Conditional role of parental controlling mediation on the relationship between escape, daily game time, and gaming disorder.

Parental mediation to protect children from gaming disorders may have unintended consequences. According to the self-determination theory, parental mediation with psychological control may exacerbate problem behavior. Therefore, investigating the indirect effects of parental controlling mediation on gaming disorders is worthwhile. This study aimed to examine the conditional effect of parental controlling mediation on the relationship between escape motivation and gaming disorder, mediated by daily game time. The following research questions were investigated: whether escape motivation has an indirect effect on gaming disorder through daily game time, and whether parental controlling mediation moderates the relationship between gaming disorder and daily gaming time. The convenience sample included 501 mid-school students (251 male and 250 female) in grades 5-7. The conditional indirect effects model was developed using Hayes's model 14 and Process Macro. The results showed that escape motivation was positively related to gaming disorder through daily game time, and parental controlling mediation had a moderating effect on the relationship between daily game time and gaming disorder. These findings suggest that parental mediation to protect children from excessive gaming may be related to gaming disorder when implemented with psychological control. Higher parental controlling mediation may be a risk factor for gaming disorder even when their children play games less frequently. These findings are discussed in light of the literature.

Unravelling the Relation Between Fear of Missing Out, Time Spent on the Phone, Sex, Alienation, and Nomophobia.

The prevalence of nomophobia is growing among adolescents. This study aimed to disentangle the relationship between nomophobia, the fear of missing out, time spent on the phone, sex, and social alienation. Participants, who were 595 students (313 females and 282 males) attending high school during the 2019-2020 academic year, filled out personal information forms and a series of scales involving nomophobia, the fear of missing out, and social alienation. Then, data were analyzed through a moderated mediation analysis. The results showed that the bivariate correlation was significant but not the direct effect of gender on nomophobia; still, other direct effects were significant. The partial indirect effect of the fear of missing out on nomophobia was only significant for females when social alienation was controlled for. In the model where nomophobia was the outcome model, the power values for the time spent on the phone and its interaction with sex were low but high for other factors. Furthermore, the effect size was small for the model where the mediator was the outcome and high for the model that had nomophobia as the outcome. Thus, it is crucial to consider that the motives underlying the fear of missing out and nomophobia differ between the sexes in planning interventions.

COVID-19 forecasting using shifted Gaussian Mixture Model with similarity-based estimation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a pronounced disturbance in the social environments and economies of many countries worldwide. Credible forecasting methods to predict the pandemic's progress can allow countries to control the disease's spread and decrease the number of severe cases. This study presents a novel approach, called the Shifted Gaussian Mixture Model with Similarity-based Estimation (SGSE), that forecasts the future of a specific country's daily new case values by examining similar behavior in other countries. The model uses daily new case values collected since the pandemic began and finds countries with similar trends using a specific time offset. The daily new case values data between the first day and ( t o d a y - N ) th day are transformed by employing the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and, subsequently, a new vector of features is obtained for each country. Using these feature vectors, countries that show similar statistics in the past are found for any forecasted country. The future of the corresponding country is forecasted by taking the mean of the time-series plots after the offset points of similar countries are calculated. A brand new metric called a trend similarity score, which calculates the similarity between forecasted and actual values is also presented in this study. While the SGSE trend similarity score median varies between 0.903-0.947, based on the selection of the distance metric, the ARIMA model yields only 0.642. The performance of the SGSE was compared in seven European countries using four different public projects submitted to The European COVID-19 Forecast Hub. The SGSE gives the most accurate forecasts compared to all other models. The test sets' results show that trends and plateaus are predicted accurately for many countries.

[Developing Perceived Competence Scale (PCS) for Adolescents]. / Ergenler için Yeterlik Algisi Ölçeginin (YAÖ) Gelistirilmesi.

In this study, Perceived Competence Scale was developed to measure high school students' perceived competence. Scale development process was verified on three different samples. Participants of the research are some high school students in 2011-2012 academic terms from Ankara. Participants' numbers are incorporated in exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and test-retest reliability respectively, as follows: 372, 668 and 75. Internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach's and stratified α) are calculated separately for each group. For data analysis Factor 8.02 and LISREL 8.70 package programs were used. According to results of the analyses, internal consistency coefficients (α) are .90 - .93 for academic competence, .82 - .86 for social competence in the samples that exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis performed. For the whole scale internal consistency coefficient (stratified α) is calculated as .91. As a result of test-retest reliability, adjusted correlation coefficients (r) are .94 for social competence and .90 for academic competence. In addition, to fit indexes and regression weights obtained from factor analysis, findings related convergent and discriminant validity, indicating that competence can be addressed in two dimensions which are academic (16 items) and social (14 items).

[Prediction of School Dropout among Turkish High School Students: A Model Testing with Moderator and Mediator Variables.] / Türk Lise Ögrencilerinde Okul Terkinin Yordanmasi: Araci ve Etkilesim Degiskenleri ile Bir Model Testi.

Bu arastirmada ilk olarak, dürtüsel davranma ile okulu terk etme riski arasindaki iliskiye disiplin cezasi almanin, antisosyal davranislarin ve sigara-alkol kullaniminin aracilik edip etmedigi incelenmistir. Ikinci olarak, ögretmen destegi ve antisosyal davranis etkilesiminin okulu terk etme riski üzerindeki etkisi test edilmistir. Arastirma grubunu 2009-2010 yilinda Ankara Ilinde genel liselere devam eden 478 ögrenci olusturmustur. Sonuçlar okulu terk etme riskini aile ve arkadas desteginin azalttigini, dürtüsel davranmanin ise artirdigini göstermistir. Ayrica disiplin cezasi, alkol-sigara kullanma ve antisosyal davranislar okulu terk etme riskini artiran araci degiskenlerdir. Antisosyal davranislarla okulu terk etme arasindaki iliski ögretmen destegine bagli olarak degismektedir. Ögrencilerin cinsiyet ve basarilari ile okulu terk etme riskleri arasinda anlamli bir iliski bulunmamaktadir.