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Despite growing interest in evaluating the social and emotional learning of students and the development of standardized assessment tools for this purpose, there remains a dearth of validated instruments for evaluating teachers' social and emotional skills. We set out to address this knowledge gap by investigating the psychometric characteristics of the Social-Emotional Competence Teacher Rating Scale (SECTRS) questionnaire, an instrument originally developed and validated in North America. Participants were 572 teachers from Italy (n=324), Latvia (n=139), and Portugal (n=109) ranging from 40 to 59 years of age. We performed confirmatory factor analysis procedures to validate a four-factor model measuring Teacher-student relationships, Emotion regulation, Social awareness, and Interpersonal relationships. The data supported this factorial structure, with a total of 14 items included in the final model. The outcomes of a multi-group comparison indicated that the model exhibited partial invariance, up to and including metric invariance, across the three cultural settings. We discuss these findings in relation to selecting appropriate instruments for assessing the social and emotional skills of teachers in different cultural contexts.

As highlighted in the literature, one of the main difficulties in mathematics is the management of different semiotic representations. This difficulty occurs in verticals throughout schooling and is often an obstacle to the proper learning process of mathematics. The present study aims to investigate the different facets of these difficulties with regard to mathematical tasks in secondary school. In particular, questions from Italian large-scale mathematics assessments are analyzed and interpreted through the theoretical lens of Duval's (1993) theory. Statistical analyses on a robust national sample allow a framing of the main difficulties and provide valuable information in this field.

This paper focuses on the difficulties encountered by Italian students in performing geometry tasks. A quantitative analysis, aimed at understanding the extent of the phenomenon, is carried out using the results of district competitions from the year 2018 to 2020, comparing the scores obtained in geometry questions with those in other areas of Olympic mathematics. In addition, the answers given by the students to a questionnaire administered at the end of the 2020 district competition are analyzed in order to better understand possible motivations behind the phenomenon in question. The results obtained need further confirmation through future research on the topic but represent clear trends worthy of further investigation.

Objective: Short-term RCTs have demonstrated that MPH-treatment significantly reduces ADHD-symptoms, but is also associated with adverse events, including sleep problems. However, data on long-term effects of MPH on sleep remain limited. Methods: We performed a 2-year naturalistic prospective pharmacovigilance multicentre study. Participants were recruited into three groups: ADHD patients intending to start MPH-treatment (MPH-group), those not intending to use ADHD-medication (no-MPH-group), and a non-ADHD control-group. Sleep problems were assessed with the Children's-Sleep-Habits-Questionnaire (CSHQ). Results: 1,410 participants were enrolled. Baseline mean CSHQ-total-sleep-scores could be considered clinically significant for the MPH-group and the no-MPH-group, but not for controls. The only group to show a significant increase in any aspect of sleep from baseline to 24-months was the control-group. Comparing the MPH- to the no-MPH-group no differences in total-sleep-score changes were found. Conclusion: Our findings support that sleep-problems are common in ADHD, but don't suggest significant negative long-term effects of MPH on sleep.

Soft skills are interpersonal, communication, and personal attributes that enable individuals to interact effectively with others in personal and workplace settings. Despite the significance of soft skills for career success, these skills are not necessarily taught in traditional academic settings. Consequently, education institutions must adopt innovative teaching strategies to stimulate student interest and encourage the learning of appropriate soft skills for the job market. This research focuses on developing an online serious game prototype, assessing the students' familiarity with one specific soft skill (emotional intelligence), and verifying if this online digital prototype will produce performance results comparable with the onsite analogic version of the game. The final testing phase of the game prototype was conducted at the University of Bari in two parts, namely online and onsite tests. For the testing, 394 students took part, where 173 participated in the onsite analogic experience (before the lockdown) and 221 in the online serious game-based experience (during the lockdown). Various statistical techniques were performed to evaluate the prototype's effectiveness in assessing the competencies derived from the Goleman emotional intelligence model. The study has implications for the development and use of serious games in imparting training and assessment of emotional intelligence.

In this paper, we continue describing the project and the experimentation of "Ricerca Operativa Applicazioni Reali" (ROAR; in English, Real Applications of Operations Research), a three-year project for higher secondary schools, introduced. ROAR is composed of three teaching units, addressed to Grades 10, 11, and 12, respectively, having the main aim to improve students' interest, motivation, and skills related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines by integrating mathematics and computer science through operations research. In a previous paper, we reported on the design and implementation of the first unit, started in Spring 2021 at the scientific high school IIS Antonietti in Iseo (Brescia, Italy), in a Grade-10 class. Here, we focus on the second unit, carried out in Winter/Spring 2022 with the same students, now in a Grade-11 class. In particular, we describe objectives, prerequisites, topics and methods, the organization of the lectures, digital technologies used, and a challenging final project. Moreover, we analyze the feedback from students and teachers involved in the experimentation.

The role of mathematics in secondary-tertiary transition is subject to increasing analysis in several education contexts. We explore the longitudinal relationships among a standardized test used for assessing secondary school mathematics, high school final grades and the academic progress of a sample of Italian undergraduates. Results from regression analyses showed that the standardized test and high school final grades together are predictive both of the student's academic success in terms of Grade Point Average and of academic credits earned, whereas a more specific relationship emerged between the standardized test and the mathematics exam. This study provides findings on the importance of secondary school mathematics as a predictor of university performance, even in courses where mathematics is a service subject.

Physics preparation for primary school teachers has received attention only in recent decades. Research on science education provides useful guidelines, often disregarded. Several interrelated research questions must be addressed by field research, namely, (a) which physics subjects to teach in primary school and its relationships with other sciences, technology, and mathematics; (b) how to prepare teachers to grasp the complexity of their tasks; and (c) how to bridge pre-service and in-service training. In this study, we describe innovative aspects of a course, based on the research and action research of our research group, that aims to overcome the limitations of a purely academic approach. Future teachers are dynamically involved in activities in informal and formal contexts and in the training of in-service teachers' activities. The idea of cognitive resonance and a phenomenological approach to the modeling process are the basis of the activities that integrate key concepts of physics with transversal ones to develop skills in physics, mathematics, technology, and language. Field research carried out with qualitative methods shows that the course, despite being demanding, is well received by students. Dozens of students are then involved in the activities of the group when they start a teaching career at school.

School closures because of the COVID-19 emergency forced a rapid transition to distance learning worldwide. In this study, we investigated teachers' experiences with distance learning during the first Italian lockdown. A sample of 270 primary and secondary teachers answered a semi-structured questionnaire administered between April and May 2020. Didactic modalities, students' and teachers' difficulties with distance learning, and teachers' feelings during school closure were investigated through open-ended questions. Content analysis indicated that most teachers adopted both synchronous and asynchronous modalities, which resembled the traditional classroom learning environment. Moreover, technological weaknesses (lack of proper digital equipment and poor digital skills) and lack of interactions appeared to be the main threats to the quality of distance learning. The implementation of distance learning in primary schools emerged as more challenging than in secondary education. Furthermore, most teachers experienced negative feelings during online teaching. However, 13% of the sample reported a sense of resilience and opportunity. Particularly, older teachers reported more resilience compared with younger teachers, indicating the importance of experience in managing stressful teaching events. Overall, findings suggest that--in this novel educational environment--teachers' role has changed significantly, placing strong emphasis on the ability to encourage communication, discussion, and contact with students. Future work should focus on how information and communications technology could sustain meaningful interactions between students and teachers, especially in primary education.

Currently almost 99% of Italian teenagers own a smartphone and with it they can enter the world of the infosphere: this fact has profoundly changed the online habits of teenagers. The pedagogical literature grafted onto Media Education has highlighted the cognitive and relational opportunities favoured by smartphones and their use by adolescents. Which are today's adolescent's online media-practices? In which terms these practices have an impact on adolescents' socialisation? This contribution intends to explore these questions and focus attention on the ways in which these devices are managed by teenagers on a personal level, offering a descriptive picture of the media practices activated in the context of the reticular society for the school and family context and consequent reflections on identity and on the sociability of adolescents. The research involved nine upper secondary schools with different curricula in the Metropolitan City of Bologna (1657 students, age 14-19) in school year 2020/2021. The data collected through questionnaires and focus groups highlight how technologies and social media play a role of fundamental importance not only as daily mediators in the relationships of young adolescents but also as a space for negotiation of their identity. And this role was crucial for their well-being during periods of lockdown due to COVID-19.

This paper discusses a model of a mathematics teacher professional development implemented in Italy and Hungary with in-service and pre-service mathematics teachers. The model focuses on comparative geometry, and it develops with the use of an artifact: the Lénárt spheres. The teacher training model is the result of several years of experience of the two authors both as regards the activities in the classroom with the Lénárt spheres and as regards the training of teachers in this field. The proposed teachers' professional development, in addition to providing ideas for activities to be implemented in the classroom, has the objective of proposing reflective activities from a community of inquiry perspective; during the activities, mediated by the artifact, both the Pedagogical Content Knowledge and the Mathematical Content Knowledge are taken into consideration (Ball et al., 2008). The model has been implemented in Italy in more than 15 training courses taught in the last 5 years, both with primary school teachers and with secondary school teachers. In Hungary, the model is at the basis of elective courses under the title 'Ball Geometry' at ELTE University, Budapest, for decades. These courses have been aimed at prospective preschool and elementary school teachers at the Faculty of Primary and Preschool Education, as well as future secondary teachers at the Faculty of Natural Sciences. The subject of the teachers' professional development paths corresponds to the comparative geometry between the plane and the sphere. After the presentation of the model, some examples of activities implemented in Hungary during the pandemic period will be illustrated and commented from a didactic point of view, which will serve to exemplify the path described. The described path was carried out remotely in online mode through synchronous and asynchronous activities. The distance obviously changed the way we interacted with the artifact, but it did not prevent the achievement of the courses' objectives.

We present the result of an eight-year didactic experiment in two primary school classes involving comparative geometry activities: a comparison between Euclidean plane geometry and spherical geometry that took place over five years. Following the didactic experiment, three years on from the end of the experiment, final questionnaires were administered and codified in order to evaluate the project's effect on the pupils' school performance and attitude, especially with regard to mathematics.

The present study was aimed at contributing to the understanding of the role of pre-service special education teachers' attachment styles and empathy dimensions in sentiments, attitudes, and concerns towards disability. Participants were 536 pre-service special education teachers (78.4% females and 21.6% males), Results of the path analysis showed that some empathy dimensions (fantasy and personal distress) played a mediating role in the association between preoccupied and fearful attachment styles and teachers' sentiments and concerns towards disability. Moreover, a direct positive association was reported from preoccupied attachment style to sentiments and concerns towards disability, from fantasy and personal distress (both dimensions of empathy) to sentiments towards disability, from personal distress to concerns towards disability, and from empathic concerns to attitudes towards disability, whereas negative relationships were found from perspective-taking to concerns and sentiments towards disability, as well as from empathic concern to sentiments towards disability.

This article focuses on the relation between new public management (NPM) reforms and changing patterns of industrial relations (IRs) and social dialogue in the Italian education system. Drawing on data from the research project 'Social dialogue and industrial relations in education: The challenges of multi-level governance and privatisation in Europe' (IR-EDUREFORM), it uses cultural political economy to explore the effects of autonomy, evaluation, and management as policy technologies on teacher unions' collective bargaining, workplace representation and industrial action. Through the Italian case, the study analyses how NPM reforms operated three distinctive transformations: decentralisation of bargaining to school level, juridification and individualisation of industrial action and a shift from collective to professional unions. Beyond critically exploring the implications of NPM reforms and the processes of decollectivation and individualisation of IRs and social dialogue in education, the study also highlights some potential for the emergence of novel sites for collective representation.

A crucial component of mathematics curriculum in primary education is represented by the ability to solve arithmetic word problems. Previous studies investigated predominantly the cognitive factors underlying this skill, neglecting the role of emotional (e.g. math anxiety -- MA) and metacognitive aspects (e.g. perceived difficulty). Some findings suggested that emotional factors could influence perceived task difficulty which would, in turn, impair students' performance. However, the relation between MA, perceived difficulty, and math problem-solving has not been explored yet. Moreover, although many studies reported gender differences in MA levels, findings involving primary school children are contrasting. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the role of MA and perceived task difficulty on arithmetic word problem-solving proficiency in a sample of Italian primary school students, and to investigate gender differences in those variables. Results showed that MA had a direct and indirect effect through perceived difficulty on problem-solving performance. Furthermore, findings confirmed that girls exhibited higher MA levels, however no gender difference was observed in problem-solving accuracy nor in perceived difficulty. The study underlines the need to consider emotional factors when investigating children's difficulties in math problem-solving and highlight the importance of MA interventions, especially for girls, already in primary education.

We introduce "Ricerca Operativa Applicazioni Reali" (ROAR; in English, "Real Applications of Operations Research"), a three-year project for higher secondary schools. Its main aim is to improve students' interest, motivation, and skills related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics disciplines by integrating mathematics and computer science through operations research. ROAR offers examples and problems closely connected with students' everyday life or with the industrial reality, balancing mathematical modeling and algorithmics. The project is composed of three teaching units, addressed to grades 10, 11, and 12. The implementation of the first teaching unit took place in Spring 2021 at the scientific high school IIS Antonietti in Iseo (Brescia, Italy). In particular, in this paper, we provide a full description of this first teaching unit in terms of objectives, prerequisites, topics and methods, organization of the lectures, and digital technologies used. Moreover, we analyze the feedback received from students and teachers involved in the experimentation, and we discuss advantages and disadvantages related to distance learning that we had to adopt because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

How do teachers relate to the "conflicts" that exist between scientific research findings and school institutional demands? Starting with a "provocative" statement by a primary school teacher, we interviewed eleven teachers asking them to express their opinions on this statement. Based on Brown's rereading of the four discourses by Lacan, we used these constructs to analyze the interviews. We focused on the different types of hysterical discourses that emerged, to understand whether this interpretative perspective could be useful to open up reflections on how to investigate teachers' choice processes about the activities they should offer in the school.

This paper investigates employment outcomes for a large sample of Ph.D. students who were enrolled in a doctoral training program in Italy in the period 2008-14. The empirical analysis is based on survey data obtained from a questionnaire distributed to 23,500 individuals in 2016. In Italy, student enrolment in a Ph.D. involves a university-based selection process; most students then receive either government or private sector financial support covering their study period. We are interested in the influence of privately funded scholarships on subsequent success in obtaining a job in academia or in the business sector or choosing self-employment. We hypothesize that receipt of private funding will increase the probability that the student will go on to pursue a career in the private sector. We find that private sector funding/scholarships have a tangible effect on steering the students toward employment in the private sector only if during their study period they have an opportunity to collaborate with a company. If the aim is to promote employment of graduates by private firms, then our results suggest that private companies should seek to be more closely involved in university Ph.D. programs.

This study adopts a resource perspective to investigate the development of graduates' resource-based employability across a 1-year internship. We examined factors referring to agency (job crafting in the form of crafting challenges and crafting resources) and context (organizational social socialization tactics) as mechanisms contributing to employability development during initial work experiences (internships). Data were collected in Italy from 316 master graduates in psychology at three time points. Longitudinal structural equation modeling results showed that baseline employability was positively associated with job crafting. However, job crafting was only significantly associated with employability at the end of the internship among those reporting high crafting resources and medium-to-high organizational social socialization tactics. Hence, beyond a focus on proactivity only, organizational support and opportunities to form social networks are essential to sustain interns' employability development.

Feeding/behavior problems are highly prevalent in autistic children. This study aimed to explore the interplay between autistic features, sensory processing patterns, emotional/behavioral difficulties, and feeding problems in children with a clinical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Ninety-nine children aged 1.5-5 years were assessed using the Children's Eating Behavior Inventory (CEBI), the Child Behavior Checklist, the Revised Sensory Profile--Second Edition (SP-2), and the Food Frequency Questionnaire. The sample was divided into two subgroups based on the presence of feeding behavior problems as rated by parents on the CEBI. Children with feeding problems showed more severe internalizing symptoms and were more reactive to sensory stimuli than children without feeding problems. We also found a significant relationship between higher levels of autistic features and greater feeding behavior problems. A mediation analysis model indicated that this relationship was mediated by sensory processing, as reflected by SP-2 quadrants scores. Although preliminary, these findings suggest that children with higher levels of autistic features could be at greater risk of developing feeding behavior problems only if they also have a higher sensory sensitivity to environmental stimuli.

In this study, we address the issue of mathematics teachers' personal and professional responsiveness to changing circumstances, such as the shift in external demands made on teacher practice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For investigating a such delicate issue, we take a theoretical approach, which is quite novel in the field of mathematics education: Lacan's psychoanalytical lens. Specifically, we will use this psychoanalytical lens to analyze a case study focusing on a primary school teacher during the first lockdown in Italy, during which school was organized exclusively in the form of distance education. The analysis of the teacher's crisis and the strategies she adopted to overcome this crisis give some suggestions about possible directions and issues to consider for future mathematics teacher training proposals.

This study aimed to examine the main predictors of employability, building on a recent conceptual model on employability developed by Lo Presti and Pluviano (Organ Psychol Rev 6(2): 192-211, 2016). Survey based data were collected from a sample of 263 Italian job-seekers through a longitudinal study. The results revealed that employability was more strongly determined by personal dispositions than by external factors, such as life circumstances and that the variables with the most impact were proactive personality, core self-evaluations, and educational level, rather than employability culture, family employability support, and previous work experience. The paper reveals an understanding of the relative importance of antecedents that determine employability.

To make their mandate more efficient, universities have to either offer services to students either produce innovation and scientific research. From this point of view it is difficult for universities to focus their attention on economic and financial performance. Instead, it is much more relevant for the university to find models of governance that are able to bring together profitability, financial sustainability, and social and communitarian commitment. Universities generate knowledge that can be used to improve the standard of economic and social life in the territorial environment. For these reasons it is important to analyze relations between university and community of reference. We found that Italian universities that perform better are associated with communities able to generate individual and social welfare. Better universities have also more active and skilled student populations. Monthly data are considered for the period 2012 and 2017 for 58 Italian universities. Data are collected from BESISTAT, Almalaurea and Center for World University Rankings-CWUR. The complex database has been realized by using KNIME mixing different sources in an original metric environment. We use panel data approach to estimate the level of Italian ranking in CWUR statistics by the usage two different sets of variables: BES-ISTAT and SIOPE. The increasing in the Global International Ranking can be realized either directly by increasing the level of services and products generates, either indirectly improving the spillovers effect of universities in respect to a certain community of reference.

Building on the integrative career competencies framework, we examined the indirect association between career competencies, assessed at graduation, and subjective career success (SCS) via employability activities, both assessed six months after graduation, among a sample of 613 Italian graduates. We also examined the moderating role of three facets of academic satisfaction (i.e., vocational choice, educational goals, and occupational prospects). Our findings showed an indirect relation between career competencies and SCS through employability activities. Furthermore, academic satisfaction acted as a moderator. The results of this time-lagged study, that tapped into the actual transition into work process, have implications for (1) school-to-work transitions, providing insights into graduates' transition into the labor market, (2) employability, focusing on employability activities and providing additional knowledge on their antecedents and outcomes, and (3) career competencies, providing further empirical evidence that career competencies are an important resource that graduates can mobilize to during and after their school-to-work transition.

Eighty-one adolescent and young mother-infant dyads have been divided into two groups with/without traumatic experiences in maternal history to examine the effect of maternal traumatic experiences on the quality of mother-infant relationship. At infant 3 months, mother-infant interaction was video-recorded. Results showed that adolescent and young mothers with traumatic experiences (vs. adolescent and young mothers without traumatic experiences) had less sensitive and more violent and intrusive behaviours. Infants with mothers with traumatic experiences (vs. infants with mothers without traumatic experiences) had more aggressive and reactive behaviours. Furthermore, maternal cumulative traumatic experiences predicted more negative behaviours. Findings indicated that maternal childhood traumatic experiences increased an adolescent mother's risk for maternal-child interaction problems, worsened the high-risk condition inherent in motherhood in adolescence. Understanding the effect of adolescent mother's traumatic experiences has important implications for promoting early intervention in the treatment of trauma and supporting the mother-child relationship.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to describe teachers' professional development in Lesson Study (LS) as processes situated in Semiosphere and generated by the unevenness due to different cultural traditions. The authors characterise teachers' professional development in two LS experiments as processes generating new knowledge to point out their products, i.e. new professional frame teachers produce after these experiments. The authors use Hybridization, a particular form of Networking of Theories (NWT). Design/methodology/approach: The authors collected video-registration of several Italian LS meetings. The authors analyse two LSs, where time emerged as a conflictual aspect. Through Hybridization components, the authors show how teachers make sense of LS and how teachers revise their professional frame. Theoretical framework: In NWT different theories are deployed to study the same problem. To grasp the issue of unevenness in our LS, we use "Hybridization of a Theory," a form of NWT characterised by a structural asymmetry. It is given when a construct "c" is introduced "coherently, operatively and productively" into a theory T, obtaining a hybridized "theory" T'. Findings: Hybridization lens allows to describe potentialities and limits of LS as a tool for teachers' development. The two analysed LS are different: in one of them Hybridization process produced a new theory T', whilst in the second one it was limited to the awareness of a gap between LS and initial teachers' professional frame. Practical implications: Identifying links between different Hybridization components is a helpful tool for teacher educators/researchers to foster the shift from one another. For instance, through this tool, teacher educators could keep track of what happens in successive LS and mirror the dialogue between teachers, moving towards group-shared metareflections. This initiates the advancement of a new theory T', where asymmetries are interpreted. Originality/value: In this approach teachers are protagonists of the construction of a new professional frame. LS is a tool for teachers' professional development, allowing teachers to question their own educational intentionalities. Hybridization components provide a tool to analyse such a process.

Understanding predictors of parents' willingness to vaccinate their children appears fundamental to promote vaccine acceptability, especially in a pandemic scenario. The present study aimed to investigate the role of conspiracy beliefs and absolutist thinking in parental attitude toward COVID-19 vaccine, and the predictive role of parents' individual differences on decisions against children's vaccination. An online survey was administered to 415 parents of children aged 5-11, at the very beginning of the vaccination targeting this population in Italy. Results showed that absolutism predicted the tendency to believe in conspiracies, associated with a negative attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccine administration to children. Moreover, mothers were less willing to vaccinate children and parents of children aged 5-7 were more hesitant, or even against vaccination, than parents of older children. Finally, the worry about consequences of COVID-19 infection on children's health facilitated vaccine adherence. These findings contribute to deepening mechanisms regarding the vaccine acceptability.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating role of problem-solving coping strategies in the relationship between thinking styles (legislative, executive, and judicial) and teachers' attitudes towards distance education (difficulties related to distance education and efficacy in distance education). The study sample consisted of 556 special education teachers, 122 males (21.9%) and 434 females (78.1%), with an average age of 37.90 years (SD = 7.12). The results confirmed the role of problem-solving coping as a mediator for legislative thinking style on difficulties related to distance education. Furthermore, the findings indicated a positive relationship between judicial style and efficacy in distance education. The results of this study highlight the importance of developing specific special education teacher trainings to promote positive attitudes towards distance education.

The present research identifies the drivers of the growth of academic spin-offs (ASOs). Empirical studies have found few successful cases of ASOs from a firm-level perspective; many companies fail, and others tend to remain small without making a meaningful contribution to local economic development. Consequently, analysing the factors affecting spin-off growth is important to understand their potential benefits for society. A large portion of studies focus on external drivers of ASO growth, while we concentrate on the internal dimension, analysing the effect of the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial teams on the performance of ASOs from a longitudinal perspective. Our paper investigates how ASO entrepreneurial team heterogeneity, both horizontal (cognitive) and vertical (status), and changes in entrepreneurial team heterogeneity between the prefoundation and postfoundation stages affect ASO performance. The results show that vertical heterogeneity in the composition of the prefoundation team is a driver of ASO performance over a shorter time horizon (one year) and more so if the average seniority of academics is low. Horizontal heterogeneity plays a negative moderating role. However, longer-term performance is more influenced by horizontal heterogeneity, implying slower growth after the spin-off foundation. These findings should provide important insights for both managers and Italian policy-makers.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the rationale and findings of the implementation of a Chinese lesson study (CLS)-informed model of mathematics teacher education in Italian schools. The study focuses on the modifications and invariance when introducing CLS in a different culture. Design/methodology/approach: In a previous work (Bartolini Bussi "et al.," 2017), the authors focused on a single case of activity inspired by the CLS in Italy, and identified some conflicts emerging between the cultures of teaching in China and Italy and explored the way to overcome the conflicts. In the following years, the authors implemented lesson study (LS) experimentations with dozens of in-service primary school teachers and pre-service teachers who were gradually introduced to the model of CLS. The tensions/constraints occurred prominently when extending the experiments with many dozens of other in-service teachers and pre-service teachers. Findings: The authors highlighted how the process of deconstruction allowed the participants in the study to either appropriate or reject some features of the CLS, linking this process to the cultural differences. Practical implications: The authors believe and argue that LS, and CLS in particular, must be modified in the transfer from one culture to another, considering the cultural beliefs of the involved teachers. Originality/value: The authors claim that the features of CLS compels the Western researchers to adopt local and culturally determined choices and to be aware of the rationale of these choices.

Purpose: This study aims to test the role that organizational sociopsychological variables may play in influencing job stress and work engagement in an organizational identity change scenario. Design/methodology/approach: On a sample of 118 employees of an Italian company in the personnel training services sector, multivariate statistical analysis tests a pattern where organizational variables such as work support (by supervisors and coworkers, independent variables) -- moderated by corporate identification (moderating variable) -- and mediated by organizational trust (mediating variable) -- boosts employee work engagement and lowers psychosocial risks (dependent variables). Findings: The mediating effect of "organizational trust" is significant in the relationships of "supervisor social support" and "coworker social support" with the "absence of psychosocial risks." Moreover, an increase in supervisor social support can lead to a statistically significant increase in work engagement. This occurs only for employees with low or medium identification and not in highly identified individuals. Originality/value: The findings from the analysis on moderation are of primary importance because they show us a new perspective that can play the role of a guiding and practical principle on how to act on an organization's human resources, specifically targeting those with lower or medium corporate identification.

Motor abnormalities are highly prevalent in children with autism spectrum disorder and are strongly predictive of adaptive functioning. Despite the documented sex bias in the prevalence of the disorder, the impact of sex differences on motor abnormalities has been overlooked. The goal of this study was to investigate differences in the motor profile of boys and girls with autism spectrum disorder aged 3-11 years using a multimethod approach. Ninety-eight children with autism spectrum disorder and 98 typically developing children were assessed using the Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2, the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire, and the kinematic analysis of a reach-to-drop task. Results from principal components analysis on reach-to-drop-dependent measures indicated four components, accounting for kinematic parameters of the motor task. Irrespective of sex, children with autism spectrum disorder showed worse scores on Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2 and Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire subscales than typically developing children. Interestingly, a diagnosis-by-sex interaction was found on a kinematic feature measured in the last part of the movement, with girls with autism spectrum disorder presenting altered motor anticipation. Although preliminary, these findings suggested that sex-related nuances in motor functioning of children with autism spectrum disorder could be insufficiently captured by existing motor measures.

The present investigation focuses on first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers' sensitivity to lexical fixedness and compositionality of Italian word combinations. Two studies explored language users' intuitions about three types of word combinations: free combinations, collocations, and idioms. In Study 1, Italian Verb+Noun combinations were embedded in sentential contexts, with control conditions created by substituting the verb with a synonym. L1 and L2 speakers rated sentence acceptability. In Study 2, the original verb was removed from sentences. Participants chose the verb from the list provided they felt was most acceptable. Computational measures were used to measure compositionality of word combinations. Mixed-effects modelling revealed that L1 and L2 speakers judged target word combinations differently in terms of lexical fixedness. In line with phraseological models, L1 speakers judged the use of a synonym as less acceptable in collocations than free combinations. On the contrary, L2 learners judged the use of a synonym as more acceptable in collocations than free combinations. However, all participants perceived idioms as least flexible of the three combination types. Results further showed an interesting effect of compositionality on the speakers' intuitions about the use of word combinations. Taken together, the findings provide new insights into how L1 and L2 speakers perceive word combinations that vary along the continua of lexical fixedness and compositionality.

We will present cultural transposition as a particular perspective to frame the use of foreign mathematics education practices as an opportunity for questioning the didactic practices of one's own cultural context. This requires a process activated by researchers, who deconstruct the cultural layers underpinning the foreign education practice before proposing it to teachers. We discuss the theoretical premises of this approach and, in accordance with them, we propose a transposition process of the El'konin-Davydov curriculum. In particular, we will show how our deconstruction process has affected the design and implementations of particular Professional Development courses (PDs) in Italy. Finally, we will present a case study of a teacher involved in one of these PDs to observe her new educational awareness.

Establishing a coherent meaning in life has long been considered to be a protective factor of well-being, but this construct has been understudied in early adolescent development. The current study investigated the relationships between family allocentrism and depressive symptoms as well as the mediation effect of meaning in life in 214 Chinese and 201 Italian early adolescents. Although family allocentrism was higher in Chinese than Italian participants, it was significantly associated to lower depressive symptoms in both countries. Moderated mediational analyses showed that in both countries: (a) family allocentrism was positively related with presence of meaning; (b) family allocentrism and presence of meaning were negatively related to depressive symptoms; and (c) presence of meaning mediated the relationship between family allocentrism and depressive symptoms. In conclusion, family allocentrism and presence of meaning in life are important preventive factors of early adolescents' depressive symptoms in both collectivistic and in individualistic countries.

This study investigated developmental differences in metacognitive monitoring and control in younger (5- to 6-year-old) and older (8- to 10-year-old) children's prospective memory (PM). Metacognitive monitoring was assessed by asking the children to judge their performance before (prediction) and after (postdiction) performing a resource-demanding event-based PM task. Metacognitive control was evaluated by comparison of ongoing task (OT) performance without and with the embedded PM task (i.e., attentional monitoring costs). Older children outperformed younger children in the PM task and were also more accurate in judging their PM performance than younger children, who greatly overestimated their PM performance. Attentional monitoring costs were found only in older children and were associated with both PM performance and performance predictions, thus suggesting that only older children were able to translate metacognitive monitoring into effective control. This study reports new findings on the relation between metacognition and PM during childhood.

The pandemic triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has produced worldwide interruptions of face-to-face teaching activity in both schools and universities. In Italy, the quarantine began in the second half of February 2020 and lasted for all the second semester of lectures. The University of Bologna, where all the authors of the present article are based, developed and activated several interfaces necessary to efficiently deliver online teaching courses with the utmost speed. The framework used by the authors is based on a common platform, Microsoft TEAMS, available to all teachers at Bologna University.

Purpose: Constant and frequent technological changes within organizations call for further scholarly attention, as behavioural intentions need to be coupled also with future learning intentions to predict the present and prospective individual adaptations and performance. This study, grounded on the technology acceptance model, aims to examine the association between training opportunities and behavioural and future learning intentions also taking into account the role of task-technology fit as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was carried out within a single organization in the water processing sector on a sample of 200 workers who recently experienced a technological change through the adoption of System Application and Product in data processing. A moderated-mediation model was estimated through regression analyses with bootstrapping. Findings: The results were consistent with study hypotheses. In particular, task-technology fit amplified the positive association between perceived ease of use and training opportunities as well as the indirect effect of this latter on both behavioural and future learning intentions through perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. In sum, the hypothesized moderated-mediation model was confirmed. Originality/value: Three novelty factors of this study can be stressed: it is among the few studies carried out on Italian workers in the realm of technology adoption, it expanded the technology acceptance model by including traditional behavioural intentions and future learning intentions as outcome variables and it integrated the task-technology fit perspective within the technology acceptance model.

This study focuses on a course belonging to the University of Bologna's bachelor's degrees 'Expert in Social and Cultural Education' and 'Educator in Childhood Social Services' called 'Computer Science Lab-based course', which aims to develop digital competences necessary for the educational profession. Before COVID-19, this face-to-face compulsory workshop-based course consisted of nine parallel teachings with different programmes and teachers. Due to the impossibility of providing regular lessons, teachers have been forced to revise their working methods by using different distance learning strategies. This paper aims to offer an understanding of the situation by analysing teachers' and students' perceptions collected through questionnaires in relation to the following aspects: most used and effective teaching strategies; technical, communicative and relational difficulties encountered by teachers and students; aspects related to distance learning methods and perception of the usefulness of the course for the educational profession.

Research findings: This study advances our understanding of early childhood teachers' emotion socialization styles by innovatively exploring how these relate to teachers' beliefs about emotions and levels of mind-mindedness, while controlling for age, level of education, teaching experience, and training in emotion education. Sixty female teachers (Mean age = 40.24 years; SD = 11.65 years) took part in the study. They completed two self-report questionnaires assessing their beliefs about emotion and their use of emotion-coaching versus emotion-dismissing socialization styles, respectively. We evaluated their mind-mindedness via a mind-minded description task. There were significant associations among the investigated variables. We also tested the hypothesis that a linear discriminant function including lower beliefs in instructing and modeling emotions, higher beliefs in protecting children from negative emotions, and lower level of MM predicted teachers' membership in the high emotion-dismissing group. Practice or policy: Our findings suggest the need for including in teachers' preservice education and continuing professional development more attention to teachers' awareness of their ideas about and representation of children's inner world, with a view to fostering an educational approach to emotion that relies more on an emotion-coaching style and less on an emotion-dismissing one.

The Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) has been used extensively to investigate children's understanding of emotion. The present study aimed at investigating the TEC's factorial structure, its measurement invariance across age and gender, and defining age-referred TEC scores, in a large sample of 1,478 children (755 males, 723 females) aged between 3 and 10 years. Confirmatory factor analysis of the data yielded support for the original psychometric structure of the TEC, which is based on three developmental domains of emotion understanding: external, mental, and reflective. Measurement equivalence was supported across age and gender groups. We also obtained normative data for interpreting TEC outcomes and defined the corresponding normative pattern of development across six-month age intervals. Overall, our findings suggest that the TEC is a robust instrument for investigating emotion understanding in children aged 3 to 10 years. The limitations of the study and the potential use of the TEC are discussed.

The introduction of ICTs in the school system has been a powerful catalyst for educational and pedagogical practices. But there is more than meets the eyes: in fact, an increasing influence of technologies in the school is evident especially if one considers the social-relational side. This is mostly due to the pervasiveness of mobile devices and the proliferation -- in terms of time and space -- of communication channels that mediate the exchanges between the school's actors -- via email, through classroom information management systems, through chat or IM exchanges. By describing a research run in four secondary schools aimed to understand the ICTs' influences on classroom climate, the purpose of this paper is to shed light on how teachers perceive the new aspects of technologies and their use in their daily work, highlighting how these technologies influence the way in which they build relationships with students, parents and colleagues.

The paper presents some reflections and activities developed by researchers and teachers involved in teacher education programs on cultural transposition. The construct of cultural transposition is presented as a condition for decentralizing the didactic practice of a specific cultural context through contact with other didactic practices of different cultural contexts. We discuss the background theoretical issues of this approach and also give an analysis of two examples of cultural transposition experiences carried out in Italy. In particular, by means of qualitative analysis of some excerpts, discussions, and interviews, we show that the contact with different perspectives coming from China and Russia fostered educational practices and reflections on whole number arithmetic education.

Teacher burnout is a growing phenomenon that may dramatically reduce the quality of life of both teachers and students. Many studies have conceptualized teaching as a high-contact profession and, focusing on the emotional exhaustion dimension of burnout, they have highlighted the relation with students as a key dimension of teachers' stress. This paper presents an original instrument (TSS-Sr) to measure teachers' stress related to the interaction with their pupils. It provides the psychometric characteristic of this scale. Results support a model of measurement of teacher social stress based on four dimensions: verbal aggression, dislike students, awkward reactions, demanding requests. Implications about the use and the applications of this instrument are discussed.

Adaptive learning environments design has been originally influenced by the adaptive learning environments model, which has been recently re-shaped by the bio-educational adaptive approach. Adaptive and bio-educational models share the common main idea that education should be adaptive. Since the 90's the adoption of an adaptive educational point of view have been at the base of adaptive educational hypermedia systems, which design joins interest towards learners' individual differences with adaptive learning environments research. Educational hypermedia systems have been overcome by the technology of 3D Virtual Learning Environments. Some emerging questions are related to the design criteria of adaptive learning environments. Which lessons learned from adaptive hypermedia systems design could be now applied to VLEs' design? How a virtual learning environment should be designed to be adaptive? This research tries to answer to these questions by describing Federico 3DSU, an educational University 3D Virtual Learning Environment which has been designed with adaptive criteria, according to bio-educational model

Research Findings: In this study, we investigated associations among social cognition skills (specifically, emotion knowledge and theory of mind), language abilities, and 3 varieties of prosocial behavior (helping, sharing, and comforting) in early childhood. The effects of age and gender were also taken into account. Participants were 149 Italian children between 24 and 47 months of age (M = 35.6 months, SD = 6.77 months). We adopted a multitrait mixed-methods research design, using direct measures of emotion knowledge, theory of mind, and language as well as naturalistic observations of children's free play with peers to detect the frequency with which they engaged in prosocial behaviors. Ordinal logistic regression analyses showed that helping behaviors were especially accounted for by emotion knowledge and gender, whereas variance in sharing behaviors was mostly explained by theory-of-mind ability and language. Practice or Policy: The findings encourage those involved in early childhood education to develop training and intervention programs to enhance children's emotional, linguistic, and cognitive skills. Given that these results were obtained with children as young as 2 and 3 years, preventive intervention should be implemented during the earliest years of life.

One of the most striking pieces of evidence in attachment research is that attachment security is transmitted from 1 generation to the next. Although there has been an enormous advance in the understanding of this process, this area of research suffers from some significant gaps, as for example the transmission across 3 generations when considering the 2 parents as well as the 2 couples of grandparents. The current study was designed to fill this gap in existing literature by investigating AAI attachment representations in the members of 3 generations, belonging to a total of 32 families, each including an adult offspring, both parents and the 4 grandparents (N = 224). Main findings show that the transmission across 2 generations was stronger in the presence of a female caregiver (either mother or maternal/paternal grandmother), and that across 3 generations was confirmed only in the presence of 2 female caregivers (grandmother to mother to offspring). Conversely, the transmissions across 3 generations with only 1 or no female caregiver were not confirmed. Last, experiencing 2 secure parents increased the likelihood of developing a secure state of mind with respect to attachment among offspring, mothers and fathers, 95% confidence intervals [3.52, 1,238.72], [1.67, 31.17], and [1.67, 19.98], respectively. These findings may have important theoretical implications related to the understanding of the factors involved in the continuity and discontinuity of attachment patterns across generations.

Background: Researchers studying siblings of people with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suggest that growing up with an individual with disability has positive and negative effects. Method: Qualitative content analysis of semistructured interviews with 14 typically developing (TD) adolescents with a brother with an ASD and their mothers was used to explore the experience of growing up with a sibling with an ASD and identify differences in the relationship with, and attitude toward, the brother. Results: TD siblings expressed mixed feelings about their brother, a precocious sense of responsibility, concern about the future, friendship difficulties, and troubles and the desire to talk about their experience. Most adolescents integrated their positive and negative feelings; however, 3 adolescents displayed rejection, denial, or a sense of persecution. Conclusions: Qualitative research into the experiences of adolescent siblings of people with an ASD should be used to develop support programs to help adolescents manage their relationship with a sibling with a disability.

Ultrasound imaging is a widely used diagnostic technique, whose integration in medical education is constantly growing. The aim of this study was to evaluate chest ultrasound usefulness in teaching respiratory system physiology, students' perception of chest ultrasound integration into a traditional lecture in human physiology, and short-term concept retention. A lecture about respiratory physiology was integrated with ultrasound and delivered to third-year medical students. It included basic concepts of ultrasound imaging and the physiology of four anatomic sectors of the body of a male volunteer, shown with a portable ultrasound device (pleural sliding, diaphragmatic movement, inferior vena cava diameter variations, cardiac movements). Students' perceptions of the integrated lecture were assessed, and attendance recorded. After 4 mo, four multiple-choice questions about respiratory physiology were administered during the normal human physiology examinations, and the results of students who attended the lesson and those of who did not were compared. One hundred thirty-four students attended the lecture. Most of them showed encouragement for the study of the subject and considered the ultrasound integrated lecture more interesting than a traditional one and pertinent to the syllabus. Exposed students achieved a better score at the examination and committed less errors than did nonexposed students. The chest ultrasound integrated lecture was appreciated by students. A possible association between the exposure to the lecture and short-term concept retention is shown by better performances of the exposed cohort at the examination. A systematic introduction of ultrasound into physiology traditional teaching will be promoted by the Ultrasound-Based Medical Education movement.

This study explored the relationships among teachers' emotional competence, burnout as a mediator, and social support. Teachers' emotional competence was assessed via measures of emotional intensity and emotional regulation. Social support was evaluated in terms of external versus internal support, and teacher dissatisfaction with support received. Participants were 149 Italian primary school teachers. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The findings suggested that teacher burnout partially mediated the relationship between emotional intensity and satisfaction with social support received. Overall, the results showed that teachers were at risk of highly intense unpleasant emotions in relation to their burnout syndrome. Moreover, teachers' satisfaction/dissatisfaction with social support received was predicted by burnout symptoms. These results extend the findings of earlier studies, and provide indications as to how to help teachers experiencing burnout.