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The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting stay-at-home orders created a need for assessing elementary, middle, and high school students' experienced stressors associated with the coronavirus situation. In collaboration with a school district wanting information about their students' well-being during the pandemic school shut-down, the current study investigated students' reported types and levels of COVID-19 stressors. Data were collected from 2,738 students from fourth through 12th grade in a suburban Midwestern school district in the United States following school closure related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data on stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic were gathered from students via an online survey using Qualtrics. The students rated 20 items (e.g., not motivated to do schoolwork, not going to my school) on stress level. Stressor categories found included Social Isolation, Schoolwork Stress, Fear of COVID-19 Illness, and Missing Events. Middle and high school students reported higher schoolwork stress than did elementary students, and overall, females had higher reported stress on several stressors. The current study has implications for school psychologists including utilizing a tool to assess pandemic-related stressors, using prepandemic normative data in schools with caution, promoting education about COVID-19 to reduce fear, supporting teachers regarding addressing schoolwork stress experienced by students, and teaching students anxiety-reducing strategies such as mindfulness or coping strategies.

In the spring of 2020, US schools closed to in-person teaching and sports were cancelled to control the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is critical to understand the mental and physical health of adolescent athletes during this time. To describe the health of athletes during COVID-19-related school closures and sport cancellations. Cross-sectional study. A national sample recruited via social media. A total of 13 002 US adolescent athletes (age = 16.3 ± 1.2 years, females = 52.9%, males = 47.0%) completed an anonymous online survey. Demographic information collected was sex, grade, sport(s) played, and zip code. Assessments used were the General Anxiety Disorder 7-Item for anxiety, Patient Health Questionnaire 9-Item for depression, the Pediatric Functional Activity Brief Scale for physical activity, and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 for quality of life. Mental health, physical activity, and health-related quality-of-life variables were compared among sex, grade, sport(s) played, and poverty level using means and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) from the survey-weighted analysis of variance. Females reported a higher prevalence of moderate to severe anxiety symptoms (females = 43.7% versus males = 28.2%). The Pediatric Functional Activity Brief Scale score was highest (best) for grade 9 (mean = 14.5, 95% CI = 14.0, 15.0) and lowest for grade 11 (mean = 10.9, 95% CI = 10.5, 11.3). The prevalence of depression symptoms was highest in team sport (74.1%) and lowest in individual sport (64.9%) participants. The total Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory score was lowest (worst) for athletes from counties with the highest poverty levels (high: mean = 74.5, 95% CI = 73.7, 75.3; middle: mean = 78.9, 95% CI = 78.0, 79.8; and low: mean = 78.3, 95% CI = 77.4, 79.1). The health of US adolescents during the COVID-19-related school closures and sport cancellations varied to differing degrees depending on sex, grade level, type of sport participation, and level of poverty. Health policy experts should consider these findings in the future when creating and implementing policies to improve the health of adolescents in the United States.

The study aimed to examine the influence of ChatGPT on the academic performance and learning perception of eleventh-grade students in a United Arab Emirates school in the field of electronic magnetism. The participants were randomly divided into two groups: an experimental group granted access to ChatGPT and a control group without access to ChatGPT. The research spanned four weeks, during which the experimental group was instructed to utilize ChatGPT whenever they required assistance with the course content. The study employed a mixed-methods design, collecting both quantitative and qualitative data to assess the impact of ChatGPT on student learning and perception. Quantitative data was gathered through pre-/post-test surveys, measuring participants’ course achievement and perception of learning with ChatGPT. Qualitative data was collected via open-ended survey questions, allowing participants to provide feedback and suggestions for improvement. The study revealed that ChatGPT had a positive influence on student achievement and perception of learning in the field of electronic magnetism. The experimental group displayed significant enhancements in their scores on the post-test measuring the impact of ChatGPT on student achievement, exhibiting higher mean scores across all subscales compared to the control group. Furthermore, both male and female participants acknowledged ChatGPT as a valuable learning tool, offering suggestions for enhancing its functionality. The study suggests that ChatGPT is an effective tool for enhancing student learning and achievement in specific academic domains. However, further research is needed to explore its generalizability to other contexts and disciplines, as well as to address potential challenges and limitations of ChatGPT use in education.

A dynamic cascade model of development of serious adolescent violence was proposed and tested through prospective inquiry with 754 children (50% male; 43% African American) from 27 schools at 4 geographic sites followed annually from kindergarten through Grade 11 (ages 5 — 18). Self, parent, teacher, peer, observer, and administrative reports provided data. Partial least squares analyses revealed a cascade of prediction and mediation: An early social context of disadvantage predicts harsh — inconsistent parenting, which predicts social and cognitive deficits, which predicts conduct problem behavior, which predicts elementary school social and academic failure, which predicts parental withdrawal from supervision and monitoring, which predicts deviant peer associations, which ultimately predicts adolescent violence. Findings suggest targets for in-depth inquiry and preventive intervention.

The authors intended to (a) identify the association between gender or grade level and teachers' homework (HW) feedback and (b) examine the relationship between teachers' HW feedback, HW-related behaviors (e.g., amount of HW completed), and academic achievement. Four hundred fifty-four students (Grades 5-12) participated in this study. The results showed that (a) at higher grade levels, there is a lower perceived amount of teachers' HW feedback; (b) teachers' HW feedback as perceived by students is positively and significantly related to the amount of HW completed and to the perceived quality of HW time management but not to the amount of time spent on HW; (c) the amount of HW completed and the perceived quality of HW time management positively and significantly predict academic achievement; and (d) teachers' HW feedback as perceived by students has an indirect relationship with students' academic achievement by its effect on students' HW-related behaviors.

Parental involvement in education remains important for facilitating positive youth development. This study conceptualized parental involvement as a multidimensional construct—including school-based involvement, home-based involvement, and academic socialization—and examined the effects of different types of parental involvement in 10th grade on student achievement and depression in 11th grade (approximately ages 15–17 years). In addition, this study tested whether parental involvement influenced adolescent outcomes by increasing their academic engagement in school. A total of 1,056 adolescents participated in the study (51% males; 53% European American, 40% African American, and 7% other). Parental involvement was found to improve academic and emotional functioning among adolescents. In addition, parental involvement predicted adolescent academic success and mental health both directly and indirectly through behavioral and emotional engagement.

Interest in school science and technology (S&T) remains an important issue as it is linked to achievement and the intention to pursue studies or careers in S&T. Around the world, a number of studies have shown that interest in S&T declines with school years. However, some divergences from the general trend have been demonstrated in certain contexts, sub-periods, or for closely related subconstructs. We administered 2,628 questionnaires to students in grades 5 through 11 in the province of Québec, Canada. The questionnaire explored many factors (including out-of-school and school-related preferences, difficulty, importance, frequency), allowing us to track these closely related variables for a seven-year period. Among others, the results show a general degradation in-school S&T factors but an improvement in out-of-school S&T variables and of interest in S&T studies and careers. S&T is perceived as increasingly difficult and valuable compared with all other subject matters taken one-on-one. Some shorter fluctuations are analysed and interpreted in comparison with the evolution of certain teaching practices.

Extensive literature documents that adverse childhood experiences increase risk for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicide behaviors among adolescents. However, few studies have examined patterns of co-occurring family based adversities, whether distinct patterns of adversity are differentially associated with NSSI and suicide behaviors, and if social support can offset the impact of adversity for these behaviors. This study used a statewide school-based sample that was 50.1% female, 71% non-Hispanic White, and evenly divided by grade (9th grade N = 39,682; 11th grade N = 33,966). Latent class analysis identified three mutually exclusive, homogeneous subgroups of co-occurring familial adversities; low or no family based adversity, parental dysfunction but low maltreatment, and parental dysfunction plus maltreatment. The relationships between membership in the identified subgroups and past year NSSI, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempt were assessed separately for 9th graders (average age = 14) and 11th graders (average age = 17). Although membership in the parent dysfunction plus maltreatment class was associated with the highest odds of NSSI, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempt, membership in either class of familial adversity elevated risk for these behaviors compared to membership in the low or no adversity class. Whether the protective effects of perceived peer and teacher social support moderated these associations and varied across age groups was also explored. The findings suggest that peer and teacher social support can promote positive outcomes even for youth living in stressful family conditions and that the protective effects of social support increase as the number of sources of support expands.

This article introduces novel sensitivity-analysis procedures for investigating and reducing the bias that mischievous responders (i.e., youths who provide extreme, and potentially untruthful, responses to multiple questions) often introduce in adolescent disparity estimates based on data from self-administered questionnaires (SAQs). Mischievous responders affect a wide range of disparity estimates, including those between adoptees and nonadoptees, sexual minorities and nonminorities, and individuals with and without disabilities. Thus, the procedures introduced here have broad relevance to research and can be widely, and easily, implemented. The sensitivity-analysis procedures are illustrated with SAQ data from youths in Grades 9–12 (N = 11,829) to examine between-group disparities based on sexual identity, gender identity, and physical disability. Sensitivity analyses revealed that each disparity estimated with these data was extremely sensitive to the presence of potentially mischievous responders. Patterns were similar across multiple approaches to dealing with mischievous responders, across various outcomes, and across different between-group comparisons. Mischievous responders are ubiquitous in adolescent research using SAQs and can, even in small numbers, lead to inaccurate conclusions that substantively affect research, policy, and public discourse regarding a variety of disparities. This article calls attention to this widespread problem and provides practical suggestions for assessing it, even when data are already collected.