The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shaped higher education and seen the distinct rise of e-learning as a compulsory element of the modern educational landscape. Accordingly, this study highlights the factors which have influenced how students perceive their academic performance during this emergency changeover to e-learning. The empirical analysis is performed on a sample of 10,092 higher education students from 10 countries across 4 continents during the pandemic’s first wave through an online survey. A structural equation model revealed the quality of e-learning was mainly derived from service quality, the teacher’s active role in the process of online education, and the overall system quality, while the students’ digital competencies and online interactions with their colleagues and teachers were considered to be slightly less important factors. The impact of e-learning quality on the students’ performance was strongly mediated by their satisfaction with e-learning. In general, the model gave quite consistent results across countries, gender, study fields, and levels of study. The findings provide a basis for policy recommendations to support decision-makers incorporate e-learning issues in the current and any new similar circumstances.

Epidemics and pandemics can traumatically impact the emotional wellbeing of adults, children, and adolescents in diverse ways. This impact can be reduced by applying a range of evidence-based coping strategies. Based on previous research, we created a pamphlet-based communication campaign designed to assist adults to provide support for young people confronted with emotional distress associated with the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)] and the related disease [coronavirus disease (COVID-19)] in 2020. We developed a pamphlet describing the common emotions children and adolescents report feeling in the face of disasters and the coping strategies that have proven effective in mitigating them. The target population was adults who interact with children and adolescents in both formal and informal settings. The pamphlet included basic information on this specific emergency, emotions that might be commonly experienced, and coping strategies for dealing with negative emotions. The aim of this paper is to describe the planning, development, and implementation of the campaign. First, we monitored how the media gave visibility to the campaign during the 40 days following the release of the pamphlet: it potentially reached a large audience at a national and international level through at least 216 media channels included the HEMOT ® (Helmet for EMOTions) website. Second, Google Analytics ™ data from the HEMOT ® website enabled us to examine the characteristics of the visitors to the website and the behavior of those who viewed the pamphlet. More than 6,000 visitors, most from Europe followed by the Americas, visited the website in the first 40 days after the pamphlet publication. The webpage including the pamphlet obtained over 6,200 views, most directly or via other websites. A cluster analysis suggested that the access to the webpage did not mirror the trend concerning the new cases of COVID-19 in Italy (which increased during the central phase of the campaign) or worldwide Raccanello et al.

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Little is known about interventions aimed at building children's emotional resilience to combat the psychological trauma associated with future earthquakes. However, natural disasters have potentially a highly traumatic impact on children's psychological functioning. Therefore, within the Emotional Prevention and Earthquakes in a primary school project, we developed a web application promoting earthquake-related emotional preparedness called HEMOT R (Helmet for EMOTions). We studied the role of achievement emotions as factors associated to learning using the web application, coherently with the assumptions of the control-value theory. We also took into account class level and gender. We involved 64 second and fourth graders who used a nine-level web application focused on earthquake-related knowledge, emotions, and emotion regulation. We assessed children's digital self-concept, learning at the web application (operationalized as digital text comprehension), application-related achievement emotions, and text comprehension. We analyzed the data through linear and generalized linear models, and path analyses. First, our findings documented class differences in some of the examined constructs: Pride was higher for younger compared to older children, while the digital performance was higher for older compared to younger students. Second, digital self-concept was positively linked to application-related pride and relaxation. In turn, pride, relaxation, and sadness, and also text comprehension, were linked to the digital performance. With some exceptions, these relations were in line with the assumptions of the control-value theory, extending it to a context disregarded within the current literature. This knowledge is a first step to develop further interventions fostering children's resources to promote learning related to emotional preparedness.

Natural disasters have a potential highly traumatic impact on psychological functioning. This is notably true for children, whose vulnerability depends on their level of cognitive and emotional development. Before formal schooling, children possess all the basic abilities to represent the phenomena of the world, including natural disasters. However, scarce attention has been paid to children’s representation of earthquakes, notwithstanding its relevance for risk awareness and for the efficacy of prevention programs. We examined children’s representation of earthquakes using different methodologies. One hundred and twenty-eight second- and fourth-graders completed a written definition task and an online recognition task, analyzed through the Rasch model. Findings from both tasks indicated that, in children’s representation, natural elements such as geological ones were the most salient, followed by man-made elements, and then by person-related elements. Older children revealed a more complex representation of earthquakes, and this was detected through the online recognition task. The results are discussed taking into account their theoretical and applied relevance. Beyond advancing knowledge of the development of the representation of earthquakes, they also inform on strengths and limitations of different methodologies. Both aspects are key resources to develop prevention programs for fostering preparedness to natural disasters and emotional prevention.