In the spring of 2020, schools across the globe closed their doors to decrease the spread of the viral outbreak during the COVID-19 pandemic. This physical closure led to a rapid shift to remote learning which placed more responsibility for learning on parents and guardians. As one of the major stakeholders in the education process, experiences of parents with their children during remote learning are worth examining to inform future policy decision making. This study aimed to investigate parents' experiences and struggles during school closure using an online survey. Thematic coding was conducted to analyze parental responses regarding their greatest educational struggle experienced during the COVID school closure. The results indicate parents agreed with the school closure policy and were generally satisfied with the level of support provided by school districts whilst describing some areas of struggle. Parents described having difficulties with balancing responsibilities, learner motivation, accessibility, and learning outcomes. The results of the study suggest some important implications and recommendations for educators and policymakers.

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The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between psychological symptoms, creativity, and loneliness among gifted middle school students and to analyze gender difference in psychological symptoms. The study used a correlational design, consisting of 91 gifted middle school students. The Brief Symptom Inventory, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale, and the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking were used as data-collection instruments. The results showed that there was no significant difference between gifted female and male students in the Brief Symptom Inventory total score and subscales except in the depression subscale. In addition, the Brief Symptom Inventory including subscales was significantly and positively correlated with the UCLA Loneliness Scale. There was no significant correlation between the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking and the other scales. Loneliness was found to be a significant predictor of psychological symptoms. The results of this study suggest that loneliness is a major factor for the psychological well-being of gifted students.

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Discriminant validity has been a major concern regarding the indices of divergent thinking (DT). The present study used a meta-analytic approach to understand the nature of the problem by synthesizing the research between 2009 to 2019. Three data sets obtained from 242 different studies were analyzed by adopting a multilevel modeling approach, each consisting of one of the paired correlations between fluency, flexibility, and originality. Overall, the correlation of fluency is stronger with flexibility (r = .79, k = 247, m = 178, N = 46,933) than originality (r = .62, k = 465, m = 250, N = 58,656), showing lower discriminant validity with the former compared with the latter. This is the case even when the traditional scoring methods of flexibility (r = .81, k = 228, m = 171, N = 45,991) and originality (rs = .66 and .71, ks = 60 and 102, ms = 49 and 66, Ns = 10,514 and 10,535, respectively) were used. Among the three pairs of correlations, the flexibility-originality pair had the lowest correlation (r = .56, k = 250, m = 161, N = 41,251). Moderator analyses indicated that the averaging approach to aggregation and mixed task modality (i.e., the use of both verbal and figural DT tasks) are useful strategies to improve the discriminant validity of fluency with both flexibility and originality. Specific scoring techniques, such as semantic distance and inverse proportional scoring, improved discriminant validity on originality, and the use of multiple items undermined discriminant validity for flexibility.

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