Online counselling for enhancing relationships

Most young people are students attending school where their peer relationships impact on their educational outcomes. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, young people also depend on the communication technologies to assist them with their developing relationships. Increasingly this connectedness to the peer group is being carried out both in the physical and virtual worlds as evidenced by the rapid increase in the membership of social network internet sites. However, schools seem reluctant to implement educational processes that utilize the social networking sites that young people inhabit. In fact, schools seem to be only emphasizing the dangers of enhancing peer relationships do not seem to be acknowledged. Online school counselling could be one way for schools to promote the positive uses of technology to contribute to young people's education and to enhance their social relationships and connectedness.

Just say no? The influence of personal goals, beliefs, psychosocial adjustment, and parental relationships in drug use by adolescents

The study in its entirety focused on factors related to adolescents decisions concerning drug use. The term drug use is taken here to include the use of tobacco products, alcohol, narcotics, and other addictive substances. First, the reasons given for drug use (attributions) were investigated. Secondly, the influence of personal goals, the beliefs involved in decision making, psychosocial adjustment including body image and involvement with peers, and parental relationships on drug use were studied. Two cohorts participated in the study. In 1984, a questionnaire on reasons for drug use was administered to a sample of adolescents aged 14-16 (N=396). A further questionnaire was administered to another sample of adolescents aged 14-16 (N=488) in 1999. The results for both cohorts were analyzed in Articles I and II. In Articles III and IV further analysis was carried out on the second cohort (N=488). The research report presented here provides a synthesis of all four articles, together with material from a further analysis. In a comparison of the two cohorts it was found that the attributions for drug use had changed considerably over the intervening fifteen-year period. In relation to alcohol and narcotics use an increase was found in reasons involving inner subjective experiences, with mention of the good feeling and fun resulting from alcohol and narcotics use. In addition, the goals of alcohol consumption were increasingly perceived as drinking to get drunk, and for its own sake. The attributions for the adolescents own smoking behavior were quite different from the attributions for smoking by others. The attributions were only weakly influenced by the participants gender or by their smoking habits, either in 1984 or 1999. In relation to participants own smoking, the later questionnaire elicited more mention of inner subjective experiences involving "good feeling. In relation to the perceived reasons for other people s smoking, it elicited more responses connected with the notion of "belonging. In the second sample, the results indicated that the levels of body satisfaction among adolescent girls are lower than those among adolescent boys. Overall, dissatisfaction with one's physical appearance seemed to relate to drug use. Girls were also found to engage in more discussions than boys; this applied to (i) discussion with peers (concerning both intimate and general matters), and (ii) discussion with parents (concerning general matters). However, more than a quarter of the boys (out of the entire population) reported only low intimacy with both parents and peers. If both drinking and smoking were considered, it seemed that girls in particular who reported drinking and smoking also reported high intimacy with parents and peers. Boys who reported drinking and smoking reported only medium intimacy with parents and peers. In addition, having an intimate relationship with one's peers was associated with a greater tendency to drink purely in order to get drunk. Overall, the results seemed to suggest that drug use is connected with a close relationship with peers and (surprisingly) with a close relationship with parents. Nevertheless, there were also indications that to some extent peer relationships can also protect adolescents from smoking and alcohol use. The results, which underline the complexity of adolescent drug use, are taken up in the Discussion section. It may be that body image and/or other identity factors play a more prominent role in all drug use than has previously been acknowledged. It does appear that in the course of planning support campaigns for adolescents at risk of drug use, we should focus more closely on individuals and their inner world. More research on this field is clearly needed, and therefore some ideas for future research are also presented.

Early peer play interactions of resilient children living in disadvantaged communities

Resilience for children is positive adaptation and a capacity to thrive despite challenging circumstances. Children demonstrating resilience are seen to have strong cognitive skills and have developed positive peer relationships. The ‘Supporting Resilience’ project is exploring the conditions and characteristics of resilience of young children and their families who live in rural, regional and metropolitan communities that are economically and socially disadvantaged. The aim of this paper was to report on pretend play and social competence within the early years’ cohort of the ‘Supporting Resilience’ project. Twenty-six children aged 4–6 years who were identified as resilient by their preschool teacher were involved in the study. Results obtained from the Child Initiated Pretend Play Assessment and the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale when the children were at pre-school found significant relationships between object substitution and social interaction (r = .414, p < .05). Children who could elaborate play with unstructured objects were less likely to be socially disconnected (r = –.49, p < .05). There was no significant difference between geographical locations for play ability. Significant difference for social competence was found between geographical locations. By situating play as individual development within a socio-cultural environment the relationship between children's pretend play ability and social peer play interactions are considered within early childhood development and resilience literature.

Peer Acceptance and Friendship as Predictors of Early Adolescents' Adjustment Across the Middle School Transition

This study examines several aspects of adolescents' pretransition peer relationships as predictors of their adjustment to middle school. Participants were 365 students (175 boys; 99% Caucasian) involved in the Time 1 (the spring of fifth grade) and Time 2 (the fall of sixth grade) assessments. Adolescents completed measures that assessed peer acceptance, number of friends, the quality of a specific mutual friendship, loneliness, depression, self-esteem, and involvement in school. Academic achievement and absentee data were obtained from student files. Regression analyses indicated that the pretransition peer variables predicted posttransition loneliness, self-esteem, school involvement, and academic achievement. The patterns of prediction varied slightly for each adjustment variable, with the most robust relationship being between peer acceptance and achievement. Results of repeated-measures MANOVAs indicated no differential changes in adjustment across time by gender. Implications for including a peer component in programs that prepare students for the middle school transition are discussed.

What will the boss think? The impression management implications of supportive relationships with star and project peers

Although impression management scholars have identified a number of tactics for influencing supervisor evaluations, most of those tactics represent supervisor-targeted behaviors. This study examines the degree to which employees form supportive relationships with peers for impression management purposes. In so doing, we explore this intriguing question: Will employees gain more from forming supportive relationships with stars (i.e., top performers who are on the fast track in the organization) or projects (i.e., works in progress who need help and refinement to perform well)? We examined this question in 2 field studies. Study 1 included 4 sources and 2 time periods; Study 2 included 2 sources and 3 time periods. The results showed that supportive relationships with both stars and projects seemed to represent impression management opportunities, insofar as they predicted supervisor positive affect and perceptions of employee promotability. Impression management motives only predicted supportive relationships with stars, however, not projects. Relationships with projects were driven by prosocial motives not concerns about managing images. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of our results for the managing of impressions and peer relationships

Parental involvement and group cognitive behavioral treatment for anxiety disorders in children and adolescents: Treatment specificity and mediation effects of parent and peer variables

Phobic and anxiety disorders are one of the most common, if not the most common and debilitating psychopathological conditions found among children and adolescents. As a result, a treatment research literature has accumulated showing the efficacy of cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) for reducing anxiety disorders in youth. This dissertation study compared a CBT with parent and child (i.e., PCBT) and child group CBT (i.e., GCBT). These two treatment approaches were compared due to the recognition that a child’s context has an effect on the development, course, and outcome of childhood psychopathology and functional status. The specific aims of this dissertation were to examine treatment specificity and mediation effects of parent and peer contextual variables. The sample consisted of 183 youth and their mothers. Research questions were analyzed using analysis of variance for treatment outcome, and structural equation modeling, accounting for clustering effects, for treatment specificity and mediation effects. Results indicated that both PCBT and GCBT produced positive treatment outcomes across all indices of change (i.e., clinically significant improvement, anxiety symptom reduction) and across all informants (i.e., youths and parents) with no significant differences between treatment conditions. Results also showed partial treatment specific effects of positive peer relationships in GCBT. PCBT also showed partial treatment specific effects of parental psychological control. Mediation effects were only observed in GCBT; positive peer interactions mediated treatment response. The results support the use CBT with parents and peers for treating childhood anxiety. The findings’ implications are further discussed in terms of the need to conduct further meditational treatment outcome designs in order to continue to advance theory and research in child and anxiety treatment.

Positive Impact of Peer Mentorships in the Project Panther LIFE Program

FIU’s Project Panther LIFE is a program that allows students with Intellectual Disabilities to have a full college experience. Project Panther LIFE students receive support from their Academic Mentors and Peer Coaches during the academic year. This study examines the positive impacts of peer relationships between Panther LIFE students and their mentor support system.

Social adaptation of children with mild intellectual disability : effects of partial integration within primary school classes

Examined the social adaptation of 32 children in grades 3–6 with mild intellectual disability: 13 Ss were partially integrated into regular primary school classes and 19 Ss were full-time in separate classes. Sociometric status was assessed using best friend and play rating measures. Consistent with previous research, children with intellectual disability were less socially accepted than were a matched group of 32 children with no learning disabilities. Children in partially integrated classes received more play nominations than those in separate classes, but had no greater acceptance as a best friend. On teachers' reports, disabled children had higher levels of inappropriate social behaviours, but there was no significant difference in appropriate behaviours. Self-assessments by integrated children were more negative than those by children in separate classes, and their peer-relationship satisfaction was lower. Ratings by disabled children of their satisfaction with peer relationships were associated with ratings of appropriate social skills by themselves and their teachers, and with self-ratings of negative behaviour. The study confirmed that partial integration can have negative consequences for children with an intellectual disability.

Students’ perceptions, experiences and beliefs about Facebook in subjects at an Australian university

This paper reports on students’ perceptions, experiences and beliefs about the voluntary use of Facebook in Advertising, Law, Nursing and Creative Industries’ subjects at an Australian University. The researchers conducted in-depth interviews with students and the transcriptions were analysed using the constant comparison method. This resulted in a number of emergent themes, of which six are explored in this paper. The findings suggest that students are quite divergent in their responses to academics using Facebook in their subjects. They do not always see its relevance to the subject and are somewhat ambivalent about how it facilitates peer-to-peer relationships or a better relationship with the lecturer. The study also identifies themes relating to cynicism and intrusion into social spaces.

Educational stress among Chinese adolescents : measurement, risk factors and associations with mental health

Academic pressure among adolescents is a major risk factor for poor mental health and suicide and other harmful behaviours. While this is a worldwide phenomenon, it appears to be especially pronounced in China and other East Asian countries. Despite a growing body of research into adolescent mental health in recent years, the multiple constructs within the ‘educational stress’ phenomenon have not been clearly articulated in Chinese contexts. Further, the individual, family, school and peer influencing factors for educational stress and its associations with adolescent mental health are not well understood. An in-depth investigation may provide important information for the ongoing educational reform in Mainland China with a special focus on students’ mental health and wellbeing. The primary goal of this study was to examine the relative contribution of educational stress to poor mental health, in comparison to other well-known individual, family, school and peer factors. Another important task was to identify significant risk factors for educational stress. In addition, due to the lack of a culturally suitable instrument for educational stress in this population, a new tool – the Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents (ESSA) was initially developed in this study and tested for reliability and validity. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect information from convenient samples of secondary school students in Shandong, China. The pilot survey was conducted with 347 students (grades 8 and 11) to test the psychometric properties of the ESSA and other scales or questions in the questionnaire. Based on factor analysis and reliability and validity testing, the 16-item scale (the ESSA) with five factors showed adequate to good internal consistency, 2-week test-retest reliability, and satisfactory concurrent and predictive validity. Its factor structure was further demonstrated in the main survey with a confirmatory factor analysis illustrating a good fit of the proposed model based on a confirmatory factor analysis. The reliabilities of other scales and questions were also adequate to be used in this study. The main survey was subsequently conducted with a sample of 1627 secondary school (grades 7-12) students to examine the influencing factors of educational stress and its associations with mental health outcomes, including depression, happiness and suicidal behaviours. A wide range of individual, family, school and peer factors were found to have a significant association with the total ESSA and subscale scores. Most of the strong factors for academic stress were school or study-related, including rural school location, low school connectedness, perceived poor academic grades and frequent emotional conflicts with teachers and peers. Unexpectedly, family and parental factors, such as parental bonding, family connectedness and conflicts with parents were found to have little or no association with educational stress. Educational stress was the most predictive variable for depression, but was not strongly associated with happiness. It had a strong association with suicide ideation but not with suicide attempts. Among five subscales of the ESSA, ‘Study despondency’ score had the strongest associations with these mental health measures. Surprising, two subscales, ‘Self-expectation’ and ‘Worry about grades’ showed a protective effect on suicidal behaviours. An additional analysis revealed that although academic pressure was the most commonly reported reason for suicidal thinking, the occurrence of problems in peer relationships such as peer teasing and bullying, and romantic problems had a much stronger relationship with actual attempts. This study provides some insights into the nature and health implications of educational stress among Chinese adolescents. Findings in this study suggest that interventions on educational stress should focus on school environment and academic factors. Intervention programs focused on educational stress may have a high impact on the prevalence of common mental disorders such as depression. Efforts to increase perceived happiness however should cover a wider range of individual, family and school factors. The importance of healthy peer relationships should be adequately emphasised in suicide prevention. In addition, the newly developed scale (the ESSA) demonstrates sound psychometric properties and is expected to be used in future research into academic-related stress among secondary school adolescents.

Middle schooling and scientific literacy : bringing the students to science

This study is about young adolescents' engagement in learning science. The middle years of schooling are critical in the development of students' interest and engagement with learning. Successful school experiences enhance dispositions towards a career related to those experiences. Poor experiences lead to negative attitudes and rejection of certain career pathways. At a time when students are becoming more aware, more independent and focused on peer relationships and social status, the high school environment in some circumstances offers more a content-centred curriculum that is less personally relevant to their lives than the social melee surrounding them. Science education can further exacerbate the situation by presenting abstract concepts that have limited contextual relevance and a seemingly difficult vocabulary that further alienates adolescents from the curriculum. In an attempt to reverse a perceived growing disinterest by students to science (Goodrum, Druhan & Abbs, 2011), a study was initiated based on a student-centred unit designed to enhance and sustain adolescent engagement in science. The premise of the study was that adolescent students are more responsive toward learning if they are given an appropriate learning environment that helps connect their learning with life beyond the school. The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of young adolescents with the aim of transforming school learning in science into meaningful experiences that connected with their lives. Two areas were specifically canvassed and subsumed within the study to strengthen the design base. One area that of the middle schooling ideology, offered specific pedagogical approaches and a philosophical framework that could provide opportunities for reform. The other area, the construct of scientific literacy (OECD, 2007) as defined by Holbrook and Rannikmae, (2009) appeared to provide a sense of purpose for students to aim toward and value for becoming active citizens. The study reported here is a self-reflection of a teacher/researcher exploring practice and challenging existing approaches to the teaching of science in the middle years of schooling. The case study approach (Yin, 2003) was adopted to guide the design of the study. Over a 6-month period, the researcher, an experienced secondary-science teacher, designed, implemented and documented a range of student-centred pedagogical practices with a Year-7 secondary science class. Data for this case study included video recordings, journals, interviews and surveys of students. Both quantitative and qualitative data sources were employed in a partially mixed methods research approach (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2009) dominated by qualitative data with the concurrent collection of quantitative data to corroborate interpretations as a means of analysing and developing a model of the dynamic learning environment. The findings from the case study identified five propositions that became the basis for a model of a student-centred learning environment that was able to sustain student participation and thus engagement in science. The study suggested that adolescent student engagement can be promoted and sustained by providing a classroom climate that encourages and strengthens social interaction. Engagement in science can be enhanced by presenting developmentally appropriate challenges that require rigorous exploration of contextually relevant learning environments; supporting students to develop connections with a curriculum that aligns with their own experiences. By setting an environment empathetic to adolescent needs and understandings, students were able to actively explore phenomena collaboratively through developmentally appropriate experiences. A significant outcome of this study was the transformative experiences of an insider, the teacher as researcher, whose reflections provide an authentic model for reforming pedagogy. The model and theory presented became an adjunct to my repertoire for science teaching in the middle years of schooling. The study was rewarding in that it helped address a void in my understanding of middle years of schooling by prompting me to re-think the notion of adolescence in the context of the science classroom. This study is timely given the report "The Status and Quality of Year 11 and 12 Science in Australian Schools" (Goodrum, Druhan & Abbs, 2011) and national curricular changes that are being proposed for science (ACARA, 2009).

Bonding and bridging : transition to school and social capital formation among a community of Indigenous Australian children

This study reports on an intervention program designed to facilitate transition to school of a whole community of Indigenous Australian children who had previously not been attending. The children were from families displaced from their traditional lands and experienced on-going social marginalisation and transience. A social capital framework was employed to track change in the children’s social inclusion and family-school engagement for two years, from school entry. Sociometric measurement and interview techniques were applied to assess the children’s social connectedness and peer relationship quality. Using these data, analyses examined whether bonding within the group supported or inhibited formation of new social relationships. Although transience disrupted attendance, there was a group trend towards increased social inclusion with some evidence that group bonds supported bridging to new social relationships. Change in family-school engagement was tracked using multi-informant interviews. Limited engagement between school and families presented an on-going challenge to sustained educational engagement.

Achievement and Social Strategies and the Cumulation of Positive and Negative Experiences During Young Adulthood

These longitudinal studies focused on investigating young adults during transition into a new educational environment. The aims were to examine: (1) what kinds of achievement and social strategies young adults deploy, (2) whether the deployment of these strategies predicts people's success in their studies, their life events, their peer relationships, and their well-being, (3) whether young adults' success in dealing with educational transition (e.g. success in studies, life events, peer relationships and well-being) predict changes in their strategies and well-being, and (4) the associations between young adults' social strategies, interpersonal behaviour, person perception, and their peer relationships and satisfaction with them. The participants were students from Helsinki university and from two vocational institutes (the numbers ranging between 92 and 303). The results revealed that achievement and social strategies contributed to individuals' success in dealing with both the academic and interpersonal challenges of a new environment. Social strategies were also associated with online interpersonal behaviour and person perception, which mediated their impact on peer relationships. Achievement and social strategies changed as a result of environmental feedback. However, they also showed high stability, forming reciprocal and cumulative associations with the feedback the individuals received about their success in dealing with educational transition: the use of functional strategies, such as optimistic, defensive-pessimistic and planning-oriented strategies, increased their success, which in turn enhanced their well-being and further deployment of functional strategies. The opposite was true in the case of dysfunctional strategies, such as self-handicapping and avoidance. Key words : Achievement strategies, social strategies, transition, young adults, life events, sociometric status, social behaviour, person perception, well-being.

El sociograma como instrumento de evaluación del clima de aula

La comprensión y el estudio de las relaciones entre el alumnado en las aulas es fundamental, tanto para lograr una satisfactoria convivencia escolar como para evitar la violencia, el acoso escolar o bullying. Por ello es conveniente conocer la estructura informal de los alumnos dentro de la clase, identificando los grupos que se forman y sus dinámicas de exclusión y liderazgo. Para poder intervenir en un grupo social, el educador debe conocer a fondo las relaciones sociales que en él fluyen. En esta investigación, se describen las relaciones que hay en una clase de 6º de primaria del colegio Cardenal Ilundain, mostrando los diferentes grupos y subgrupos que existen en el aula y señalando qué sujetos ejercen el rol de líder y cuáles son rechazados. Para ello se ha elaborado un test sociométrico que nos permite conocer las relaciones, jerárquicas o no, del grupo-clase y realizar una serie de sociogramas que proporcionan una visión de las relaciones entre compañeros y muestran tanto el nivel de integración de cada alumno/a como los contextos en los que se relacionan. En el diseño del sociograma se han tenido en cuenta los resultados de algunas investigaciones sobre este tema, principalmente las investigaciones de Jacob Levy Moreno creador del sociograma

Attitudes of children towards peers with acquired brain injury (ABI).

Research objective: Children with acquired brain injury (ABI) can experience severe problems in establishing peer relationships. The attitudes peers hold toward a child with an ABI can significantly impact on their willingness to befriend. The present work sought to investigate the attitudes peers hold toward a fictional child with ABI. Methods and procedures: Fifty children from a primary school were compared against a similar number from a secondary school. Gender was evenly split across both groups. A vignette describing a young boy acquiring a brain injury, and his subsequent change in behaviour, was presented to the children. The Friendship Activity Scale (FAS) was then used to judge how likely the children were to befriend the fictional character. Outcomes and results: Results showed a statistically significant interaction between gender and age [F(1, 96) 6.285, p = 0.014] with older males expressing more positive attitudes than younger males. Conclusion: The study suggests that children with ABI are more likely to experience negative attitudes in primary school, and concludes in calling for additional research to more fully explore the social experience of children with ABI. Keywords: Children; acquired brain injury; peers; attitudes