Abstract"Students' engagement in school" is regarded in the literature as a current and valued construct despite the lack of empirical studies on its relationship with specific family variables. The present research aimed to survey studies on the correlation between students' engagement in school and family contexts, specifically in terms of the following variables: perceived parental support, socioeconomic and sociocultural levels, perceived rights, and parental educational styles. In order to describe the state of the art of student's "engagement in school" and "family variables", a narrative review was conducted. The studies reviewed highlight the role of family as a context with significance in student's engagement in school. However, further research is needed to deepen the knowledge of this topic considering potential mediator variables, either personal or school variables. It was also found the need for a psychosocial intervention aimed at providing support for the students coming from adverse family contexts who exhibit low level of engagement associated with poor academic achievement and a higher probability of dropping out.

The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) is a brief measure designed to capture individuals’ perceptions of the support received from their social networks. It has been translated into several languages and adapted for various cultural contexts. The aim of this study was to evaluate psychometric properties of the Romanian version of the MSPSS, using a sample of young elite athletes. To assess its validity and reliability, 282 Romanian elite athletes (176 males, 106 females; 19 – 25 years old) completed the MSPSS together with questionnaires measuring life satisfaction, negative emotional disposition, and perceived stress. A confirmatory factor analysis underpinned a 12-item three-factor correlated model that was invariant over gender. Cronbach’s alpha and Raykov’s composite reliability coefficients together with average variance extracted showed adequate values for each factor. Correlational analysis displayed that three sources of social support positively correlated with life satisfaction and negative emotional disposition and negatively correlated with perceived stress. Altogether, the MSPSS is a valid and reliable short measure for Romanian elite athletes to explore perceived social support from their family, friends, or significant others.

The McMaster Family Assessment Device has been designed to capture seven key dimensions of family functioning. It allows the assessment of problem solving, communication, roles, affective involvement, affective responsiveness, behavioral control, and general functioning of a family. This paper reports some psychometric properties of a 35-item short version of the Family Assessment Device. Based on the responses given by 647 Romanian adolescents to the original 53-item version and the corrected item-total correlations ≥ 0.30, between four and seven items were retained for each scale of the Family Assessment Device. A hypothetical measurement model with seven first-order latent factors fitted satisfactorily to the data. An alternative model with one second-order latent factor also provided satisfactory fit with the data. Internal consistencies were good for the General Functioning, Affective Involvement, Affective Responsiveness, and Behavioral Control, and satisfactory for the Problem Solving, Communication, and Roles scales. For the short Family Assessment Device, test-retest reliabilities ranged between 0.61 and 0.84 (N = 149). Empirical evidence for construct validity is also reported. Scales from the short version of the Family Assessment Device showed positive correlations with perceived social support from family and satisfaction with family. The findings of our study support the use of the 35-item version of the Family Assessment Device to assess the overall functioning of Romanian adolescents' families.

Our study aims to identify students’ attitudes towards the use of mobile technologies (MT) during learning activities in higher education. Data were collected using the Mobile Technologies Questionnaire/MTQ, a ten-item brief questionnaire that was designed to determine attitudes towards the use of mobile technologies in the learning process among university students and academic staff. The MTQ was completed by 575 students from a state university in the northeastern region of Romania. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed two latent factors: MT facilities for study resources and communication and MT facilities for learning. Along with general analysis of the statistical indicators regarding the attitude towards the use of MT, the relationships between the use of MT and five socio-demographic variables (gender, age, place of residence, year of study, academic status and study program) were analyzed. Comparative data showed some statistically significant differences but with small or modest effect sizes, depending on age, year of study, place of residence, academic status and the study program in which the students were enrolled. This study provides additional support for the construct validity of a brief tool that was designed to measure students’ attitudes towards the use of MT during learning activities carried out in higher education.

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Abstract:The common dictionary definition of violence states that this term encompasses the exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse someone else. The inclusion of "abuse" in the definition is important, because it opens up the issues of force being used to induce negative psychological states and to violate basic human dignity and rights. One type of violence that has received increased attention in recent years is family violence, a deviant or delinquent behavior for which statistics are difficult to compile because it is so heavily underreported. The issue of family violence is an important area of public, political, and academic concern that goes to the heart of the institution of the family and marriage. At the individual level, it involves personal negative attitudes and aggressive behaviors as well as physical and emotional prejudices. There are a number of well-documented predictive factors of family violence, most of them psychological. Several forms of the family violencebased victimization have been described. Direct (as victim) or indirect (as eyewitness) exposure to family violence can have a significant psychological impact on children and adults during their development. For example, infants, school-age children and adolescents who witness violence in their homes are more vulnerable to excessive irritability, immature behaviors, sleep disturbances, emotional distress, fears of being alone, and developmental regression. This paper briefly analyses the causes, types and consequences of family violence.

Examination stress and test anxiety are pervasive problems in the modern society. Test anxiety generally leads to a gradual decrease of cognitive performance and undermines academic achievement of students of all ages. Therefore, the early identification of test anxiety is important because it can result in a better prognosis to prevent recurrent difficulties. This paper summarizes the main results of a psychometric study aimed to develop norms for the Test Anxiety Asssessment Inventory-Parallel Form/IAT-III (Robu, 2009b) in a sample of Romanian middle school students. Participants were 291 students from 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. A hypothetical metric model of the IAT-III was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. In addition, internal consistency was computed. Descriptive characteristics that justify the chosen norming system were also presented in the paper. Finally, normative data that can be useful to assess test anxiety among middle school students were reported.

Since the 2000s, video games have been flourishing, along with acquisitions in the field of information and communications technology. Attraction for video games is a phenomenon that has grown to worrying extents, not only among children, adolescents and young people, but also the adult population. A significant part of the most popular online games have explicit violent content, whereas others include violence in subliminal forms. The results of meta-analyses suggest that violent video games tend to increase levels for cognitive, emotional and aggressive behaviors, as well as physiological excitability. Our paper analyses the complex issue of the attraction exerted by video games and the risks they have to the functioning and development of children, adolescents, young people and adults. Also, there are presented the findings of several studies that have dealt with the delimitation of players' profile. Some practical implications for parents and educators are also suggested.