Learning environment, attitudes and anxiety across the transition from primary to secondary school mathematics

Past research has revealed that, relative to primary-school students, high-school students have less-positive attitudes to mathematics and perceive their classroom environments and teacher–student relationships less favourably. This study involved the transition experience of 541 students in 47 classes in 15 primary (year 7) and secondary (year 8) government and Catholic schools in metropolitan and regional South Australia. Scales were adapted from three established instruments, namely, the What Is Happening In this Class?, Test of Mathematics Related Attitudes and Revised Mathematics Anxiety Ratings Scale, to identify changes across the transition from primary to secondary school in terms of the classroom learning environment and students’ attitude/anxiety towards mathematics. Relative to year 7 students, year 8 students reported less Involvement, less positive Attitude to Mathematical Inquiry, less Enjoyment of Mathematics and greater Mathematics Anxiety. Differences between students in Years 7 and 8 were very similar for male and female students, although the magnitude of sex differences in attitudes was slightly different in Years 7 and 8

Adoption of Transactional Service in Electronic Government – A Case of Pak-Identity Service

Part 7: Digital GovernanceInternational audienceGovernments around the world are using information and communication technologies to offer both simple information portals and transactional services. A less than one-third of the electronic government (e-government) initiatives focused on the provision of transactional services and understanding on studies related to the adoption of such services using domain-specific adoption theories/models are scarce. Therefore, the objective of this study is to understand the adoption of transactional service system, i.e. ‘Pak-Identity’ by employing a domain-specific model, i.e. Unified Model of Electronic Government Adoption (UMEGA). A UMEGA model with four new constructs is validated using data gathered from 441 citizens from all over Pakistan. A survey was conducted among citizens using simple random sampling technique. The collected data were analyzed employing variance-based structure equation modelling, i.e. partial least squares technique in SmartPLS 3.0 to test the formulated hypotheses. Findings indicate that (1) facilitating conditions is the predictor of effort expectancy, (2) performance expectancy, trust, and herd behaviour are the predictors of attitude, (3) price value, grievance redressal, and attitude are the predictors of behavioural intention to use e-government service. Surprisingly, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, social influence, and perceived risk are found to be the nonsignificant predictors of adoption of e-government service. Interestingly, new constructs and new relationships are exposed, i.e. trust and herd behaviour on attitude, and price value and grievance redressal on behavioural intention. Moreover, a 55% variance in effort expectancy, 65% variance in attitude, and 40% variance in behavioural intention to adopt e-government has been found. Implications for the academics and managers are also outlined

Technology-based trainings on emotions: A web application on earthquake-related emotional prevention with children

In light of their potential for learning and engagement, using technology-based programs can be particularly relevant to enhance children\u2019s emotional compe-tence, also in relation to traumatic events such as disasters. Some studies investi-gated the efficacy of technology-based interventions fostering this ability, focus-ing on its different components, with different populations, and using different designs, but they did not relate specifically to disasters such as earthquakes. Nev-ertheless, in everyday life knowledge on earthquakes can be promoted through the use of mobile applications. We searched electronically all the applications pre-sent within the Google Play Store, identifying 20 applications on earthquake pre-vention. None of them was specifically focused on earthquake-related emotional contents, but some of them included some emotional elements. Therefore, to fill in the gaps in the current psychological literature, we developed a web application to promote earthquake-related emotional knowledge, to be tested in the future ac-cording to the standards of evidence-based research