Italian Mediators in Action : the Impact of Style and Attitude

We analyzed a questionnaire sent to Italian mediators. We sought to investigate three areas: style of mediation, personal attitude toward the con\ufb02 ict, and e\ufb00 ectiveness in leading the parties to a negotiated agree- ment in mediation. We found no signi\ufb01 cant correlations between the style of mediation and the attitude of the respondents to the con\ufb02 ict. Respondents with postgraduate training in economics or accounting achieved higher rates of settlement. \ue003 e style of the mediator may be of some use as a paradigm of orientation, but has no su\ufb03 cient predictive value to be con\ufb01 rmed as a key to the functioning of the mediation

The effects of a cognitive pathway to promote class creative thinking. An experimental study on Italian primary school students

The goal of this experimental research was to demonstrate that creative thinking could be trained in primary school children. After asserting the difficulty to determine a unique definition of creativity \u2013 the concept fits to several fields and areas of interests \u2013 the capacity to produce numerous ideas and to think divergently was chosen as the framework within creativity as a way of thinking that can be assessed and measured. Even though creativity is challenging to define and consequently to operationalize, tests exist with the purpose to evaluate creativity levels in individuals. Starting from the Test of Child Creativity (TCI) an Italian mental reactive aimed at measuring the potential of creative thinking in individual children, a Group Creativity Assessment (gTCI) was made up with the objective to test 224 children belonging to 10 primary school classes (5 second grades and 5 third grades), achieving creativity scores of groups. The aim was to investigate whether children\u2019s attitude to think divergently would improve after participating in a creativity training made up of 10 interactive one-hour long sessions. For that reason, all the sample of children were tested in T0 before the training; afterward 8 out of the 10 classes were weekly trained, before being all 10 classes tested again in T1, 10 weeks after T0. The hypothesis was that the trained classes would have improved in creative thinking, whereas the control groups would have not. It was therefore demonstrated the efficacy of the specific technique to train creative thinking that was conceived, developed and administered to the children

Cognitive Fuzzy Maps To Engage Doctors In Decision Support Tools: A Qualitative Study

Objective Given the complexity of the diagnostic process, experts have proposed the systematic use of decision support tools in everyday clinical practice could improve diagnostic reliability and reduce errors. Some scholars have pointed out the valuable role of intuition in making good medical decisions. Experts often develop strategies based on the use of subtle clues to quickly infer important judgments without a complete information base. They called these strategies \u201cmindlines\u201d as opposed to guidelines. We wanted to test if the use of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) could help doctors in balancing intuitive and analytic thinking in their everyday clinical activities. FCMs can improve the diagnostic process by incorporating a cognitive balanced decision. Method To build an FCM, doctors are not required to quantify the importance of contributing information they only need an intuitive comprehension of a clinical scenario and the relevant factors that need to be considered. FCMs represent a complex system without a given direction, since each node may have several univocal or reciprocal connections with other nodes. In this preliminary study, we have worked with a panel of doctors to build an FCM to be used in a neurology department. Then we gave the same doctors the possibility to use the FCM in their activities and recorded their use and opinion on a monthly base. Results Though the participants reported using rarely other decision support systems, the use of the FCM was frequent. Doctors reported that the FCM start to be a part of their thinking modality since they tried to integrate the data acquired with the patient in the schema built with the team. Finally, doctors reported to be satisfied and to be prompt do go on working on further FCMs. Conclusion In this preliminary study, we found that the use of FCMs might help doctors in overcoming most of the problem they encounter in the use of technology-driven decision support systems. We argue that the most important aspect of this method is that it involves directly doctors in a social and cognitive process. In this way, the support system becomes compatible with doctors\u2019 mindlines

Gamification and Coding to Engage Primary School Students in Learning Mathematics: A Case Study

This paper describes a pilot educational project made in a Primary School in Italy (Scuola Primaria Alessandro Manzoni at Mulazzano, Milan) implemented in 2016 and 2017. The project was born from a specific request: the school aimed at improving the results achieved by students aged 7 during the National Tests for Mathematics since they registered performances lower than the National Average. In this context, we supported teachers providing information tools and methods to improve performances. Our aim was to develop new game-oriented approaches to problem-solving, mixing our different experiences and competences (organization design, information technologies, psychology). We provided a broader spectrum of parameters tools and keys to understand how to achieve an inclusive approach personalized on students, involving them and their teachers in the project. This cooperative approach allowed us to collect interesting observations about learning styles, pointing out the negative impact that standardized processes and instruments can have on self-esteem and consequently on the performance of pupils. We argue that addressing pupils in considering mathematics as continuous research and development can increase their performances in National Tests execution. Children free to realize their own experiments and observations dramatically improve their involvement and curiosity about Mathematics

Promoting Creativity Through Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) : a Critical Review

Creativity, meant as the ability to produce novel, original and suitable ideas, has received increased attention by research in the last years, especially from neuroaesthetics and social neuroscience. Besides the research conducted on the neural correlates of such capacities, previous work tried to answer the question of whether it is possible to enhance creativity through cognitive and neural stimulation. In particular, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been applied to increase neuronal excitability in those areas related to creativity. However, being a complex construct that applies to a huge variety of situations, available results are often confusing and inconsistent. Thus, in the present critical review, after selecting original research articles investigating creativity with tDCS, results will be reviewed and framed according to the different effects of tDCS and its underlying mechanisms, which can be defined as follows: the promotion of self-focused attention; the disruption of inhibiting mechanisms; the enhancement of creative thinking; the promotion of artistic enactment. Finally, a theoretical perspective, the creative on/off model, will be provided to integrate the reported evidence with respect to both anatomical and functional issues and propose a cognitive explanation of the emergence of creative thinking

Is three better than two? A study on EEG activity and imagination abilities in 2D vs 3D stimuli

Real and virtual are often considered terms in reciprocal opposition, but the boundaries between the two are blurred. The main goal of our study consists in answering the question whether the presence of a third dimension (3D) is a fundamental step of the virtual toward the real world, and if it causes some difference in the neural activity of the spectator [8]. Also, the possibility to consider real what is virtual will be discussed