Developing novel life skills and experiences: a pilot study with Functional Advanced Didactics

The pandemic has produced profound changes in teaching activities, with consequences on the educational processes and social development of students. In this sense, the following contribution explores the potential of Advanced Functional Didactics (DAF), a didactic proposal that aims to deliver traditional didactic contents through motor activity. Carried out in a difficult social context, namely the IC Ristori of Naples, located in the Forcella district, the study involves a second class of primary school and a first class of lower secondary school. The experimental hypothesis of this research is that the introduction of the DAF can bring benefits to the physical, psychological, social and learning abilities of the learners. This pilot study was the first to carry it out, thus proposing to verify the impact of this methodology on students to collect useful responses to improve it.Alternate :La pandemia ha prodotto profondi cambiamenti nelle attività didattiche, con conseguenze sui processi formativi e di sviluppo sociale degli studenti. In tal senso, il seguente contributo esplora le potenzialità della Didattica Avanzata Funzionale (DAF), una proposta didattica che mira ad erogare i contenuti didattici tradizionali attraverso l'attività motoria. Realizzato in un contesto sociale difficile, ossia l'IC Ristori di Napoli, sito nel quartiere di Forcella, lo studio coinvolge una classe seconda della scuola primaria e una classe prima della scuola secondaria di primo grado. L'ipotesi sperimentale di questa ricerca è che l'introduzione della DAF possa apportare benefici alle capacità fisiche, psicologiche, sociali e di apprendimento dei discenti. Questo studio pilota è stato il primo a realizzarla, proponendosi quindi di verificare l'impatto di questa metodologia sugli studenti allo scopo di raccogliere risposte utili a migliorare quest'ultima.

What makes us more susceptible to false memories in the era of COVID-19? A focus on vaccines and Green Pass.

INTRODUCTION: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was accompanied by an overabundance of fake news increasing the risk of developing false memories (FMs). Previous studies have shown that the relationship between fake news and FMs could be mediated by some individual variables, including attitudinal biases. We explored the role of these variables in true memories (TMs) and FMs formation, with special emphasis on vaccine- and Green Pass (GP)-related topics. METHOD: We set up a large online survey exploring several constructs including media usage, attitude toward vaccines and GP, perceived (PK) and objective knowledge (OK) about COVID-19-related information, fear of the disease, depression and anxiety symptoms, coping mechanisms, and reasoning skills. Then, we asked participants whether they remembered certain news (true or fake), providing confidence ratings. RESULTS: Data from 289 respondents (198 females) from the general population were analyzed. Participants with positive attitude reported a greater fear that their loved ones contracted the COVID-19, a more frequent use of traditional media, and a higher PK when compared with respondents with negative attitude. On the whole sample, participants reported higher confidence levels when required to judge their memory of true than fake news; however, participants with positive attitude reported a higher confidence for both true and fake news. The relationship between attitude and TM confidence was mediated by the PK, whereas the relationship between attitude and FM confidence was probably affected by OK. CONCLUSION: Attitude can modulate individual behaviors in the context of health issues. The PK and OK may interact with attitude in the memory formation.

Objective Knowledge Mediates the Relationship between the Use of Social Media and COVID-19-Related False Memories.

The exposure to relevant social and/or historical events can increase the generation of false memories (FMs). The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a calamity challenging health, political, and journalistic bodies, with media generating confusion that has facilitated the spread of fake news. In this respect, our study aims at investigating the relationships between memories (true memories, TMs vs. FMs) for COVID-19-related news and different individual variables (i.e., use of traditional and social media, COVID-19 perceived and objective knowledge, fear of the disease, depression and anxiety symptoms, reasoning skills, and coping mechanisms). One hundred and seventy-one university students (131 females) were surveyed. Overall, our results suggested that depression and anxiety symptoms, reasoning skills, and coping mechanisms did not affect the formation of FMs. Conversely, the fear of loved ones contracting the infection was found to be negatively associated with FMs. This finding might be due to an empathy/prosociality-based positive bias boosting memory abilities, also explained by the young age of participants. Furthermore, objective knowledge (i) predicted an increase in TMs and decrease in FMs and (ii) significantly mediated the relationships between the use of social media and development of both TMs and FMs. In particular, higher levels of objective knowledge strengthened the formation of TMs and decreased the development of FMs following use of social media. These results may lead to reconsidering the idea of social media as the main source of fake news. This claim is further supported by either the lack of substantial differences between the use of traditional and social media among participants reporting FMs or the positive association between use of social media and levels of objective knowledge. The knowledge about the topic rather than the type of source would make a difference in the process of memory formation.