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Students' identification with schools or universities is associated with many positive outcomes, such as increased cooperation and completion of studies. This study is a qualitative investigation of university students' experiences concerning identification. Two hundred and eleven Italian students and 226 U.S. students wrote responses to open-ended questions about a time that they either felt connected (identified) or disconnected to (not identified) with their university. In Italy, students prompted to identify with the university focused their descriptions on didactical aspects such as academic training experiences. Italian students prompted not to identify with the university often described their experiences with the university's organizational and administrative aspects. U.S. students prompted to identify or not with the university focused on the social aspects of their university experience such as their involvement with fraternities and sororities. Italian and U.S. students rarely mentioned instrumental aspects of their university experience such as how much the university matters for professional training. This close analysis of students' experiences illustrates how diverse the sources of university identification can be across different countries. These qualitative results help to fully understand the contents of the experience of university students. Policies for enhancing students' motivation and engagement in higher education should reflect all the different domains of identification, to support the full range of students' experiences.

Understanding what students mean by lecturer competence can be crucial in order to recognise indicators with which to assess these competences, improve the quality of university teaching and support lecturers in undertaking their role appropriately. This qualitative pilot study aimed to explore the meaning of competence in a convenience sample of Italian undergraduate psychology students (N = 122). We collected free-associations about what "lecturer competence" actually means for the students. The data corpus underwent a lexical Correspondence Analysis (CA) using the ASPAR procedure of SPAD-T. Two factors were extracted: "socio-emotional dimension" and "task specialist." Students associated the competent lecturer with those who was involved with the achievement of the task goals, on the one hand or those who was engaged in the group's maintenance, on the other. Furthermore, Cluster Analysis identified four clusters: (1) the captivating lecturer; (2) the lecturer oriented to both task and socio-emotional aspects; (3) the rigorous lecturer; and (4) the benevolent lecturer. The preliminary results of this pilot study showed an articulated and multi-dimensional representation of the meanings of lecturer competence from the students' point of view and lay the foundations for a broader quantitative study on the conceptions concerning lecturer competence.

Research Findings: In order to investigate the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention on preschooler's social-emotional learning skills, the present pre-post test pilot study assessed prosocial behavior, self-regulation and perspective taking in 21 preschool children, randomly assigned either to the experimental or the control group. Children who received the intervention showed significant improvements in prosocial behavior, in the inhibitory processes of self-regulation and in the ability of perspective taking, particularly in its emotional and cognitive components. Practice or Policy: These preliminary findings, which should be supported by further empirical investigation in larger samples, encourage the use of mindfulness-practices in preschool-age children in order to enhance social-emotional competence.

In this study we explore teacher justice and parent support in learning motivation and visions of a just world. The study sample was 509 Italian secondary school students, 163 males and 346 females. Regression analyses investigated the impact of teacher justice, parental involvement and factors of school choice (one's interests and parental influence) on learning motivation, personal beliefs in a just world, civic engagement and a positive future orientation. Findings confirm that the feeling of being treated fairly in the classroom is an important factor for adolescent adjustment since it relates to the development of learning motivation, personal beliefs in a just world, and civic engagement. Parental academic involvement also emerges as a significant resource for adolescents, and the most important in having an effect on the development of a positive future orientation.

Movements with both hands are essential to our everyday life, and it has been shown that performing asymmetric bimanual movements produces an interference effect between hands. There have been many studies--using varying methods--investigating the development of bimanual movements that show that this skill continues to evolve during childhood and adolescence. In the current study we used a spatial bimanual task to delineate the development of bimanual movements not only during different stages of childhood but also during late stages of adulthood. Furthermore, we used the same task as a window to observe the involvement of motor imagery through the same age groups. For this study we recruited participants from 4 different age groups and asked them to perform congruent and noncongruent bimanual movements in a Real condition, where participants moved both hands, and in an Imagery condition, where they had to imagine 1 hand's movements while actually using the other hand. Our results showed that, with actual movement execution, the interference between motor programs of the 2 hands is higher in children (6-10 years old) than in younger adults (20-30 years old), while it tends to increase again in the elderly adults (60-80 years old). Interestingly, in the Imagery condition, the interference was present only among 10-year-old and 20- to 30-year-old participants, suggesting that motor imagery, not yet developed in young children and compromised by age in the elderly subjects, did not modulate motor performance in these last 2 groups.

This article presents the results of a study carried out with the aim to: (1) analyze secondary school students' and their teachers' ideal representations of classroom justice, (2) deepen the topic of students' sense of injustice, and (3) explore the links between students' perceived injustice and their psychological engagement in school, measured on different aspects (identification with one's own class, learning motivation, dialogue with teachers). A questionnaire was distributed to 400 Italian secondary school students and their 79 teachers. Results show that the representations of ideal classroom justice refer to communication, principle of equality and principles of effort/need, and that the positions of teachers and students on these representations differ. Moreover, students report a rather diffuse and shared feeling of being treated in an unjust manner by their teachers, and this affects their psychological engagement in school. Results are commented on their theoretical, methodological and applicative implications.

Investigations of people's understanding of the evolution of species have focused mainly on secondary school and university students. Very few investigations have taken into consideration younger students, and none have related children's ideas about the origin of species to formal instruction on this topic. To help fill this gap, the present study examines the effect of this instruction in elementary school children by comparing Italian second graders (n = 21; age = 7 years, 1 month, to 8 years, 7 months) with third graders (n = 18; age = 8 years, 1 month, to 9 years, 4 months) who had been taught about "the earth before humans" for several months in keeping with the Italian National Syllabus for this grade level. Semistructured interviews were used to examine children's thoughts about speciation. The majority of second graders used a creationist framework, whereas most third graders used a mixed framework (referring to both creation and evolution) or an evolutionary framework. However, children did not know about the mechanism of evolution and considered it to be the result of the passage of time, the use and disuse of body parts, or the need to adapt to a changing environment, as suggested by their teacher and textbooks. (Contains 6 tables and 2 footnotes.)

Conceptions of 50 third graders (aged 8-9 years) in Italy about shopkeepers' profit were examined using the Piagetian clinical procedure, with an interview followed by a comparison task that checked comprehension. Teaching children about profit had a higher impact at posttest on children who could compare correctly. (SLD)

Presents findings of an analysis of Italian seventh grade students' understanding of capitalism and socialism. Reports that knowledge of the topics was rather poor. Concludes that students who had studied the topics more thoroughly had somewhat, but not substantially, greater understanding of capitalism and socialism. Calls for more research. (SG)

Examines how an economic concept changed when 68 third-grade Italian children underwent different kinds of experiences simulated by means of tutorial and critical training. (HOD)

A longitudinal study of young children's conceptions of money and its value was conducted among 80 subjects between the ages of 3 and 8 years. The research was conducted within the framework of Piagetian theory using the "critical method." Results demonstrate that the development of the notions under investigation proceeds in six definable stages. (Author/RH)

Purpose: To examine the overall impact of alcohol and drug problems on a sample of Italian family members. Sample: 113 family members affected by and concerned about the problem drinking or drug-taking of close relatives recruited from the North ( N = 37), the Centre ( N = 26) and the South ( N = 50) of Italy. Measurements: Family Member Impact scale (FMI), Symptom Rating Test (SRT), Coping Questionnaire (CQ) and Hopefulness-Hopelessness scale (HOPE). Findings: There is a high level of impact on family members; the greater the impact, the higher the symptom levels; and the greater both the impact and symptoms are, the more types of coping behaviour are used. Multiple regression showed that the most important variables relating to overall symptom levels reported by family members were total coping, gender and impact. These data lend further support to the Stress-Strain-Coping-Support model (Orford et al., 2005a, b). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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An abstract of the article "Project of the Local Health Unit-ASL9 of Grosseto: Educating Caregivers in Tracheotomy Management," by Lorenza Bennati et al is presented.

An abstract of the study "Friendly Hospitals: Open Visits to the ICU. The Experience of the Perugia General Hospital," by Rosita Morcellini et al is presented.

An abstract of the study "Early Treatment of Acute Pain in the ER," by Sofia Soccorsa et al is presented.

Passive immunotherapy with plasma derived from convalescent patients recovering from SARS-CoV-2 infection can be a promising approach in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. It is important that blood establishments are ready to satisfy requests for immune plasma by defining the requirements applicable to plasma donors and the standards for preparation, qualification, storage, distribution, and control of product use. This Position paper aims to give recommendations on the biological characteristics of a plasma preparation from convalescent donors and to support the evaluation of this therapeutic approach in more rigorous investigations.

Hemorrhage is a complication of thyroid surgery less important than recurrent laryngeal nerve injury or hypoparathyroidism, but extremely dangerous. Hemorrhage may be early or delayed. Early hemorrhage occurs generally in the operating theatre and is made easier by vomiting and coughing after removal of the tracheal tube. For this reason it is indispensable for the surgeon to remain until the patient is awake and carefully control the drainages. Delayed hemorrhage generally occurs some hours after the surgical operation with a swelling of the neck associated with difficulties in the breathing, due to tracheal compression. In our institution, from 1988 to 1992, we performed 1800 surgical operations for thyroid diseases and we observed 9 early hemorrhages and 10 delayed hemorrhages. In all cases we performed reoperation in general anaesthesia. In our series the hemorrhage was due to the vessels of the pre-thyroidal muscles and of the inferior pole, rarely of the superior pole. We had no complications after the reoperation. To prevent this complication, we have to respect some technical aspects: accuracy in the ligature of the blood vessels of the superior and inferior pole; partial section of the pre-thyroidal muscles; to bring the remaining thyroid (in case of subtotal thyroidectomy) near to the trachea with some stitches.