathways were identified across studies. The emotional network appears to be studied the most in association with resilience. Matching fMRI modalities and operational definitions of resilience across studies are essential for meta-analysis.

An action research on the establishment of a Community of Practice on technology-enhanced language learning and teaching at tertiary level

This study aims to explore how an effective cross-institutional Community of Practice (CoP) can be established to promote technology-enhanced language learning and teaching (TeLL&T) at tertiary level, as there is an urgent need for establishing such CoPs due to the large-scale implementation of technology-enhanced language learning and teaching in recent years. In this study, an action research design was adopted, and a five-stage procedure has been identified for the establishment of the CoP on TeLL&T: (1) Investigation of students' and teachers' needs in TeLL&T through surveys and interviews; (2) Identifying a critical mass to form the CoP; (3) Constructing the CoP website to provide a platform with rich TeLL&T resources; (4) University students and teachers sharing their good practices of TeLL&T through various means; (5) Evaluation of the CoP activities. Different evaluation surveys were conducted among university students and teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of the CoP activities. Findings of evaluation surveys suggest that the CoP activities were well received. This study also illustrated the challenges and solutions of creating and maintaining a substantial CoP on TeLL&T. It is hoped that the findings will shed some light on how to establish an effective CoP on TeLL&T at tertiary level.

The foreign language effects on strategic behavior games

The present study examined foreign language effects on the decisions made in a series of strategic behavioral games (e.g., the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Oligopolistic Competition, and the Volunteer's Dilemma). We recruited 154 native Chinese-speaking university students, with English as their second language, as participants. They were asked to make decisions while playing four simple behavioral games in either Chinese or English language version and to complete a Language History Questionnaire. The results showed that 1) the participants in each language group performed differently in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game and in one condition of the Volunteer's Dilemma Game which involved a relatively high level of uncertainty; and 2) foreign language proficiency, frequency of application and cultural identity triggered by the corresponding foreign language moderated the foreign language effects. This pattern of results is consistent with the Cultural Accommodation Hypothesis and the risk-aversion preference to use one's native language.

Is Cantonese lexical tone information important for sentence recognition accuracy in quiet and in noise?

In Chinese languages, tones are used to express the lexical meaning of words. It is therefore important to analyze the role of lexical tone in Chinese sentence recognition accuracy. There is a lack of research on the role of Cantonese lexical tones in sentence recognition accuracy. Therefore, this study examined the contribution of lexical tone information to Cantonese sentence recognition accuracy and its cognitive correlates in adults with normal hearing (NH). A text-to-speech synthesis engine was used to synthesize Cantonese daily-use sentences with each word carrying an original or a flat lexical tone, which were then presented to 97 participants in quiet, in speech-shaped noise (SSN), and in two-talker babble (TTB) noise conditions. Both target sentences and noises were presented at 65 dB binaurally via insert headphones. It was found that listeners with NH can almost perfectly recognize a daily-use Cantonese sentence with mismatched lexical tone information in quiet, while their sentence recognition decreases substantially in noise. The same finding was reported for Mandarin, which has a relatively simple tonal system, suggesting that the current results may be applicable to other tonal languages. In addition, working memory (WM) was significantly related to decline in sentence recognition score in the TTB but not in the SSN, when the lexical tones were mismatched. This finding can be explained using the Ease of Language Understanding model and suggests that those with higher WM are less likely to be affected by the degraded lexical information for perceiving daily-use sentences in the TTB.

Holistic processing of Chinese characters in college students with dyslexia

Expert face recognition has long been marked by holistic processing. Hence, due to the many visual properties shared between face perception and Chinese characters, it has been suggested that Chinese character recognition may induce stronger holistic processing in expert readers than in novices. However, there have been different viewpoints presented about Chinese character recognition, one of which suggests that expertise in this skill involved reduced holistic processing which may be modulated by writing experiences/performances. In this study we examined holistic processing in Chinese character recognition in adults with and without dyslexia, using the complete composite paradigm. Our results showed that the adults with dyslexia recognized Chinese characters with a stronger holistic processing effect than the typical controls. It seems that those with dyslexia relied overly on the visual spatial information of characters and showed deficits in attending selectively to their components when processing Chinese characters, which hindered the development of expert reading and writing skills. This effect was in contrast to previous perceptual expertise studies in which reduced holistic processing marked deficits in face/visual object recognition. This study is also the first to show that Chinese adults with dyslexia had persistent below average performances in Chinese literacy.

A bibliometric review on latent topics and trends of the empirical MOOC literature (2008–2019)

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become a popular learning mode in recent years, especially since the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019, which had resulted in a significant increase in associated research. This paper presents a bibliometric review of 1078 peer-reviewed MOOC studies between 2008 and 2019. These papers are extracted from three influential databases, the Web of Science (WOS), Scopus, and the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC). The MOOC literature analysis with a bibliometric approach identified the research trends, journals, countries/regions, and institutions with high H-index, scientific collaborations, research topics, topic distributions of the prolific countries/regions and institutions, and annual topic distributions, after which the representative research and research implications were discussed. This review gives researchers a deep and comprehensive understanding of current MOOC research and identifies potential research topics and collaborative partners, which supports MOOC-related future research.

Importance of Face Masks for COVID-19: A Call for Effective Public Education

Considerable debates about the general community use of face masks for protection against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) stemmed out from differing views taken by health authorities. Misconceptions and stigmatization towards the use of face masks may hinder the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic. We address this previous debate by analyzing the advice on the community use of masks across different credible health authorities: countries that promoted the use of masks acknowledged that masks are effective but also explained the importance of their proper use along with other hygiene measures. In contrast, authorities that recommended against the community use of masks mainly cited shortage of supplies, the argument that the public do not have the adequate skills to wear them, or that wearing masks might reduce compliance with other important behaviors. We suggest promoting effective behavioral changes in personal protective measures by teaching microbiological knowledge instead of just listing out the “do’s-and-don’ts.”

Facilitating learning of community-based rehabilitation through problem-based learning in higher education

BACKGROUND

The quality of community-based rehabilitation (CBR) personnel is one of the key factors that contributes to the success of CBR programs. Integrating knowledge and practical skills in various stages of the learning process is essential in community-based rehabilitation. Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical strategy that uses real-world situations as the basis for developing knowledge and problem-solving skills. Through PBL, learners are guided and facilitated in assuming active problem-solving roles in real-world situations. This study developed and tested a framework and a PBL protocol for use in teaching community-based rehabilitation (CBR) in higher education.

METHODS

Part I of this study focused on the development of a framework and a protocol for PBL. An initial framework for the development of this protocol was formed based on a review of relevant literature. Concrete guidelines were delineated to describe the application, process, and delivery of teaching and learning. PBL was implemented in three CBR related courses. Students were facilitated to learn CBR in passing various stages of PBL through a self-directed learning process. The cumulative efforts of each group were compiled, recorded, and displayed using e-portfolios. In Part II, the processes and outcomes of using this new learning mode were evaluated using a case study approach to examine the protocol's efficacy. Focus group interviews, a questionnaire, and a detailed examination of the e-portfolios were administered for evaluation.

RESULTS

One hundred thirty-three students from three CBR related courses were recruited. PBL was regarded as an effective, realistic and practical method that enables critical thinking in CBR. Practicality was addressed by covering context-related materials with the use of real cases or examples. Participants were actively engaged in the learning process and their CBR competence was enhanced.

CONCLUSIONS

Through the new protocol, the students were equipped with active learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills that should facilitate success in CBR.

Validation of two scales for measuring participation and perceived stigma in Chinese community-based rehabilitation programs

BACKGROUND

The World Health Organization has asserted the importance of enhancing participation of people with disabilities within the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health framework. Participation is regarded as a vital outcome in community-based rehabilitation. The actualization of the right to participate is limited by social stigma and discrimination. To date, there is no validated instrument for use in Chinese communities to measure participation restriction or self-perceived stigma. This study aimed to translate and validate the Participation Scale and the Explanatory Model Interview Catalogue (EMIC) Stigma Scale for use in Chinese communities with people with physical disabilities.

METHODS

The Chinese versions of the Participation Scale and the EMIC stigma scale were administered to 264 adults with physical disabilities. The two scales were examined separately. The reliability analysis was studied in conjunction with the construct validity. Reliability analysis was conducted to assess the internal consistency and item-total correlation. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to investigate the latent patterns of relationships among variables. A Rasch model analysis was conducted to test the dimensionality, internal validity, item hierarchy, and scoring category structure of the two scales.

RESULTS

Both the Participation Scale and the EMIC stigma scale were confirmed to have good internal consistency and high item-total correlation. Exploratory factor analysis revealed the factor structure of the two scales, which demonstrated the fitting of a pattern of variables within the studied construct. The Participation Scale was found to be multidimensional, whereas the EMIC stigma scale was confirmed to be unidimensional. The item hierarchies of the Participation Scale and the EMIC stigma scale were discussed and were regarded as compatible with the cultural characteristics of Chinese communities.

CONCLUSION

The Chinese versions of the Participation Scale and the EMIC stigma scale were thoroughly tested in this study to demonstrate their robustness and feasibility in measuring the participation restriction and perceived stigma of people with physical disabilities in Chinese communities. This is crucial as it provides valid measurements to enable comprehensive understanding and assessment of the participation and stigma among people with physical disabilities in Chinese communities.