Parents' and adolescents' perceptions of parental involvement and their relationships with depression among Chinese middle school students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Although psychological stress that adolescents may encounter during the COVID-19 pandemic has been of increasing interest to scholars, few studies have examined the profound impact that parents give to adolescents when staying indoors. This study surveyed 1,550 students and their parents from eight middle schools in eastern China. We employed multiple linear regressions with school fixed effects to examine the different perceptions of parental involvement between parents and children, and the relationships between these different types of parental involvement and depression in middle school students. Results indicated that discrepancies existed in their perceptions of behavioral aspects of parental involvement, including parental academic involvement, parent-teacher communication, and parent-child communication. Most saliently, higher levels of parental academic involvement (B = 0.051, p < 0.05) and lower levels of parent-child communication (B = -0.084, p < 0.05) perceived by students were associated with higher levels of depression. These findings contribute to the understanding of the association between parental involvement and students' mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Relationships between Smartphone Addiction and Smartphone Usage Types, Depression, ADHD, Stress, Interpersonal Problems, and Parenting Attitude with Middle School Students

BACKGROUND

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between smartphone addiction of middle school students and smartphone usage types, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), stress, interpersonal problems, and parenting attitude. In particular, we wanted to find out how smartphone usage types predict smartphone addiction when controlling depression, ADHD, perceived stress, interpersonal problems, and parenting attitudes, which are the main predictors of existing smartphone addiction in this study.

METHODS

The subjects of this study included 487 local middle school students (253 girls and 234 boys). The measurement instruments used were the smartphone addiction scale, patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Korean ADHD rating scales (K-ARS), perceived stress scale (PSS), Short form of the Korean-inventory of interpersonal problems circumplex scales (KIIP-SC), and the parenting attitude scale. We identified the relationships between the variables with correlation analysis and examined the predictors of smartphone addiction with hierarchical multiple regression analysis.

RESULT

The factors that influence smartphone addiction were sex (β = 3.14, P < 0.01), stress (β = 2.99, P < 0.01), and interpersonal problems (β = 3.81, P < 0.001). In addition, when the confounding variables of smartphone addiction were controlled to examine the effects of smartphone usage types on smartphone addiction, social network service (SNS) (β = 2.66, P < 0.01) and music/videos (β = 2.73, P < 0.01) were found to significantly positively affect smartphone addiction, whereas study (β = -2.54, P < 0.05) had a significantly negatively effect. And these factors explained 29.5% of the variance in smartphone addiction.

CONCLUSION

The order of the usage types with the highest influence on smartphone addiction was: enjoying music/videos, SNS, and study. This suggests that selective intervention depending on the main smartphone usage type can be effective.

Flipped Science Fair: Engaging Middle-School Students in STEM while Training Researchers in Science Communication

The Flipped Science Fair (FSF) transforms the traditional science fair format by having middle-school students judge the research of early career scientists. At the FSF, students learn about cutting-edge research in a small group setting, with opportunities to ask questions and participate in hands-on demonstrations. By placing the students in the role of the "judge," the event gives students the opportunity to engage with scientists interactively and with authority. The FSF also provides science communication training for the presenting scientists. Leading up to the event, the presenters attend three workshops focused on distilling their research message to a middle-school level. The FSF effectively promoted science engagement by middle school students who expressed increased interest in science after the event. Moreover, presenters reported an improvement in their science communication skills to a broad audience and increased confidence during public speaking. Our partnership with Pathways to Science, Yale's coordinated STEM outreach infrastructure, enables us to measure the FSF's effectiveness long term, since the Pathways program tracks student trajectories through their college education. The success of the FSF led to the organization of satellite and virtual events, which provided more opportunities for public engagement and gave presenters additional chances to share their research.