Students' achievement motivation in Finnish and Chinese higher education and its relation to perceived teaching-learning environments.

This cross-cultural study of Finnish and Chinese students set out to compare the levels of achievement motivation (AM) in order to investigate whether the differences in them might be explained by the different cultural response styles and whether these response styles could be controlled for with a method which includes response style variables as covariates in ANCOVA. This study also scrutinizes relationships between perceived teaching-learning environments (TLE) and AM within each cultural group. The survey sample consisted of 3,035 Finnish and 2,309 mainland Chinese university students. Finnish students were found to rate the level of AM markedly higher than do Chinese students. It was determined that the method applied for response style controlling is not suitable for cross-cultural studies, even though it is recommended for this use. A modification of the method, which is based on robust statistical tools, was found not to change this conclusion, but it can nevertheless be used to obtain useful information about the effects of response style differences. The results also show that similar relationships between AM and TLE could be identified in the data of both groups. However, for the Finnish group AM is related to perceived suitable workload, whereas for the Chinese group it is related to teacher encouragement.

Relationships between Cognition and Activities of Daily Living in Alzheimer's Disease During a 5-Year Follow-Up: ALSOVA Study.

BACKGROUND: Impaired cognition and activities of daily living (ADL) are core symptoms of Alzheimer's disease (AD), but their relationship is unclear. OBJECTIVES: To explore relationships between cognitive domains and functional ability during 5-year follow-up in persons with AD. METHODS: We analyzed ALSOVA study data from 236 individuals with very mild or mild AD at baseline. The CERAD Neuropsychological Battery (CERAD-NB) was used as a cognitive measure and Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study ADL (ADCS-ADL) as a functional measure, analyzing the IADL and BADL sub-scores separately. Annual regression models and linear mixed-effect models (LMMs) covering a 5-year follow-up period were used. RESULTS: Annually, the CERAD-NB total and especially Verbal Fluency, Clock Drawing, and Constructional Praxis were associated with the total ADCS-ADL and IADL scores increasingly yet modestly, and to a lesser extent the BADL score. In the LMMs, the same measures and MMSE were associated with ADL. CONCLUSION: Measures of executive function and visuoconstructive skills appear to be associated with caregiver-interview based ADL measure during the progression of AD.

Burnout among Finnish and Chinese university students.

In this study the levels of experienced burnout of Finnish and Chinese university students are compared using School Burnout Inventory (SBI). This study is motivated by earlier studies, which suggest that the level of student burnout is different in the culturally distinct Finnish and Chinese university systems, but which are based on different research instruments for the two groups. The sample studied consisted of 3,035 Finnish students and 2,309 Chinese students. Because of the cross-cultural nature of this study the level of structural equivalence of SBI between the cultural groups was examined and the effect of different response styles on the results was taken into account. Both standard and robust statistical methods were used for the analyses. The results showed that SBI with two extracted components is suitable for cross-cultural analysis between Finnish and Chinese university students. Virtually no difference was found in experienced overall burnout between the Finnish and Chinese students, which means that both university systems contain factors causing similar levels of student burnout. This study also verified that controlling for the response styles is important in cross-cultural studies as it was found to have a distinct effect on the results obtained from mean-level comparisons.

Group psychoeducation for long-term offender patients with schizophrenia: an exploratory randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Psychoeducation is now commonly provided in forensic settings, but its effectiveness among long-term offender patients with schizophrenia has not yet been established in randomised controlled trials (RCTs). AIM: To test the effects of a brief group psychoeducation programme for offenders with schizophrenia (n = 39) resident in a high-security hospital (Niuvanniemi Hospital, Finland). METHOD: High-security hospital patients were randomised into either eight sessions of group psychoeducation or 'treatment as usual' (TAU). Outcome measures, made at baseline, immediately post-treatment, and 3 months after that, included knowledge about illness, insight, compliance, attitudes towards medication, psychiatric symptoms and ward behaviour, self-esteem, health-related quality of life and perceived stigma. RESULTS: Three months after completing treatment, or an equivalent time under TAU, patients in the intervention group showed a positive treatment effect in terms of knowledge about illness, self-esteem and insight into the illness. The only possible adverse effect was a slight increase in irritability, but this did not translate into behaviour of concern to staff. CONCLUSIONS: Our sample size was small, and the findings must be regarded as preliminary, but the positive treatment effect of psychoeducation, and the absence of alarming side effects, suggests a full scale trial would be worthwhile. Most encouraging was that even the most severely ill patients were able to join the groups.

Group psychoeducation for forensic and dangerous non-forensic long-term patients with schizophrenia. A pilot study

Background and Objectives: The effectiveness of patient psychoeducation has only rarely been studied among forensic populations. This paper examines the outcomes of an eight-time psycho educational group comprised of schizophrenic patients in a forensic hospital setting in Finland. Methods: The intervention group contained forensic or dangerous non-forensic long-term patients with schizophrenia. Treatment outcomes were compared between the intervention group (n = 7) and a matched treatment-as-usual control group (n = 8). The group provided information about schizophrenia and its treatment and cognitive-behavioural elements were used to enhance patients’ learning and coping. The results were obtained from a knowledge of schizophrenia, awareness of mental disorder, attitudes toward psychiatric treatment and medication, and depression. Results: The results of this pilot study suggest that even severely ill patients were able to gain improved knowledge about their illness, and psychoeducation also had positive impact on their awareness of the illness. The results showed no significant changes in attitudes toward psychiatric treatment or medication, or depressive symptoms. No significant changes in any measures were found in the control group. Conclusions: Despite our positive results further research with larger samples is needed to discover the effectiveness of patient education as a component of the comprehensive treatment of forensic patients with schizophrenia (AU)

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Common-sense descriptions of depression as social representations.

BACKGROUND: Major depression is such a prevalent illness worldwide that practically everyone has either direct or indirect experience of it. It is important, then, from both practical and theoretical points of view, to examine this particular experience and related conceptions. AIM: Drawing on the theory of social representations, this research set out to examine the ways in which people define depression in terms of the symptoms they attribute to people they know personally and consider to suffer from depression. METHOD: A group of adult participants (n = 117) were instructed to think of an individual whom they knew personally and considered to suffer from depression, to indicate the age and gender of the person, and to describe his/her symptoms. RESULTS: A great majority of the female participants thought of a female, while the male participants thought of male and female target persons quite evenly. The symptoms attributed to depression with fair unanimity included fatigue and decreased capacity to work, to concentrate, to make decisions and to take part in hobbies. The descriptions of the depressive person were quite unanimously distinguished from the signal symptoms attaching to schizophrenia. The descriptions varied according to the characteristics of the target individuals, and their gender and age in particular, rather than the characteristics of the participants. CONCLUSION: People have perceptive personal experiences of depression, which are guided by socially shared interpretative frameworks.

A measure of parents' assessments of their children's abilities.

The present study assessed the psychometric properties of a multidimensional measure of parents' assessments of their children's abilities, including problem-solving skills, social skills, dexterity, creativity, and learning motivation. A nationwide sample of Finnish parents (N=432), representing two educational groups, both mothers (64%) and fathers (36%) whose mean age was 37.8 yr. (SD=5.3), were asked to assess their children's abilities during preschool and at the end of the first and the third school year. A set of analyses of this longitudinal data indicated that the scales had adequate internal and temporal consistency, the factor structure showed invariability across time, and the scales related meaningfully to the parents' perceptions of their children's competencies in different school subjects.