Journal of School and Educational Psychology

This mixed-methods study examined the congruence of pre-service teachers’ perceptions about their beliefs and knowledge of learning to their perceived principles of effective instruction, explicitly linking learning and teaching for students and teachers. Participants were 56 pre-service teachers in the college of education at a mid-sized university in the southeastern US. Three measures were employed in this study: firstly, participants were asked to choose a picture that best represented their views on the relationship between beliefs and knowledge and two open-ended questions asked them to define what beliefs and knowledge are. The second measure consisted of twenty-four items asking about their perceptions of their knowledge and beliefs about learning. Finally, the third measure consisted of an open-ended item asking participants to list and briefly describe their five core principles of effective instruction. Results show that beliefs are relatively dynamic and subject to change. Even over the course of a semester, there was a qualitative shift in pre-service teachers’ perceptions of knowledge of learning and less so in terms of perceptions of beliefs about learning. Surprisingly, there was less change in PSTs’ beliefs about learning, which is important since these beliefs may be much more likely to influence their decision-making as both pre-and in-service teachers.

The psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have substantially changed and this requires a new measurement tool reflecting these changes. The COVID-19 Impact Scale (CIS) assesses the psychological stress responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study, for the first time, examined the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the CIS in university students by focusing on its internal consistency reliability, factor structure, criterion validity and predictive validity. Using a cross-sectional research design, data were collected from 486 university students studying at a public university in Turkey. Participants completed the CIS and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale-6 using an online survey. The results showed that the CIS had excellent internal consistency reliability. Results of exploratory and confirmatory yielded a one-factor solution for the scale with high factor loadings. Also, the results showed that the CIS was not only significantly positively correlated with psychological distress but also accounted for a significant amount of unique variance in the prediction of psychological distress after controlling for the effects of age and gender. These results suggest that the CIS is a psychometrically sound scale with good evidence of reliability and validity in Turkish university students. The CIS can be confidently used for research and clinical practices.

This study aimed to investigate the fear of COVID-19 among university students from various countries in the context of face-to-face classes. This is a cross-sectional study, with a sample of 1,205 university students from several European (Portugal, France and England) and Latin American (Brazil and Paraguay) countries. An online survey was carried out including sociodemographic questions about COVID-19, type of university, face-to-face classes and the Fear of COVID-19 Scale for Face-to-Face Learning (FCV-19S-FL). Descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, ANOVA and multiple linear regression were used for data analysis. The results obtained identified a set of fear predictor variables (total, emotional and cognitive), with emphasis on females, first- and second-year students, attendance of courses not related to Health Sciences, preference for a distance learning model, comorbidities among family members or friends, and no previous COVID-19 infection. The comparative study between countries showed that university students in Brazil showed higher levels of all types of fear, statistically significant when compared to the other countries studied, with the exception of England. The results obtained show the impacts and management of the pandemic at the resumption of face-to-face classes after a period of exclusively distance learning, identifying university students at greater risk of mental health.

Many integrated interventions for the psychosocial recovery and empowerment of children and adolescents were implemented during the period of COVID-19. This article aims to present the results of a systematic review of psychosocial, and psychological resilience interventions for children and adolescents implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic in the school and community context. The review includes published articles from December 2019 to February 2022. The databases, which were used for the search, were: Google-Scholar, Psych info, Web of Science and PubMed and Scopus. The following words were used in the search: child, adolescents, intervention, school, psychosocial, resilience, pandemic COVID-19. The corresponding articles were checked manually. Articles that did not agree with the inclusion criterion as the school context as well as the interventions related to the health measures to limit the pandemic were not considered. The final selection of articles included 10 studies. The final studies yielded information that was categorized according to their area of application (school, community), the period of application (crisis, lockdown, unlock), goal, method, results, and evaluation. The conclusions drawn from the pandemic, the lockdown and the unlocking confirm the need to apply the already known crisis intervention methods and practices, and other new, innovative practices and methods such as re-entry interventions, alternative methods and the use of new digital techniques and remote psychosocial support.