Effectiveness and Mechanisms of Mindfulness Training for School Teachers in Difficult Times: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVES: Research in recent years has shown that mindfulness-based interventions can enhance teachers' mental and physical health. However, the existing studies were predominantly conducted in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies. As a randomized controlled trial in a non-WEIRD society, the present study examined the effectiveness and mechanisms of mindfulness training for Hong Kong teachers in difficult times. METHODS: Teachers from primary and secondary schools (n = 186) were randomly assigned to mindfulness training (eight-week .b Foundations) or waitlist control condition. They completed online self-report surveys on measures of well-being, emotion management, and mindfulness in teaching at baseline, post-intervention, and two-month follow-up. RESULTS: The intervention group reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction, positive affect, general health, along with significantly lower levels of insomnia, stress, and negative affect than the control group at post-test and two-month follow-up. The effect sizes were medium to large (η p 2 = 0.06 to 0.14). More importantly, teachers' baseline well-being had a significant moderating effect on the intervention effectiveness. Those with a lower baseline in well-being benefitted more than their counterparts with a higher baseline. In addition, teachers' emotion management was found to be the mediator through which mindfulness training enhanced teachers' well-being. Such improvement in well-being also predicted higher levels of mindfulness in teaching. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence on the efficacy of mindfulness training for teachers beyond WEIRD societies. It suggests the universality and practicality of mindfulness training in enhancing teachers' well-being and reducing their distress in difficult times.

Acceptance of outgroup members in schools: Developmental trends and roles of perceived norm of prejudice and teacher support.

BACKGROUND: Schools around the world are increasingly diverse in ethnicity. Given the importance of peer acceptance in children's well-being and development, it is a pressing concern for educators to promote intergroup acceptance in schools. AIMS: First, to examine the developmental trends of acceptance of outgroup members in both the ethnic minority and majority students. Second, to investigate how outgroup acceptance is subject to the interplay between perceived norm of prejudice, a risk factor in the macrosystem, and teacher support, a protective factor in the microsystem. SAMPLE: The participants were 3,723 students (ethnic majority: 61%; boys: 51.9%; mean age: 13.7) at Grade 2, 5, 8, and 11 from 24 schools in Hong Kong. METHODS: The students were asked to complete a battery of questionnaires regarding their willingness to accept outgroup members in schools, perceived societal norm of prejudice against ethnic minority group, and teacher support they received in schools. RESULTS: It was found that ethnic minority students accepted outgroup members more than ethnic majority students accepted them. The difference was primarily driven by the low outgroup acceptance of ethnic majority students in Grades 2 and 5. The results of multi-level analysis revealed that outgroup acceptance was associated negatively with perceived norm of prejudice but positively with teacher support. The negative association between outgroup acceptance and perceived norm of prejudice was attenuated in schools with supportive culture. CONCLUSIONS: The results point to the need of early intervention and the importance of cultivating school culture with strong social emotional support.

The Role of Mothers' Child-Based Worth in Their Affective Responses to Children's Performance.

This research examined whether American and Chinese mothers' tendencies to base their worth on children's performance contributes to their affective responses to children's performance. Study 1 used daily interviews to assess mothers' warmth (vs. hostility) and children's school performance (N = 197; Mage  = 12.81 years). In Study 2, such affect was observed in the laboratory following children's manipulated performance on cognitive problems (N = 128; Mage  = 10.21 years). The more mothers based their worth on children's performance, the more their warmth (vs. hostility) decreased when children failed in Study 1. This pattern was evident only among Chinese mothers in Study 2. In both studies, child-based worth did not contribute to mothers' affective responses to children's success.

A comprehensive service delivery model for preschoolers with special educational needs: Its characteristics and effectiveness.

BACKGROUND: The compartmentalization between early intervention services and early childhood special education programs is a worldwide phenomenon, which results in the fragmentation of services for preschoolers with special educational needs (SEN). AIMS: To address this fragmentation of services, an intervention program in Hong Kong adopted a comprehensive service delivery model with six characteristics: 1) multidisciplinary approach, 2) integration of services across different contexts, 3) multimodal intervention with direct and indirect services, 4) capacity building for systems, 5) inclusive environment, and 6) high program intensity. METHODS: The program evaluation was a quasi-experiment with a control group (n = 60) matched to the experimental group (n = 60). RESULTS: At the end of the school year, the experimental group made significant improvement in most measures including cognitive skills, receptive language skills, expressive language skills, gross-motor skills, fine-motor skills, and self-direction skills. School heads in the experimental group also agreed that the program had empowered their teachers and reinforced their school systems. CONCLUSION: Despite its exploratory nature, the study has shed light on the future directions of services for preschoolers with SEN. The comprehensive service delivery model offers a response to the fragmentation of services and reveals the importance of integration of services across different contexts with multidisciplinary approach.

Will Victims Become Aggressors or Vice Versa? A Cross-Lagged Analysis of School Aggression.

Peer aggression and victimization are ubiquitous phenomena in schools which warrant the attention of educators and researchers. The high connection between aggression and victimization behooves researchers to look into how the comorbidity of them develops over time. The present study investigated the associations between aggression and victimization over 3 years in early adolescence and whether these associations are moderated by gender and teacher support. Participants were 567 Grade 7, 8 and 9 students (49.38% girls) from 3 schools in Hong Kong. Over the course of study, they were asked to fill in a set of questionnaires that consisted of items related to peer aggression, victimization, and teacher support at 5 time points. Four models of cross-lagged relations between peer aggression and victimization were tested. The results supported a reciprocal model of peer aggression and victimization for both boys and girls although girls engaged in less peer aggression and victimization than boys. Further analyses also revealed that teacher support acted as a suppressor of the reciprocal relations. The present study sheds lights on intervention strategies that may remediate peer aggression and victimization in schools.

Mediator or moderator? The role of mindfulness in the association between child behavior problems and parental stress.

BACKGROUND: Raising a child with intellectual disability (ID) may be stressful for parents. Previous studies have suggested the mediating role of mindfulness in the association between child behavior problems and parental stress. AIMS: The present study examined whether this mediating role is a result of parents' self-report bias. It also explored whether mindfulness has a moderating role instead when child behavior problems are reported by teachers. METHODS: In a questionnaire survey, 271 Chinese parents of children with ID in 6 Hong Kong special schools reported their levels of stress and mindfulness, as well as their children's behavior problems. The latter was also reported by teachers. RESULTS: When child behavior problems were reported by parents, parental mindfulness was a mediator between child behavior problems and parental stress. In contrast, when child behavior problems were reported by teachers, parental mindfulness was a moderator between child behavior problems and parental stress. CONCLUSION: The mediation role of mindfulness maybe an artifact of measurement. The findings provide an encouraging message that parenting a child with ID and behavior problems does not necessarily mean more stress among all parents. Parents with a high level of mindfulness may experience less stress than those with a low level of mindfulness. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: Parents of children with intellectual disability (ID) tend to report high psychological stress. Previous self-report studies have identified mindfulness as a mediator in the association between child behavior problems and parental stress. The present study differs from previous studies by including third-party's reports. It has contributed to the existing body of knowledge in two respects. First, it examined whether the mediation effect resulted from parent self-report bias. Second, it tested an alternative hypothesis of the moderation effect by using teachers' reports to measure child behavior problems. The results showed that when child behavior problems were measured by parents' reports, parental mindfulness was a mediator between child behavior problems and parental stress. The more the parents reported that their children had behavior problems, the less they reported being mindful, which in turn the more stressful they were. However, when child behavior problems were measured by teachers' reports, parental mindfulness was a moderator instead, moderating the association between child behavior problems and parental stress. The association was ameliorated when parents reported high levels of mindfulness. These findings reveal another possible role of mindfulness and shed light on the support for parents of children with ID.

Understanding response patterns in dyadic conflict: An interactive approach combining self-construal and opponent's dominance-submissiveness.

Previous works on the effect of self-construal in interpersonal behaviours tend to adopt a main effect approach. The present research proposes an interactive approach in understanding two response patterns in dyadic conflict by combining self-construal and the stance of the opponent. Independent self-construal was hypothesised to be associated with a self-centred pattern of conflict response, which is characterised by taking contending responses regardless of whether the stance of the opponent is dominant or submissive. Relational self-construal was hypothesised to be associated with a tuning-in pattern of conflict response, which is characterised by showing contending responses when the opponent is submissive but yielding responses when the opponent is dominant. With trait self-construal measured and opponent's stance manipulated, Study 1 provided initial support for the hypotheses. Study 2 showed a three-way interaction effect between trait self-construal, manipulated self-construal and the opponent's stance on actual conflict responses during discussion of a scenario. The effect of self-construal manipulation was only observed among people who were low in trait independent self-construal and average in trait relational self-construal. The results pinpoint the importance of considering personal and opponent factors simultaneously in understanding the dynamics of dyadic conflict processes.

Cultural universality and specificity of student engagement in school: The results of an international study from 12 countries.

BACKGROUND: A comprehensive understanding of the contextual factors that are linked to student engagement requires research that includes cross-cultural perspectives. AIMS: This study investigated how student engagement in school is associated with grade, gender, and contextual factors across 12 countries. It also investigated whether these associations vary across countries with different levels of individualism and socio-economic development. SAMPLES: The participants were 3,420 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students from Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. METHODS: The participants completed a questionnaire to report their engagement in school, the instructional practices they experienced, and the support they received from teachers, peers, and parents. Hierarchical linear modelling was used to examine the effects at both student and country levels. RESULTS: The results across countries revealed a decline in student engagement from Grade 7 to Grade 9, with girls reporting higher engagement than boys. These trends did not vary across the 12 countries according to the Human Development Index and Hofstede's Individualism Index. Most of the contextual factors (instructional practices, teacher support, and parent support) were positively associated with student engagement. With the exception that parent support had a stronger association with student engagement in countries with higher collectivism, most of the associations between the contextual factors and student engagement did not vary across countries. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate both cultural universality and specificity regarding contextual factors associated with student engagement in school. They illustrate the advantages of integrating etic and emic approaches in cross-cultural investigations.

A latent class growth analysis of school bullying and its social context: the self-determination theory perspective.

The contribution of social context to school bullying was examined from the self-determination theory perspective in this longitudinal study of 536 adolescents from 3 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Latent class growth analysis of the student-reported data at 5 time points from grade 7 to grade 9 identified 4 groups of students: bullies (9.8%), victims (3.0%), bully-victims (9.4%), and typical students (77.8%). There was a significant association between academic tracking and group membership. Students from the school with the lowest academic performance had a greater chance of being victims and bully-victims. Longitudinal data showed that all 4 groups tended to report less victimization over the years. The victims and the typical students also had a tendency to report less bullying over the years, but this tendency was reversed for bullies and bully-victims. Perceived support from teachers for relatedness significantly predicted membership of the groups of bullies and victims. Students with higher perceived support for relatedness from their teachers had a significantly lower likelihood of being bullies or victims. The findings have implications for the theory and practice of preventive interventions in school bullying.

Understanding and measuring student engagement in school: the results of an international study from 12 countries.

The objective of the present study was to develop a scale that is appropriate for use internationally to measure affective, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions of student engagement. Psychometric properties of this scale were examined with data of 3,420 students (7th, 8th, and 9th grade) from 12 countries (Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The intraclass correlation of the full-scale scores of student engagement between countries revealed that it was appropriate to aggregate the data from the 12 countries for further analyses. Coefficient alphas revealed good internal consistency. Test-retest reliability coefficients were also acceptable. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the data fit well to a second-order model with affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement as the first-order factors and student engagement as the second-order factor. The results support the use of this scale to measure student engagement as a metaconstruct. Furthermore, the significant correlations of the scale with instructional practices, teacher support, peer support, parent support, emotions, academic performance, and school conduct indicated good concurrent validity of the scale. Considerations and implications regarding the international use of this student engagement in school measure are discussed.

Do girls and boys perceive themselves as equally engaged in school? The results of an international study from 12 countries.

This study examined gender differences in student engagement and academic performance in school. Participants included 3420 students (7th, 8th, and 9th graders) from Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The results indicated that, compared to boys, girls reported higher levels of engagement in school and were rated higher by their teachers in academic performance. Student engagement accounted for gender differences in academic performance, but gender did not moderate the associations among student engagement, academic performance, or contextual supports. Analysis of multiple-group structural equation modeling revealed that perceptions of teacher support and parent support, but not peer support, were related indirectly to academic performance through student engagement. This partial mediation model was invariant across gender. The findings from this study enhance the understanding about the contextual and personal factors associated with girls' and boys' academic performance around the world.

How parents perceive and feel about participation in community activities. The comparison between parents of preschoolers with and without Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The present study compared how parents of preschoolers with and without Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) perceived and felt about participation in community activities. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 380 Hong Kong parents of preschoolers with ASD and 214 Hong Kong parents of preschoolers without ASD. The two groups were not different in their willingness and frequency of participation in community activities. However, the psychological processes underneath their willingness were very different. Among the parents of preschoolers with ASD, their willingness was associated with how they perceived the difficulty and importance of the participation and what emotions they experienced during the activities. This pattern of association was not evident among the parents of preschoolers without ASD.

Classroom discourse analysis and educational outcomes in the era of education reform.

BACKGROUND: In the era of education reform when new teaching approaches are being advocated, it is important to investigate how different classroom discourse patterns are related to different educational outcomes. AIM: The purpose of the study was to analyse the whole classroom discourse of two teacher interns' writing classes. It was conducted against a background of education reform in which teachers were being encouraged to make major changes in their teaching approaches. We investigated what approaches were adopted and what discourse patterns were related to better educational outcomes. SAMPLE: The participants were two teacher interns and their 61 students in Hong Kong. The students (35 boys, 26 girls) were seventh graders from two classes in the same secondary school. METHOD: An instruction unit of each teacher intern on expository writing (120 min) was video-recorded and analysed. Discourse analysis of the whole classroom interaction was supplemented by the students' perceptions and independent observers' evaluations of the instruction. RESULTS: The results indicated that both teacher interns adopted a traditional direct instruction although student-centred approaches were being recommended in the education reform. The effectiveness of the instruction was associated with certain features of the classroom discourse patterns. Better educational outcomes were associated positively with utterances of high cognitive demand but negatively with utterances related to discipline. Students tended to have better performances in writing when they and the independent observers perceived that the teachers used more motivating strategies. CONCLUSIONS: The effectiveness of instruction is a complicated phenomenon that involves a myriad of interrelated factors. Teacher- or student-centred approaches are only part of these diverse factors.

Who makes the choice? Rethinking the role of autonomy and relatedness in Chinese children's motivation.

The importance of autonomy for children's motivation in collectivistic cultures has been debated hotly. With the understanding that autonomy is not equivalent to freedom of choice, 4 studies addressed this debate by investigating how socioemotional relatedness, choice, and autonomy were related to Chinese children's motivation. Study 1 (N = 56, mean age = 10.77 years), Study 2 (N = 58, mean age = 10.59), and Study 3 (N = 48, mean age = 10.53) found consistently that freedom of choice mattered less if children were socioemotionally close to the adults who made choices for them. However, Study 4 (N = 99, mean age = 11.27) showed that autonomy mattered at every level of socioemotional relatedness. These results suggested that socioemotional relatedness might have facilitated internalization and that children who did not have choice might still feel autonomous.

When high achievers and low achievers work in the same group: the roles of group heterogeneity and processes in project-based learning.

BACKGROUND: There has been an ongoing debate about the inconsistent effects of heterogeneous ability grouping on students in small group work such as project-based learning. AIM: The present research investigated the roles of group heterogeneity and processes in project-based learning. At the student level, we examined the interaction effect between students' within-group achievement and group processes on their self- and collective efficacy. At the group level, we examined how group heterogeneity was associated with the average self- and collective efficacy reported by the groups. SAMPLE: The participants were 1,921 Hong Kong secondary students in 367 project-based learning groups. METHOD: Student achievement was determined by school examination marks. Group processes, self-efficacy and collective efficacy were measured by a student-report questionnaire. Hierarchical linear modelling was used to analyse the nested data. RESULTS: When individual students in each group were taken as the unit of analysis, results indicated an interaction effect of group processes and students' within-group achievement on the discrepancy between collective- and self-efficacy. When compared with low achievers, high achievers reported lower collective efficacy than self-efficacy when group processes were of low quality. However, both low and high achievers reported higher collective efficacy than self-efficacy when group processes were of high quality. With 367 groups taken as the unit of analysis, the results showed that group heterogeneity, group gender composition and group size were not related to the discrepancy between collective- and self-efficacy reported by the students. CONCLUSIONS: Group heterogeneity was not a determinant factor in students' learning efficacy. Instead, the quality of group processes played a pivotal role because both high and low achievers were able to benefit when group processes were of high quality.

Effects of competition on students' self-efficacy in vicarious learning.

BACKGROUND: Vicarious learning is one of the fundamental sources of self-efficacy that is frequently employed in educational settings. However, little research has investigated the effects of competition on students' writing self-efficacy when they engage in vicarious learning. AIM: This study compared the effects of competitive and non-competitive classrooms on students' writing self-efficacy when they engaged in vicarious learning. SAMPLE: The participants were 71 grade 7 students in Hong Kong. METHOD: Using prior writing performance for stratified random sampling, students were assigned either to a competitive or a non-competitive classroom. Students learned how to compose similes and metaphors in Chinese. RESULTS: In the competitive classroom, students' self-efficacy decreased when they engaged in vicarious learning. In the non-competitive classroom, students' self-efficacy did not show a significant change when they engaged in vicarious learning. CONCLUSION: The findings suggested that when students engaged in vicarious learning in a competitive classroom, their self-efficacy might be threatened. Implications for efforts to design constructive context for vicarious learning are discussed.

European American and Chinese parents' responses to children's success and failure: implications for children's responses.

The authors examined cultural differences in parents' responses to their children's performance. In Study 1 (N = 421), Chinese 5th graders reported that their parents de-emphasized their academic success and emphasized their academic failure, whereas their American counterparts reported that their parents did the opposite. This partially accounted for Chinese (vs. American) children responding less positively to success and more negatively to failure. In Study 2 (N = 128), Chinese and American mothers' responses to their 4th and 5th graders' performance were observed in the laboratory. The cultural differences in children's reports of parents' responses documented in Study 1 were replicated; mothers' responses were also associated with children's subsequent performance. In addition, Chinese mothers were more involved than were American mothers, but their affect was similar. Taken together, the results suggest that parents' responses to children's performance may be a channel for cultural transmission and perpetuation of responses to performance.

Self-construal and social comparison effects.

BACKGROUND: Social comparison research usually demonstrates that students will have higher self-evaluation in downward comparison but lower self-evaluation in upward comparison. However, the existence of this contrast effect may depend on people's self-construal. The contrast effect may exist only for people with independent self-construal. For people with interdependent self-construal, the contrast effect may be attenuated. AIM: The study investigated the role of self-construal as a moderator of the social comparison effects in authentic classrooms. SAMPLE: The participants were 96 Chinese seventh-grade students (41 male, 51 female and 4 unreported) from a secondary school in Hong Kong. METHOD: The experiment employed a 2 x 2 between-subjects design based on 2 levels of self-construal (independent, interdependent) and 2 levels of comparison standard (upward comparison, downward comparison). The dependent variable was students' self-evaluation. RESULTS: A two-way ANOVA indicated a significant interaction between self-construal and comparison standard on self-evaluation. When the students' independent self-construal was activated, they reported higher self-evaluation in downward comparison but lower self-evaluation in upward comparison. However, such a contrast effect was attenuated when the students' interdependent self-construal was activated. They reported high self-evaluation in both upward and downward comparisons. CONCLUSIONS: The outcome of social comparison depends on whether independent or interdependent self-construal is salient in the classroom.

The effects of competition on achievement motivation in Chinese classrooms.

BACKGROUND: Laboratory studies have consistently found that competition induces performance goals and affects learning motivation. However, the ecological validity of these results is yet to be established. There is a need for investigation of whether the results hold in both the classroom context and non-Western culture. AIM: The study investigated the effects of competition on learning motivation among Chinese students in an authentic classroom setting. SAMPLE: The participants were 52 students of grade 7 from two Hong Kong secondary schools. METHOD: They were randomly assigned to either competitive or non-competitive conditions in a 2-hour Chinese typewriting course. RESULTS: Students in the competitive condition performed better in easy tasks than their counterparts in the non-competitive condition. However, they were more performance-oriented and more likely to sacrifice learning opportunities for better performance. They were also prone to have worse self-evaluation after failure. Although there were no statistically significant differences between the two conditions in task enjoyment and achievement attribution, the direction of the differences was consistently unfavourable to students in the competitive condition. CONCLUSION: The findings were consistent with the predictions of goal theory. Competitiveness induces performance goals and worse self-evaluation after failure among Chinese students in a classroom setting, as was found with Western students in a laboratory setting.