This study aimed to identify rational and irrational beliefs and coping mechanisms that were expressed spontaneously by a sample of Palestinian refugees (n = 35) during conditions of asylum and displacement after the wars of 1948 and 1967. The participants ranged in age from 17 to 33 years when they sought refuge in Jordan and lived in camps. The coding of the interviews into separate sentences and paragraphs showed that 93.8% of the participants expressed irrational beliefs while 51.3% expressed rational beliefs. In addition, 78.2% of the participants used and employed coping skills focused on emotions, while 49.8% used coping skills focused on solutions. The most common irrational beliefs were generalizations about others (85.5%) and exaggeration (63.7%). This study provides the first information about the rational and irrational beliefs of a sample of Palestinian refugees in Jordan in addition to the coping strategies they employed to overcome the conditions of asylum, which can be used in treating similar cases. This study is one of the first studies worldwide to explore the extent of rational and irrational beliefs among a sample of Palestinian refugees in Jordanian camps. Keywords: rational, irrational, beliefs, coping strategies, refugees

With the current shortage of school bus drivers in many states, access to education is at risk for the many students who get to and from school by bus. Despite the critical role drivers play, little is known about why they stay in their jobs, and what can be done to keep them. To learn more about school bus driver retention, 301 drivers in 32 districts in New York were surveyed. Drawing on an overarching model of person-environment fit, perspectives of job satisfaction, meaningful work and public service motivation were used to explore what aspects of the driver role relate to turnover intention. Findings indicated lower turnover intention when drivers reported higher extrinsic satisfaction, when they found their work to hold personal significance, and when they saw their work as a source of broader meaning for their lives. Drivers also viewed themselves as making a difference in the lives of students and considered themselves a significant part of their education. They also indicated that pay and benefits were important in their decision to stay or leave. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for school leadership practice and future research.

It has been well established that leadership is the key driver in success of organisations. Therefore, understanding leadership, and finding styles that deliver improvements in leadership enable leaders to enhance their skills, which will significantly contribute to having an improved performance of the organisation. There has been ample research on various theories of leadership. Leadership is meaningless unless it has people who are the followers. Furthermore, while people constitute many nations however, studies have demonstrated that the majority of the population of the world adhere to some type of religion. Therefore, the study of leadership of founders of religions is of interest. How did they lead? What was the source of inspiration on how to lead? What was the style of their leadership? Is it possible to develop a leadership based on their practices? Finally, could their leadership be applied to organisations? In this context, the term ‘Divine Leadership’ is created. Subsequently, historical texts and literature were reviewed to ascertain if this leadership could be defined in an academic context. Furthermore, evaluation of any leadership is essential process in assessing the value that it may bring to society or organisations. Therefore, it was necessary to define characteristics that could be assigned to such leadership. The research led to development of a novel leadership theory, where due to the scope only five dimensions were assigned. The study has continued in developing a theoretical model in line with quantitative research on the effectiveness of this leadership in enhancing performance of organisations.

Anti-religious propaganda in the former Soviet Union was efficient; with a majority of young people being nonbelievers. Atheism was easily accepted after the 1917 revolution because religiosity was not as deeply ingrained as it is sometimes supposed. A commentary on the politicization of religion in Russia in the context of the war in Ukraine is provided here. The hypothesis is proposed that a majority of today’s churchgoers, priests and church officials in Russia are atheists or agnostics, habitually following prescribed ideologies. Selected psychological and healthcare-related aspects are discussed. The Ukraine war, having thwarted the internationally agreed status quo, has triggered conflicts in different parts of the world. An optimal solution would be a global leadership, centered in most developed parts of the world, based on the principles of mercy and mutual help. This might be the last opportunity to avoid a major catastrophe.

Deception in research is contentious, as ethical codes stress informed consent, yet complete disclosure may jeopardise the validity of certain studies. Hence, this study explores the ethical justification for incomplete deception (partial disclosure) as categorised by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) guidelines, permissible instances, and the dilemma faced by ethics committees in balancing scientific rigour and participant protection. Qualitative, descriptive cross-sectional research using in-depth interviews was adopted, and themes were identified through thematic analysis. Findings reveal challenges for ethics committees as incomplete information hampers understanding, among others. Alternatively, partial disclosure could be justified by the 3Vs—value, validity, and veracity—to preserve research integrity. The paper proposes an ethics committee framework, urging researchers to minimise or avoid partial deception and recommending institutional awareness campaigns and Standard Operating Procedures for minimal-harm studies using partial disclosure.

This study aims to identify the values of patients to inform policies and infrastructure for biobanking and precision medicine in the face of trade-offs between values. We surveyed breast cancer patients about conditions for receiving research results, partnerships between nonprofit health systems and for-profit companies, and the distribution of financial value generated from research. Survey questions presented trade-offs between values such as maintaining privacy versus receiving research results. Patients generally are willing to be re-identified to receive information about the use of their donated tissue---especially research results. They support public-private partnerships if they accelerate development of new therapies and tend to favor the idea of sharing in financial benefits generated from research on their tissue.

Organizational performance is key to success, indicating efficiency, reliability, and goal achievement. Oman’s food security depends on the Oman Food Investment Holding Company (O.F.I.C.), which prioritizes organizational success in the complex food investment market. This study examines the complex relationships between leadership styles, corporate culture, and O.F.I.C. staff engagement. Thus, the study sheds light on efficient organizational management in Oman’s complex food processing sector beyond the O.F.I.C. firms are covered in the research of Oman’s food processing sector. The stratified random sampling approach collects data via a carefully developed structured questionnaire. O.F.I.C. personnel from several departments are the target population, reflecting organizational dynamics. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling are used to conclude. This study shows that participative leadership improves Oman’s food processing sector’s organizational performance positively and statistically. Structural equation modeling shows a strong link between leadership styles and organizational effectiveness. It indicates that participative leadership considerably improves organizational performance (β = 0.144, p = 0.004), supporting Hypothesis 1. Participative leadership does not significantly affect employee engagement, rejecting Hypothesis 2 (β = 0.086, p = 0.150). The study supports Hypothesis 3 that employee involvement positively impacts organizational performance (β = 0.289, p < 0.001). This study illuminates O.F.I.C. organizational performance dynamics. In the Oman Food Processing Sector, participatory leadership drives organizational success and provides strategic direction. Context matters at the O.F.I.C., as employee engagement findings show. These insights help us understand corporate management, especially in Oman’s tricky food processing business.

Purpose: Women make essential contributions to the workforce in the United States but still hold a minority of senior leadership and chief executive officer positions in healthcare. The goal of this explanatory quantitative survey study was to measure the extent to which there are differences in the motivation to attain leadership positions between men and women. Methods: A stratified, random sample of 219 men and women employed in the healthcare industry were surveyed using the Motivation to Lead (MtL) questionnaire, a validated survey model that measures three leadership motivational factors. The data was analyzed using quantitative analysis. Principal Findings: Significant gender differences in motivation to lead were found in areas related to self-efficacy, prior leadership experience, and personality traits of extraversion and individualism. There were no significant gender differences in motivation to lead related to personality traits of collectivism, agreeableness, and emotional stability.

Objective: The essay delves into the transformative changes witnessed in teaching and learning over the last 30 years, with a specific focus on the shift from teacher-centered to student-centered education in higher education. Emphasizing the widely accepted notion that students should be the focal point of the learning experience, the author aims to explore the reasons behind the increasing importance of student-centered learning in contemporary higher education classrooms. The background sets the stage for a comprehensive examination of the subject, emphasizing its relevance in the evolving educational landscape. Methods: The methodology employed encompasses a multifaceted approach. The essay initiates with a contextual overview, tracing the evolution of learning models from teacher-centered to student-centered. This historical perspective provides a foundation for a detailed literature review. The author intends to define and contextualize student-centered learning, drawing connections to constructivist theories of teaching and learning. Additionally, the inclusion of personal experiences in a constructivist classroom adds a practical dimension to the exploration. This combination of historical context, theoretical grounding, and personal insights forms the methodological framework of the essay. Results: The anticipated results involve a synthesis of insights into the benefits and implications of student-centered learning. The essay aspires to shed light on how this approach positively influences various aspects of student learning. The literature review is expected to unveil the theoretical underpinnings supporting student-centered learning, emphasizing its role in nurturing skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking. The integration of personal experiences aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice, providing a tangible illustration of how student-centered principles manifest in real-world educational settings. Conclusion: The article aims to synthesize the diverse elements explored throughout the text. Acknowledging the benefits of student-centered learning, the author contends that the most effective outcomes are achieved when both cognitive constructivism and social constructivism are in equilibrium within the student-centered classroom.

This study aimed to identify the learning pathways of elementary school students by using interactive multimedia materials (prepared using Kinect v2) to learn dance. This study investigated the influence of multimedia, signaling, and self-explanation principles and learning outcomes in 101 Taiwanese elementary school students who completed self-designed questionnaires. The collected data were used to construct a structural equation model for analysis. The findings revealed that among the various learning pathways observed when using interactive multimedia materials, only one specific pathway led to significant learning outcomes for students. In this pathway, students 1) understand how to use the instructional materials; 2) identify cues within the materials; 3) transform those cues into inner ideas; and 4) translate these inner ideas to generate concrete and creative dance movements on their own. The study also explained the mechanism behind the learning pathway identified in this research based on mirror neurons’ function at the mimesis and reflexive learning stages of student learning, providing important insights for dance educators.

The Grit-short scale measures consistency and perseverance for long-term goals. The present study translated the Grit-short scale into Hindi (Grit-SH) and tested its psychometric properties and measurement invariance against its English version among Indian adolescents. The participants were 534 senior secondary school students aged 14-18 years recruited from five schools across two samples. The two-factor model of grit demonstrated an acceptable and superior fit to the unidimensional model, good internal consistency, and a positive relationship with well-being and student satisfaction. Further, the scalar invariance was achieved between the Grit-SH and English version, suggesting that the Grit-SH items functioned similarly to their English version. Overall, findings indicate that the Grit-SH is a valid and reliable measure of grit that researchers and practitioners can use to assess grit in Hindi language populations.

Automating a perceptual-motor task won't win you a perceptual-motor contest. Despite claims that mindless automaticity is the essence of expertise, our view is that it is worthwhile only because it enables the expert to plan and strategize. Indeed, the purpose of learning to manually shift gears is to eventually ignore that part and focus on actually driving. To perform well the expert must transition their attention from a task's low-level components to its high-level nuances. This is best understood in real-world scenarios, e.g. driving, where performance is dynamic and sometimes competitive. Our argument is based on a years-long, longitudinal case study of learning to play the puzzle game Tetris. Tetris is intensively perceptual-motor with complicated manual routines needed to manage expert game speeds. For our case study, the player started out as an advanced novice but successfully transitioned to competing at the championship level and entered the Classic Tetris World Championship in 2020. Initially, the challenge was gaining enough skill to make and execute perceptual-motor decisions in a fraction of a second. However, once that became automatic the player could spend those mental resources someplace else. Performance was better for all games when the player was mentally engaged and used their focused attention to plan ahead rather than just automatically responding to the game pieces. We argue that the end goal for automating perceptual-motor skills in competitive, dynamic environments is to make space for the user to excel strategically.

This paper examines recent anti-LGBQT+ educational bills proposed in Virginia. Using Institutional Theory and Poststructural Policy Analysis, we delineate how these texts reproduce repressive ideologies and may affect the subjectification and objectification of educators and students while impacting their experiences within educational institutions. We argue that a) these dictates may adversely affect relationships among educators, students, and families, b) identity-specificity is a fundamental component of educational quality, and c) policy generated without the input of those about whom such policy revolves may problematize issues in ways that reinforce oppressive regimes thereby harming the systems which the policy targets.

Objectives: This study aims to explore parents’ exercise habits (PEH), exercise motivation (EMO), and exercise behavior (EB) in Shanghai junior high school students. Methods: A nationwide online survey was conducted across Shanghai from February to June 2023 using a randomly stratified sampling design. In total, 803 questionnaires were distributed across Shanghai via online platforms. A total of 777 complete and detailed responses were included in the final analysis. Structural equation modeling techniques were employed to analyze the collected data using Smart-PLS 4.0. Results: It has been statistically proven that all the scales used in this inquiry to determine the mean scores, standard deviation, excess kurtosis, and skewness values were reliable and produced satisfactory results except H2 and H3. The results (H1: β=0299, t=4.358, p=0.000; H4: β=0.129, t=2.713, p=0.007; H5: β=-0.198, t=3.502, p=0.000; H6 : β=0.208, t=5.482, p=0.007; H7: β=0.140, t=3.735, p=0.007; H8: β=0.143, t=3.801, p=0.007; H9: β=0.132, t=3.175, p=0.000; H10: β=0.106, t=2.891, p=0.000; H11: β=0.366, t=9.110, p=0.000) supported our hypothetical model and explained that parents’ exercise habits (PEH), social motivation (SMO), ability motivation (AMO), and healthy motivation (HMO) benefits students’ exercise behavior (EB). Although fun motivation (FMO) and appearance motivation (APMO) have no effect on students’ exercise behavior, parents’ exercise habits (PEH) have effect on all types of exercise motivation (EMO). Conclusions: PEH, SMO, AMO, and HMO affect EB in adolescents. The SMO and AMO play mediating roles in the relationship between PEH and EB.

This research involves the co-rumination of adolescents as their way of coping with interpersonal stress that they have experienced. Results suggest the possible effects of co-rumination on one's health and the role of positive coping in dealing with daily life stresses.

Since 2001, the United Nations Security Council has increasingly authorized interventions in support of a government. However, the potential impact of this trend on civil war processes is underexamined. I argue that biased peacekeeping interventions can undermine social order when replacing rebel territorial control. Interventions become associated with weak and predatory client governments and fail to build trust within communities. In the absence of a perceived impartial arbiter, mobilized groups turn to violence over disputes previously solved by the rebels. I test this theory by examining the impact of offensive operations by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Using novel data and a mixed-methods approach, I demonstrate AMISOM operations displacing rebel rule produced a significant increase in intercommunal conflict. These findings highlight the costs of shifting from impartial interventions paired with negotiated settlements to explicitly taking a side in a conflict and suggest exploring a return to emphasizing negotiations.

The concept of 21st century skills has become omnipresent in education, training, and personnel selection policies; however, there is little consistency regarding the terms, definitions, or measurement instruments used. A proliferation of terms makes it difficult to identify, operationalize, and teach these non-technical skills, and also goes against the scientific principle of parsimony. This study uses a three-phase approach to quantify the extent of proliferation: A literature survey, a latent semantic analysis, and a hierarchical cluster analysis. Forty 21st century “skills” were identified in the literature search, and analyses revealed a high degree of semantic and psychometric overlap. This suggests that some individual “skills” may not be conceptually distinct, but are rather an array of context-dependent manifestations of a more general underlying competency. To establish greater coherence within the field, we suggest standardizing terms, reducing task impurity with regard to assessment, and revisiting the concept of skills to encompass only higher-order, general competencies.

Cognitive profiling plays a crucial role in understanding learning dynamics, it contributes significantly to the development of students’ metacognitive skills and awareness of the learning process, thereby facilitating the adoption of tailored learning experiences. Clustering, proves effective in cognitive profiling. However, the challenge of the “curse of dimensionality” introduces complexities that can impact the accuracy of cluster subject attribution. This paper investigates the evaluation of various cluster internal validation metrics and cluster stability using a dataset of 1626 participants comprising 54 items across six cognitive domains from the digital assessment tool, PROFFILO. We employ three clustering procedures—K-means, Gaussian Mixture Models, and Fuzzy-C Means—on raw data and apply linear (Principal Component Analysis) or non-linear (Variational Autoencoders), or a combination of PCA and VAE dimensionality reduction techniques. Results indicate that, for high-dimensional cognitive domains, a combination of PCA and VAE yields superior clustering quality. Conversely, in less high-dimensional domains, the VAE outperforms the PCA approach. In summary, the application of dimensionality reduction techniques demonstrates promising outcomes in student cognitive profiling, especially for data characterized by high dimensionality and heterogeneity. These findings have practical implications for advancing personalized learning experiences and enhancing our understanding of the intricate relationships within students’ cognitive domains.