A follow-up study on students attending a university counselling service in Northern Italy

The aims of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of a university counselling service in Northern Italy, to assess the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of students who used counselling service, and to assess the psychological conditions of the students who ended the counselling after a 4 month follow-up period. The study involved 100 students, who filled out the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), the Brief COPE Inventory, and the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). The results showed that who received counselling were positively affected by this experience. The areas of benefit were psychological well-being, coping behaviours, ability to positively reframe problems and less sense of guilt. Additional studies are needed to identify which factors influence the outcomes of university counselling services in Italy. These studies would be important to evaluate the services rendered, upgrade the skills of counsellors and visualise priority areas of need.     

Personal and social aspects of professional identity.: An extension of Marcia's identity status model applied to a sample of university students

The study proposed an extension of Marcia's identity status model based on validation of the Professional Identity Status Questionnaire (PISQ-5d), a scale able to measure both intra-individual and intergroup processes connected with the development of a professional identity in university students. The aims were to prove the construct validity of the PISQ-5d, to determine the appropriate number of identity statuses, and to assess the concurrent validity of the identity statuses considering both job-related and academic factors. In this study, 477 university students completed a questionnaire with the PISQ-5d scale; 220 also completed the measures of work values; and 168 completed the measures of student self-esteem and self-efficacy, academic motivation, and grades. Results confirmed the expected five-dimensional structure of the PISQ-5d and the scale's effectiveness at differentiating five types of identity status. Relationship between professional identity status and job-related and academic factors showed that the students with achievement or foreclosure identities had higher scores on measures of academic self-esteem and intrinsic work value and had lower scores for intention to leave university. Implications in terms of considering the PISQ-5d scale a useful tool for the evaluation of professional identity construction processes in university students will be discussed.     

Morality and behavioural regulation in groups: A social identity approach

In recent years social psychologists have displayed a growing interest in examining morality—what people consider right and wrong. The majority of work in this area has addressed this either in terms of individual-level processes (relating to moral decision making or interpersonal impression formation) or as a way to explain intergroup relations (perceived fairness of status differences, responses to group-level moral transgressions). We complement this work by examining how moral standards and moral judgements play a role in the regulation of individual behaviour within groups and social systems. In doing this we take into account processes of social identification and self-categorisation, as these help us to understand how adherence to moral standards may be functional as a way to improve group-level conceptions of self. We review a recent research programme in which we have investigated the importance of morality for group-based identities and intra-group behavioural regulation. This reveals convergent evidence of the centrality of moral judgements for people’s conceptions of the groups they belong to, and demonstrates the importance of group-specific moral norms in identifying behaviours that contribute to their identity as group members.     

Psychological well-being and scholastic achievement among university students in a Canadian Prairie City

This article reports the findings from a questionnaire survey of university students’ scholastic achievement and psychological well-being in a Canadian prairie city. Multiple ordinary least-squares regression analyses revealed that sex, educational aspirations, hours spent on studying, father’s education, physical health, financial stress, and stress due to balancing work, school, and social life were found to be significantly associated with academic performance. More specifically, female students and those who reported higher educational aspirations, indicated better physical health, experienced less financial stress or stress due to finance or to balancing work, school, and social life, spent more time on studying, and those whose father had a higher level of education were found to perform better academically. On the other hand, income, physical health, relationship with significant other, relationship with family, relationships with friends, self image, and academic stress were found to be significantly related to psychological well-being. Put succinctly, respondents who had a higher family income, reported better physical health, expressed a higher degree of satisfaction with their relationships with family, friends, and significant other, indicated a more positive self-image, and experienced less academic stress were found to exhibit a significantly higher level of psychological well-being.     

Psychological distress in university students: A comparison with general population data

Objective: While the mental health of university students is recognised internationally as an important public health issue, more epidemiological data are needed that allows benchmarking with general population data. Methods: All enrolled students from two large Australian universities were invited to complete a web‐based survey. Anxiety‐mood disorders were assessed using the Kessler 10. A total of 6,479 students participated in the study with sociodemographics generally consistent with the university population. Results: The estimated prevalence for mental health problems was 19.2% with 67.4% reporting subsyndromal symptoms. These rates were significantly higher than the general population. Psychological distress was associated with disability and lower academic achievement. Predictors of distress included: full‐time status, financial stress, being aged between and 18 and 34 years, being female, and in a subsequent undergraduate year of their degree. Conclusions: The extremely high prevalence of mental health problems in university students provides evidence for this being an at‐risk population. Implications: The results highlight the need for universal early interventions to prevent the development of severe mental illness in university students.     

Values and learning approaches of students at an international university

This study indicates that values are statistically significant precursors to approaches to learning in a cohort of predominantly Bulgarian, German and Romanian students studying at a German university where the language of instruction in all subject areas is English. Values have been measured with the Portrait Values Questionnaire (Schwartz et al. 2001), and approaches to learning have been assessed by the Study Process Questionnaire (Biggs, 1987). The relationships between values and approaches to learning have been estimated by canonical correlation analysis. Results of the analysis suggest that values can be linked to learning approaches in a situation where students have left their home countries to undertake tertiary studies in a new social, cultural and educational environment. Four distinct pairings between values and learning approaches emerge whereby: (a) self-aggrandisement is linked to the achievement learning variable, (b) conservatism relates to the surface learning variable, (c) self-directedness is linked to the deep learning variable and (d) benevolent change is related to the learning strategies variable. The analyses for this research were conducted while the second author was a visiting scholar at the Flinders University Institute of International Education in Adelaide, South Australia. The assistance of Professor John Keeves in the implementation and interpretation of additional statistical analyses is gratefully acknowledged.     

Vocational interest orientations: A comparison of rural university and junior college freshmen

The increase in junior colleges imposed new demands on counselors. Some areas to be investigated are the differences in counseling programs between junior colleges and universities; the differences in student bodies; and the importance of vocational guidance. This study addresses itself to elements of those areas.Male and female samples were drawn from two rural educational institutions: a four year university and a junior college. Differences in vocational interest orientations were explored through the nonoccupational scales of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank (SVIB). For males significant differences were found on the academic achievement, diversity of interest, managerial orientation, and occupational level scales. Females differed on the diversity of interest scales.     

Genetic and environmental structures of personality: A cluster-analysis approach

A cluster analysis was carried out on within-individual and cross-pair correlations among personality questionnaire items for 654 monozygotic and 648 dizygotic twin pairs in an initial sample, and 649 and 649 pairs in a cross-validation sample. The data were from adult Australian twins who had responded in a mail questionnaire to 110 items from two personality inventories. Clustering based on genetic correlations or on unshared environmental correlations among items led to three very similar cross-validated clusters, labeled Emotional, Confident, and Reserved. Unshared environment provided several additional cross-validated clusters. Clusters based on shared environment, on the other hand, failed to cross-validate or to correspond to the clusters from the other two sources.     

Psychodynamic counselling in a university setting: A space for thinking together over emotional problems

Abstract

The authors describe their experience as psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists at the Counselling Service for University Students of the Office for Student Affairs, Naples. In this service they have provided, for the last fourteen years, to any student who applies to it, up to four individual sessions, with the possibility of follow-up sessions, should the client ask for them after a few months. Both the procedure and the aims of the interventions are similar to those described by psychotherapists working at the Tavistock Clinic (Copley 1976; Salzberger-Wittenberg 1977) and the Brent Consultation Centre (Hurry 1986; Novick 1987) of London. The technique is an adjustment of the psychoanalytic one and the therapist undertakes a careful listening to the student's verbal and non-verbal communications. The main objective of the intervention is to enter into an alliance with the adult parts of the client in order to examine together his/her personal difficulties. A case report is presented, in order to exemplify both an emotional conflict which can interfere with academic success and the technique of the intervention.     

National disidentification and minority identity: A study among Muslims in Western Europe

Host national disidentification in which immigrants explicitly distance themselves from society is problematic for a cohesive national community and is likely to hamper immigrants’ successful host society integration. Among Sunni Muslim immigrants of Turkish origin living in Germany and the Netherlands we tested whether (a) an empirical distinction between national disidentification and identification can be made, (b) whether higher perceived group discrimination of Muslims (“reactive religiosity path”) and (c) stronger Muslim self-centrality (“intrinsic religiosity path”) are associated with stronger host national disidentification, to the extent that they are associated with a stronger commitment to religious identity content. Disidentification was found to be a separate construct and both the reactive religiosity path and the intrinsic religiosity path were found to be related to higher levels of disidentification, mediated by religious identity.     

Relationships between cognitive coping,self-esteem,anxiety and depression: A cluster-analysis approach

It is important for prevention efforts and for designing appropriate interventions to identify people at risk of depression while considering cognitive coping and individual characteristics. This study with 334 French adults examined the ways in which people may combine the use of several cognitive coping strategies and investigated whether depression, self-esteem, and state- and trait-anxiety would differ across distinctive cognitive coping profiles. A two-phased cluster analytic plan was employed to derive clusters of cognitive coping profiles. We identified three profiles that differed according to the levels of depression, self-esteem, and state- and trait-anxiety. Research should therefore not focus on a single cognitive coping strategy, but on all cognitive coping strategies that are used simultaneously to investigate the relation between cognitive coping and emotional problems. Cognitive coping profiles provided a deeper understanding of how different individuals cope with negative and unpleasant events, and they allowed us to identify targeted groups that are most likely to benefit from specific mental health promotion and prevention campaigns.     

Nationwide survey of contraceptive and sexually transmitted infection knowledge,attitudes and skills of university students in Portugal

Sexually transmitted infections and (STIs) unintended pregnancies are contemporary public health concerns. Understanding factors (e.g. knowledge, attitudes and skills) influencing sexual behaviours of university students are critical to develop targeted and tailored risk-reduction interventions for this vulnerable population. Thus, the goals of this study were to describe sexual behaviours and analyze differences between genders for sexual behaviours; to identify whether differences exist between genders and age groups regarding knowledge, attitudes and skills concerning contraceptive methods and STIs, and to evaluate the association of knowledge with attitudes and skills with sexual behaviour among university students in Portugal. The sample included 3278 students. Results show that the majority were sexually active and use condoms and oral contraceptives. In general, university students have high knowledge, positive attitudes and skills about contraception and STIs. Gender analyses indicated that women had greater knowledge, and more favourable attitudes, and higher skills toward contraceptive and STI preventive behaviour College students, in particular, face new challenges in sexual health and would benefit from more comprehensive education aimed at promoting healthy decision-making about family planning and STI prevention.     

Stress and quality of life in international and domestic university students: cultural differences in the use of religious coping

Studying overseas entails a number of transitions and challenges, and the present study investigated the strategies international university students use to cope with stressors. Previous research suggests that international students may be more likely than domestic students to draw on religion/spirituality as a source of dealing with stress, but the direct links between stress, religious coping and quality of life are yet to be documented explicitly. A sample of 679 university students in New Zealand completed the quality of life scale WHOQOL-BREF with an additional WHOQOL module used to assess spiritual, religious, and personal beliefs (SRPB). The students also completed the Perceived Stress Scale and the Brief COPE inventory. Irrespective of stress levels encountered or whether participants were international or domestic students, Asian students were more likely to use religious coping strategies than European students. Unlike European students, Asian students’ use of religious coping was effective in improving psychological and social quality of life. The findings also provide support for the main effects hypothesis of religion/spirituality. The present study demonstrates that cultural factors play an important role in the manner in which individuals maintain mental health and quality of life.     

Callings in career: A typological approach to essential and optional components

A sense of calling in career is supposed to have positive implications for individuals and organizations but current theoretical development is plagued with incongruent conceptualizations of what does or does not constitute a calling. The present study used cluster analysis to identify essential and optional components of a presence of calling among 407 German undergraduate students from different majors. Three types of calling merged: “negative career self-centered”, “pro-social religious”, and “positive varied work orientation”. All types could be described as vocational identity achieved (high commitment/high self-exploration), high in career confidence and career engagement. Not defining characteristics were centrality of work or religion, endorsement of specific work values, or positivity of core self-evaluations. The results suggest that callings entail intense self-exploration and might be beneficial because they correspond with identity achievement and promote career confidence and engagement while not necessarily having pro-social orientations. Suggestions for future research, theory and practice are suggested.     

Teacher-student relationship quality type in elementary grades: Effects on trajectories for achievement and engagement

Teacher, peer, and student reports of the quality of the teacher-student relationship were obtained for an ethnically diverse and academically at-risk sample of 706 second- and third-grade students. Cluster analysis identified four types of relationships based on the consistency of child reports of support and conflict in the relationship with reports of others: Congruent Positive, Congruent Negative, Incongruent Child Negative, and Incongruent Child Positive. The cluster solution evidenced good internal consistency and construct validity. Group membership predicted growth trajectories for teacher-rated engagement and standardized achievement scores over the following three years, above prior performance. The predictive associations between child reports of teacher support and conflict and the measured outcomes depended on whether child reports were consistent or inconsistent with reports of others. Study findings have implications for theory development, assessment of teacher-student relationships, and teacher professional development.     

Vocational behavior and career development, 1980: A review

Papers were reviewed in the sections where their major findings seemed to have the most important implications. Since it typically was not possible to do justice to individual studies in a few lines of summary, readers are referred to the specific articles of their interest for further information regarding other findings.As has been the case in the past several years, the number of studies related to vocational behavior and career development appears to be expanding, along with perceptions of what is relevant to the field. As greater emphasis is placed on the working life of individuals after initial occupational choices are made, researchers on vocational behavior and career development will increasingly find it necessary to synthesize research findings from the areas of industrial/organizational psychology, organizational sociology, and organizational behavior and theory. This factor may suggest greater collaboration among researchers across these fields in the future. In any event, the broadening base of relevant research, while challenging, also is an exciting development with rich potential for increased knowledge of vocational behavior.As Walsh mentioned in his review of 1978 literature, there is a vital need for more work of a longitudinal nature. We see some increase this year, but we are too frequently forced to draw conclusions regarding long-term vocational development from studies which are mainly crosssectional and correlational in nature.Among the research directions of note this year is the increasing emphasis on information processing/decision-making frameworks as a means of studying the vocation development process. Other trends were the growing concern with the relationship between work and nonwork, interest in recruitment processes, and the emphasis on situational as well as individual factors in predicting vocational behavior.     

Recognition memory in hearing-impaired children: A levels-of-processing approach

Eighty-nine hearing-impaired children ranging in age from 6 years to 12 years, 11 months were given a recognition task comprised of items from the Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices and the Raven Learning Potential Test following administration of the Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices. The study was designed to determine whether recognition memory varied as a function of item type. The analysis indicated that performance on items involving analogous reasoning exceeded recognition for items requiring pattern completion through closure, which, in turn, exceeded performance for items involving simple pattern completion. Results are discussed in light of levels-of-processing.     

Identity formation in Italian emerging adults: A cluster-analytic approach and associations with psychosocial functioning

The present study examined identity formation in Italian emerging adults using an integrative identity model including commitment making, identification with commitment, exploration in depth, exploration in breadth, and ruminative exploration. Participants were 1,130 university students, aged 18–30 years. In line with previous research, results indicated that, by means of cluster analysis, six identity statuses could be derived: achievement, foreclosure, moratorium, diffused diffusion, carefree diffusion, and undifferentiated. Each of these identity statuses exhibited a distinct profile in terms of self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and need satisfaction. Suggestions for future research and limitations are discussed.     

Cooperative learning in the classroom: Contingencies,group interactions,and students with special needs

Cooperative learning activities play a significant role in the schools. As such, these activities should be of interest to applied behavior analysts concerned with educational interventions. A number of factors appear to contribute to the impact of cooperative group activities, including the level of individual accountability, group contingencies, and the types of interactive behaviors in which students engage during group activities. This paper reviews current research on cooperative learning, focusing on the relationships between student behaviors, contingencies of reinforcement and group outcomes. The social and academic skills with which students enter cooperative learning activities, and the impact of these skills on students' behavior within groups and on the social and academic outcomes of groups is considered. Problems associated with the failure of cooperative groups are also addressed. The research potentials for applied behavior analysts are discussed.