CONCEPTUALIZATION OF SOCIAL CAPITAL IN CROSS-SECTIONAL DESIGN STUDIES: RAPID REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Social capital is a concept that is widely studied in different fields of science, in different dimensions of this concept, and consists of a number of elements, including trust, sense of belonging and affiliation. Given the multidimensional nature of social capital, researchers point to the challenges of its conceptualization and operationalization of its elements. Objective: To identify cross-sectional design studies, with nationally representative samples from European countries, where each study assessed following social capital elements: either trust and sense of belonging, or trust and affiliation, to identify other included social capital elements, to clarify how these elements are operationalized, to identify what social capital determinants are taken into account and what social capital manifestations have been evaluated.Method: Cross-sectional design studies, with nationally representative samples for European countries, conducted between 2014 and 2019, were sought in Science Direct, ProQuest, SAGE, EBSCO, Google Scholar, using the key words “social capital”, “trust”, “sense of belonging” and their synonyms. The methodological quality was assessed by Appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies (Axis). Results: From initially identified 173 studies, the literature review included 3 studies. The included studies identify determinants of social capital (socio-demographic factors (2 studies) and political affiliation (1 study)) and manifestations of social capital (self-rated health (1 study), loneliness (1 study), willingness to pay for environmental quality (1 study)). The included studies define the bonding, bridging and linking types of social capital, as well as the structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital. The studies assessed and operationalized the following social capital elements: trust (3 studies), sense of belonging (1 study), support (1 study), frequency of contacts (2 studies), participation in associations (1 study), religious affiliation (1 study), civic activity (2 studies).

SELF-ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPORTANCE AND ATTAINABILITY OF SUPERVISORS’ ETHICAL COMPETENCE IN LATVIA

Code of Ethics of Supervisors’ in Latvia is currently being developed and it is important to understand how Supervisors themselves evaluate professional ethical competence. The aim of this study is to find out what is the Self-Assessment of the Importance and Attainability of Supervisors’ Ethical Competence in Latvia. The research questions were the following: 1) What is the self-assessment of the importance and attainability of Supervisors’ ethical competence in Latvia? 3) Are there differences in the self-assessment of the importance and attainability of Supervisors’ ethical competence in Latvia and if so, what they are? 3) Are there differences in the self-assessment of the importance and attainability of Supervisors’ ethical competence in Latvia between supervisors with different work experience and if so, what they are? The participants of this study were 48 supervisors with practice experience in different professional fields. Two forms were filled out online: 1) demographical data form; 2) self-assessment of the importance and attainability form. Self-assessment forms were evaluated on a 5-pont Likert scale. For data analysis the descriptive statistical methods, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used. The results showed that the supervisors’ ethical competence is evaluated as very and quite important and fully and mostly attainable. The results indicated statistically significant differences in 13 out of 16 supervisors’ ethical competence that was evaluated higher in importance than attainability

Metamodernism and Social Sciences : Scoping the Future

Funding Information: The publication of this research was funded by the Rīga Stradiņš University, Department of Health Psychology and Pedagogy internal research budget. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.At this moment, humanity is confronting several global metacrises that demand a new image of science to deal with the complex problems associated with these crises. In addition to natural sciences and humanities, social sciences can become an equally efficient resource for use in this transformation if they succeed in constructing new frameworks congruent with the new reality. The purpose of this theoretical paper in the discourse of philosophy of science is to discern the features of the social sciences within a new paradigm of metamodernism. For the first time, the authors elaborate on the new principles of metamodernist philosophy and apply them to the ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology of the social sciences. The set of six transversal principles comprises the ontological principle of paradoxical simultaneity, caused by oscillation, epistemological principles of paradoxical understanding of truth and grand narratives, as well as metaxis-based thinking and dia/polylogue, axiological negotiation between rhizomatic and hierarchical social relations and values, and methodological pluralism. The last principle showcases the coexistence and interlinkage of previous stages of metamodernism. The application of these principles to the social sciences was designed from the perspectives of a specific discipline, inter/transdisciplinarity, and instrumental level of social practice. The paper concludes with a discussion of additional avenues for the development of metamodernism in the social sciences.publishersversionPeer reviewe

SELF-ASSESSMENT OF PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCY OF SUPERVISORS OF LATVIA

In 2019, a new Professional Standard of Supervisor of Latvia was developed and adopted, defining and describing the supervisor's professional competencies. It was necessary to find out whether supervisors who have been certified over the past five years and come from a different background recognize the importance of defined competencies. The aim of this study was to identify the self-assessment of the importance and attainability of professional competence of certified supervisors of Latvia. Two stage mixed method research design was used: (1) qualitative document analysis and expert study in order to develop a questionnaire; (2) quantitative online survey of professional competence of certified supervisors. Supervisors evaluated the importance and attainability of 34 professional competencies on a 5-point Likert scale. For data analysis the descriptive statistical methods, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used. The study indicated high importance of professional competence (22 of 34 competences as very important and 12 as rather important). The indicators of the attainability of professional competence varied from average to fully attainable, but most (28 of 34 competences) were estimated as mostly attainable. The results showed statistically significant differences between the evaluations of importance and attainability in 17 professional competences. The least important and the least attainable competence was “Ability to carry out research activities for the development of supervision theory and methods”. This study shows that Latvian certified supervisors consider most of defined professional competencies as very important and mostly attainable.

SELF-ASSESSMENT OF LATVIAN SUPERVISORS’ DIGITAL COMPETENCE

The importance of digital competence (Dc) is significantly increasing as global digital transformation continue rapidly to develop and digital solutions are extensively integrating into all areas.  As a result, Dc is included as one of eight core competences for lifelong learning. The present study aimed to find out the self-assessment of the importance (an assessment of how significant and necessary a certain value is) and attainability (an assessment of how attainable a certain value is) of Latvian supervisors’ Dc. Digital competence self-assessment questionary is theoretically based on a major European Union research project, DigComp 2.1 and identifies the key components of Dc in 5 areas, namely, information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety and problem solving. 56 respondents participated in the online survey during October 2021. The importance and attainability indicators of Dc statements were evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale. The study indicated rather high importance of Dc (3 of 51 statements were evaluated as very important, 43 as rather important and 5 as moderately important). The indicators of the attainability of Dc varied from rather unattainable to rather attainable (26 of 51 statements were evaluated as rather attainable, 21 as average attainable and 4 as rather unattainable). Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated statistically significant differences in 34 out of 51 statements of Dc that was evaluated higher in importance than attainability. The study results show high level of supervisors’ awareness of the digital competence importance. The obtained attainability results allowed to highlight the need for the further digital competence improvement for the supervisors, especially at such digital competence areas as safety and problem solving.

EMOTION REGULATION DIFFICULTIES IN DEPRESSION

Patients diagnosed with depression often experience difficulty in regulating their emotions due to non-adaptive regulatory strategies (e.g., avoidance, suppression, rumination). Adaptive emotion regulation skills (e.g., awareness, acceptance, self-support) can be trained and improved through psychological treatment. The objective of this study was to identify differences in emotion regulation skills between a clinical group of patients with depression (n=56) and a non-clinical group (n=56), adults without symptoms of depression. Methods. The study was based on socio-demographic survey and three self-report questionnaires adapted for use in Latvia: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz Roemer, 2004), Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ; Berking Znoj, 2008) and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross John, 2003). Results. Compared to the non-clinical group, the clinical group presented significantly decreased scores in several scales of ERSQ: Understanding, Self-support, Tolerance, Acceptance, Modification (p.001) and increased scores in four scales of DERS: Lack of emotional clarity, Difficulty engaging in goal-directed behaviour, Non-acceptance of emotional responses and Limited access to effective emotion regulation strategies (p.001). Conclusions. This study helps to identify the main emotion regulation difficulties for depression patients in Latvia – the ability to understand, accept, tolerate and modify emotions. 

Relations Between Anomia and Values of the Inhabitants of the Baltic States

The purpose of this study was to determine the structure of anomia among the inhabitants of the Baltic states and to investigate whether there are relations between different dimensions of anomia and personal values. The secondary data from the European Values Study (EVS, 2008) were used. The sample consisted of the inhabitants of Latvia (n = 1506), Lithuania (n = 1500), and Estonia (n = 1518). For measurement of anomia and values questions from the original questionnaire of the EVS were used. In this study five components of anomia were found, namely, local social distrust, local social isolation, normlessness, global social distrust, and global social isolation. Numerous relations between anomia and values were found. It was found that there are the following common, similar patterns of relations between anomia and values of the inhabitants of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia: (1) the importance of politics and religion is negatively associated with all dimensions of anomia (with one exception – there is no found the significant relation between the importance of religion and global social distrust in Latvia); (2) the importance of work and family is negatively associated with normlessness; (3) the importance of friends and acquaintances is negatively associated with global social distrust. Estonia was the only country for which it was found that the value of friends and acquaintances was negatively associated with global social isolation and the value of leisure time was negatively associated with local and global social distrust. The value of leisure time was positively associated with local social isolation in Lithuania and with normlessness in Latvia.publishersversionPeer reviewe

INSTRUMENTS FOR MEASURING THE PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP PROVIDERS: RAPID LITERATURE REVIEW

The concept of professional identity is widely described, indicating that it is dynamic and variable, as it simultaneously includes the development and formation of professional identity in the dimensions of time and content. Professional identity manifests in various forms and it is measured by a variety of measurement tools.Objective: to define what measurement tools are used to determine the professional identity of psychological help providers and to investigate the content of professional identity. Method: a rapid literature review. A comprehensive search of scientific databases Access Medicine, Clinical Key, EBSCO e-books, Proquest Ebook Central, BMJ Journals, EBSCO host, ProQuest, SAGE journals, Wiley Online Library, Science Direct, DynaMed Plus and Cochrane Library was conducted in March, 2020 by two independent researchers therefore assuring data triangulation. Database research included the keywords “professional identity”, “scale”, “measure”, with the Boolean operator “AND” adding professions: “art therapist”, “dance and movement therapist”, “drama therapist”, “music therapist”, “psychologist”, “psychiatrist”, “psychotherapist”, “nurse”, “social worker”, and additional selection criteria - cross-sectional design studies about the measure of professional identity of different groups of psychological help providers and students, between 2009 and 2019, with full English text available. Data analysis method was narrative synthesis, which consists of three sequential steps: description of studies in logical categories, analysis of data from each of the derived categories, and synthesized conclusions for all included studies. 366 studies were identified of which 21 were included in the study.Results: as a result, 15 categories including 50 content items were identified as the measurement aspects of professional identity

Sex and Age Differences in Levels of Anomia of Latvian Inhabitants

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