Internal and External Factors Underlying Variations in Adolescents' Daily Optimal Experiences

Flow Experience and Emotional Well-Being among Italian Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Research highlighted the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents' emotional well-being worldwide. In the attempt to identify resources which could facilitate adolescents' adjustment, this study examined the occurrence of flow experience and related activities, and the association between flow and emotional well-being among Italian teenagers. In Spring 2021, 150 students (40.7% girls) aged 15-19 completed instruments assessing flow and related activities before and during the pandemic, and current positive and negative affect. Findings revealed that only 24.7% of the participants currently reported flow; over half of those reporting flow before the pandemic did not experience it subsequently, and only 6.5% of those not reporting flow before the pandemic currently experienced it. Participants with flow both before and during the pandemic reported higher positive affect than teens who never experienced flow (p = .011), or lost it (p = .006). No group differences were detected for negative affect. Learning, structured leisure, and interpersonal relations were the domains most frequently associated with flow before and during the pandemic, but after the pandemic onset a reduction in the variety of flow activities and limited identification of new flow domains were observed. The association of flow with higher emotional well-being even in pandemic times suggests the potential usefulness of interventions promoting flow retrieval under adverse circumstances.

The Experience Sampling Method in Monitoring Social Interactions Among Children and Adolescents in School: A Systematic Literature Review

Background

The experience sampling method (ESM) is an increasingly popular data collection method to assess interpersonal dynamics in everyday life and emotions contextualized in real-world settings. As primary advantages of ESM sampling strategies include minimization of memory biases, maximization of ecological validity, and hypothesis testing at the between- and within-person levels, ESM is suggested to be appropriate for studying the daily lives of educational actors. However, ESM appears to be underutilized in education research. We, thus, aimed to systematically evaluate the methodological characteristics and quality of published ESM studies of social interactions among children and adolescents in school settings, as well as to explore how much variance in social interaction variables could be attributed to the within-person level.

Method

Using Academic Search Complete, APA PsycINFO, APA PsycArticles, ProQuest, Web of Science, Wiley Online Library, and SAGE Journals, and in accordance with PRISMA guidelines and pre-defined eligibility criteria, we conducted a systematic literature search of experience sampling studies up to November 2020. To assess methodological quality, we used a modified checklist for reporting of ESM studies.

Results

Of the originally 2 413 identified studies, a final 52 experience sampling studies were included in the present review. Findings on sample and study design characteristics generally revealed wide variability. Even if high-quality studies were associated with higher scores on the training of participants in using the ESM procedure, and use of incentives, these design strategies did not reveal a statistically significant impact on compliance. The intraclass correlation coefficient was reported in nine studies and on average 58% of the variance in social interaction variables could be attributed to within-person fluctuation between timepoints.

Conclusion

The current study is the first to systematically review ESM-based studies on social interactions among children and adolescents in the school context. These observations suggest that ESM is a potentially favorable technique for extracting complex social phenomena in real-world settings. We hope that this review will contribute to improving the quality assessment of ESM studies as well as to inform and guide future experience sampling studies, particularly regarding social phenomena with children and adolescents in educational settings.