Experiences With Online Teaching and Psychological Adjustment of High-School Students at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Croatia.

Vastly changed schooling arrangements due to the COVID-19 crisis have generally limited the opportunities and resources for schools to provide necessary psychological and other support to their students. Given this, all parties involved in the schooling system need to understand the kinds of experiences students have via distance learning and how students adapt to novel living and studying conditions. This study examines the relevant sources of stress that students encounter with regard to online classes, and the frustrations they face due to living in social isolation, as well as how these stressors relate to the measures of students' emotional wellbeing and psychological adjustment. Data were collected in April 2020 via an online questionnaire administered to a sample of 4,492 students (62.6% female) attending all four grades of high school within two Croatian counties. The results point to the differential effects of particular aspects of online teaching practices on the stressful experiences of students. Furthermore, the results of multivariate analysis of variance and canonical discriminant analyses demonstrated notable gender and grade differences in the structure of students' emotional and behavioral adaptation to the health crisis. Female students and those predominantly studying at the highest grade reported higher frequency and intensity of short-term emotional and psychosomatic difficulties. Male students in the final grade year scored highest on the dimension defined by the number and intensity of online teaching stressors. The results are interesting in light of hypothetical accounts of adjustment mechanisms based on existing stress theories. Moreover, the findings serve as a basis for teachers' self-reflection and self-evaluation of schools, which can then lead to designing specific programs of support in learning and adaptation to the new living and studying conditions.

Interactions of School Bonding, Disturbed Family Relationships, and Risk Behaviors Among Adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Substance use, gambling, and violence represent a great risk for adolescent health. Schools are often referred to as the "best" places for health promotion and prevention, where positive school bonding serves as a strong protective factor for the development of risk behaviors and poor school bonding is associated with various risk behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine the risk effect of disturbed family relations, the protective effect of school bonding, and the extent to which school can compensate for the negative effect of an adverse family environment related to the risk behaviors of the adolescents. METHODS: A self-reported questionnaire was administered to a random sample of students in grades 9-11 from 30 high schools. A total of 1519 respondents were included in the analysis. Covariance analysis was used to test the impact of sex, school year, school bonding, and family relationships on risk behaviors and the interaction effect of school bonding and family relationships. RESULTS: Both dimensions of school bonding, attachment to school, and commitment to schooling, were found to be significant predictors of risk behavior, with a commitment to schooling being an even more significant predictor than disturbed family relations. Students with greater school bonding and unfavorable family circumstances reported fewer risk behaviors than students of equal family circumstances but weak school bonding. CONCLUSIONS: These findings emphasize the role of the school as a social compensator for the adverse effects of a disturbed family environment.

Patterns of internet use and mental health of high school students in Istria County Croatia: cross-sectional study.

AIM: To examine associations between different forms of internet use and a number of psychological variables related to mental health in adolescents. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was carried out on a representative sample of students (N=1539) from all high schools in the region of Istria in Croatia (14-19 years). The associations between four factors of internet use and nine mental health indicators were analyzed using canonical correlation analysis. RESULTS: The four canonical functions suggested a significant association between different types of internet use and specific indicators of mental health (P<0.001). Problematic internet use, more typical among boys, was associated with general aggressive behavior and substance abuse (P<0.001). Experiences of harassment, more typical among girls, were associated with health complaints, symptoms of depression, loneliness, and fear of negative evaluation (P<0.001). Using the internet for communication and entertainment was associated with better relationships with peers (P<0.001), while use of the internet for academic purposes was associated with conscientiousness (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: The results suggest that different patterns of internet use are significantly associated with specific sets of positive and negative mental health indicators. The data support the assumption that internet use can have both positive and adverse effects on the mental health of youth.

Sex differences in patterns of relations between family interactions and depressive symptoms in adolescents.

AIM: To gain insight into the relations between protective/risk family interactions and depressive symptoms in adolescent boys and girls. METHOD: A self-reported cross-sectional survey was conducted on a representative sample of 1191 secondary school students (617 girls and 574 boys) aged from 14 to 19 years, with a median of 16, from all secondary schools in the Primorsko-goranska County, Croatia in January and February 2010. Students reported their depressive symptoms, perceptions about the relationship with their mother and father, family activities, and parents' conflict resolution strategies. Data were analyzed by hierarchical multiple regression to calculate the effects of family supportive and harmful interactions on depressive symptoms in girls and boys. RESULTS: Depressive symptoms were reported often and very often by 19.1% of girls and 15.8% of boys. Girls' assessment of the family relations was significantly more positive than boys', including the assessment of family activities, constructive family conflict resolution, or father's and mother's warmth and affection. Multiple correlation analysis revealed that the examined family variables accounted for 16.3% of the variance of depressive symptoms in boys and for 17.2% in girls. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed a difference in the relation of family variables and depressive symptoms between boys and girls. Depressive symptoms in girls were more linked to the lack of protective family factors (9.9% of the explained variance in girls vs. 5.5% in boys), while depressive symptoms in boys were more linked to the existence of harmful family factors (10.8% of the explained variance in boys vs.7.3% in girls). CONCLUSION: Family activities and the father's warmth and affection have a higher significance for girls than for boys, while destructive parental conflict and the mother's aggression and hostility are equally significant for both girls and boys. These results indicate the targets for family-based preventive and intervention programs for depression in adolescents.

Perceived exposure to substance use and risk-taking behavior in early adolescence: cross-sectional study.

AIM: To examine the relation between perceived exposure to parents, siblings, and peers' substance use and self-reported substance consumption among early adolescents in Primorsko-goranska county, Croatia, and between perceived exposure to substance use and risk-taking behaviors such as going out late at night, gathering at secluded places, skipping school, and gambling. METHOD: A self-reported cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2007 among 2219 eight-grade (14-year old) pupils in elementary schools in Primorsko-goranska county. Exposure to substance use in their immediate social environment, self-reported consumption of cigarettes, alcohol, inhalants, and marihuana, ways of spending free time, and family and peer relationships were assessed. RESULTS: There was a significant association between perceived exposure to substance use and self-reported consumption of cigarettes, alcohol, inhalants, and marihuana in both sexes (P < 0.001). Pupils whose parents, siblings, and peers used substances significantly more often developed the same behavioral patterns. Level of exposure to substance use in the immediate social environment had the strongest effect on experimenting with smoking among girls (from 26.6% in low exposure to 76.2% in high exposure group) and among boys (from 15.8% in low exposure to 69.4% in high exposure); on regular everyday smoking among girls (from 4.4% in low exposure to 45% in high exposure group) and among boys (from 2.7% in low exposure to 36.7% in high exposure group); on hard liquor consumption among girls (from 25.1% in low exposure to 79.5% in high exposure group) and among boys (from 28.1% in low exposure to 78.4% in high exposure group), as well as on binge drinking among girls (from 10.9% in low exposure to 56.6% in high exposure group) and among boys (from 15.5% in low exposure to 62.4% in high exposure group). Girls and boys exposed to substance use engaged more often in risk-taking and potentially delinquent behaviors (F(2, 1180) = 166 502; P < 0.001, two-way ANOVA). CONCLUSION: High exposure to substance use in immediate social environment and its great impact on substance use among early adolescents indicate that there is a need for the introduction of preventive programs that would reduce inappropriate behavior among adolescents' social models.

A cross-cultural study of the Need for Cognitive Closure Scale: comparing its structure in Croatia, Italy, USA and The Netherlands.

This study was designed to compare the factor structure of Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) as it emerges from three European samples (Croatia, Italy and The Netherlands) to the structure emerging from a USA sample, and to test the invariance of the structure of the scale both across three European contexts and across European and US samples. This comparison was conducted to examine the generalizability of results obtained with the NFCS across cultures. The sample sizes employed in this study range from 201 (Croatia) to 418 (Italy) participants. First- and second-order confirmatory factor analysis and multiple-group measurement invariance tests were performed using the LISREL-8 program (Jöreskog and Sörbom, 1993). The analyses revealed that the factor structure of the scale was invariant across all samples, and that the best fitting model was one with two latent second-order factors, thus confirming results of previous studies (Kruglanski et al., 1997; Neuberg, Judice, & West, 1997).