Maladaptive behavior in relation to the basic psychological needs of students in secondary education

What makes a student feel vital? Links between teacher-student relatedness and teachers’ engaging messages

Recent studies suggest that teacher messages can affect students’ well-being. Using a multilevel, variable, and person-centred approach, this study aimed to identify profiles of students according to their teachers’ use of engaging messages and analyse the relation among these profiles and teacher-student relatedness and students’ subjective vitality. A total of 1209 students participated in the study. At the student-level, profile analysis indicated the existence of four different profiles: the few messages profile, the autonomous motivational appeals profile, the loss-framed messages profile, and the gain-framed messages profile. At the teacher level, profile analysis indicated the existence of two profiles: the variant and the invariant profiles. Results showed that overall, at both levels of analysis, teachers’ engaging messages related with teacher-student relatedness (either positively or negatively) with clear differences among profiles. Moreover, also at both levels of analysis, teacher-student relatedness related with students’ subjective vitality. Main findings and implications for practice are discussed.

Rational emotive health therapy for the management of depressive symptoms among parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities in English language

BACKGROUND

There is little data in developing countries such as Nigeria with regard to the impact of caring for their children with intellectual and reading disability (IRD) on the quality of life of the parents and the risk of psychopathology.

OBJECTIVE

The main objective of the study was to assess the level of psychopathology, i.e., depression among parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities.

METHODS

This was pretest/posttest control group design with 198 parents (99 fathers/99 mothers) of 100 children with the diagnosis of IRD. The measures used in this study for data collection was Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed for data analysis.

RESULTS

Result obtained showed a significant high proportion of depressive symptoms among parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities at initial assessment. Furthermore, the REHT intervention resulted in a significant reduction in depression of parents in treatment group as compared to those in the control group.

CONCLUSION

The presence of a child with intellectual and reading disabilities does not cause parents to become depressed but irrational beliefs about their children's mental and reading deficiencies may contribute to unhealthy thinking and feelings about the future of their children. REHT is very effective in assisting depressed parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities to think rationally about their children and work towards overcoming disability-related as well as behavior-related irrational beliefs. The mental health providers, therapists and counselors should apply the REHT in managing people with psychological distress especially parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities who may have psychological diagnosis of depression.

Creating positive learning experiences with technology: A field study on the effects of user experience for digital concept mapping

Learning and assessment are increasingly mediated by digital technologies. Thus, learners’ experiences with these digital technologies are growing in importance, as they might affect learning and assessment. The present paper explores the impact of user experience on digital concept mapping. It builds on user experience theory to explain variance in the intention to use digital concept mapping tools and in concept map-based assessment scores. Furthermore, it identifies fulfillment of psychological needs as an important driver of positive experiences. In a field study in three schools and a university (N = 71), we tested two concept mapping prototypes on computers and tablets. We found that user experience is a significant factor explaining variance in intention to use. User experience also explained variance in three out of four concept mapping scores on tablets, potentially related to the lower pragmatic quality of the tablet prototypes. Fulfillment of psychological needs strongly affected perceptions of different qualities of user experience with digital concept mapping. These results indicate that user experience needs to be considered in digital concept mapping to provide a positive and successful environment for learning and assessment. Finally, we discuss implications for designers of digital learning and assessment tools.

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User experience (UX) is a vital success factor for digital education tools.

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Fulfillment of psychological needs defines user experience.

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User experience is a strong predictor of intention to use.

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User experience can explain variance in concept map scores.

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User experience models can complement technology acceptance models.

Need-Supportive and Need-Thwarting Teacher Behavior: Their Importance to Boys' and Girls' Academic Engagement and Procrastination Behavior

Motivation plays an important role in students’ school behavior, and research has established that students’ learning environment experiences such as teachers’ behavior toward them contribute to their motivation and behavior at school. Self-determination theory (SDT) offers an interesting frame of reference in the study of the relationship between students’ learning experiences at school and their school behavior. Considering three basic psychological needs (the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness), the SDT points to the importance of nutriments and support in the social environment in order to allow growth in motivation, engagement, and (psychological) well-functioning. In addition, thwarting these needs is supposed to contribute to maladaptive functioning. Teachers can play an important role in the fulfillment of students’ basic psychological needs by delivering support (autonomy support, structure, and involvement); however, controlling instructional behavior, chaos in the classroom, and teacher rejection and neglect are supposed to be a treat to the fulfillment of students’ basic psychological needs. In the current innovative longitudinal study, teachers’ need-supportive behavior as well as teachers’ thwarting of these needs are considered and their relationship with students’ academic engagement (adaptive functioning) and procrastination behavior (maladaptive functioning) is studied. In addition, attention is paid to differential effects of teachers’ behavior with regard to boys and girls. Participants were 566 students belonging to 20 mathematics/English grade 1 secondary education classes in the Netherlands. Multilevel analyses revealed evidence for the importance of both teachers’ need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors in relation to students’ academic engagement and procrastination behavior. In addition, the findings revealed that teachers’ need-supportive behavior is more important for students’ academic engagement (adaptive functioning), while teachers’ need-thwarting behavior has larger effects on students’ procrastination behavior (maladaptive functioning). Furthermore, evidence was found that boys often seemed to be more sensitive to their teachers’ behavior than girls. The findings highlight the importance of both teachers’ need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors in daily classrooms and contribute to deepen our insight into and understanding of factors leading to adaptive and maladaptive functioning of boys and girls in relation to learning tasks at school.