The role of the Big Two in socially responsible behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: Agency and communion in adolescents' personal norm and behavioral adherence to instituted measures.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus urged all members of the society to adopt COVID-responsible behavioral patterns and practice them in everyday life. Given the variability in its adoption, it is critical to understand psychological factors associated with socially responsible behavior during the pandemic. This might be even more important among adolescents, who are less endangered by the virus but contribute to its spread. In this article, we focus on adolescent boys' and girls' agency and communion orientations to explain the level of importance they attribute to the instituted measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus (personal norm), as well as their behavioral adherence to those measures. In total, 12,552 adolescents (67.6% girls, Mage = 15.06, SDage = 2.44, age range 10-21) answered inventory assessing adolescents' agentic and communal orientation (GRI-JUG) and items related to personal norm regarding the instituted measures and behavioral adherence to the measures. The results showed a small positive role of communion in both boys' and girls' personal norm and behavioral adherence, whereas agency played a very small negative role in boys' and girls' personal norm and boys' behavioral adherence to measures. Nevertheless, these findings could indicate the importance of enhancing communal traits and behaviors in both genders in order to assure socially responsible behavior during the pandemic.

Gender Differences in Digital Learning During COVID-19: Competence Beliefs, Intrinsic Value, Learning Engagement, and Perceived Teacher Support.

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic quickly necessitated digital learning, which bore challenges for all pupils but especially for groups disadvantaged in a virtual classroom. As some studies indicate persistent differences between boys and girls in use of technologies and related skills, the aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in the digital learning environment students faced in spring 2020. Previous studies investigating gender differences in digital learning largely used biological sex as the only indicator of gender. This study includes both biological sex and gender role self-concept in order to investigate the role of gender in different components of this stereotyped domain in a more differentiated way. A total of 19,190 Austrian secondary school students (61.9% girls, M age = 14.55, SDage = 2.49, age range 10-21) participated in an online study in April 2020 and answered questions regarding their competence beliefs, intrinsic value, engagement, and perceived teacher support in digital learning during the pandemic-induced school closures. Results showed higher perceived teacher support, intrinsic value, and learning engagement among girls than boys, while no significant sex differences were found in competence beliefs regarding digital learning. Furthermore, our results indicated clear benefits of an androgynous gender role self-concept for all studied components of digital learning. Implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed.

Learning during COVID-19: the role of self-regulated learning, motivation, and procrastination for perceived competence.

In March 2020 schools in Austria temporarily closed and switched to distance learning to contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). The resulting situation posed great challenges to teachers, guardians and students (Huber and Helm 2020). Research has shown that perceived competence (Deci and Ryan 2000) affects selfregulated learning (SRL), intrinsic motivation and procrastination, however few studies have considered these variables in context of distance learning among adolescents. This study investigated differences in students who perceived themselves as high vs. low in competence with respect to these constructs. In an online questionnaire, 2652 Austrian secondary school students answered closed questions regarding SRL, intrinsic motivation and procrastination as well as open-ended questions about challenges, successes and need for support in distance. Structural equation modeling was applied for the quantitative analysis which was complemented by thematic analysis for the qualitative questions (Braun and Clarke 2006). Results showed that students who experienced themselves as highly competent use SRL strategies (goal setting and planning, time management, metacognitive strategies) more often and are more intrinsically motivated than students with lower perceived competence. They also procrastinate less. Furthermore, qualitative analysis revealed that although all students face similar challenges (e.g., independent learning, time and task management, learning on the computer, lack of contact with teachers and peers), students who perceived themselves as highly competent seemed to cope better, and have less need for support. Implications for distance learning and future research are discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version of this article (10.1007/s11618-021-01002-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.