Understanding the Role of Academic Self-Efficacy, Social Support, and Anxiety in University Students’ Academic Resilience
academic reselience, self-efficacy, social support, anxiety, university students, multiple linear regression
Academic resilience can refer to a student’s response when they are faced with academic hinderances, such as lower than expected grades. Those with a high ability to bounce back from hinderances have previously been shown to perform well during exams and have more positive mental health outcomes. Whilst a number of research studies have attempted to explain the academic resilience of primary and secondary school students, the factors that underpin university students’ academic resilience remain unclear. Therefore, the present study attempts to investigate the extent to which both protective and risk factors underpin university students’ academic resilience. The variables explored include academic self-efficacy; social support; and anxiety. Participants (N = 246) were all university students in the United Kingdom and they completed four self-report measures online via Qualtrics. In line with the hypotheses, a series of zero-order correlations showed a negative association between anxiety and academic resilience, while both academic self-efficacy and social support positively correlated with academic resilience. A multiple linear regression showed that the three predictor variables significantly predicted academic resilience and accounted for 41% of the variance. The findings lend support to a number of other recent studies that have explored characteristics of students’ resilience. Furthermore, the current study applied a context-specific resilience and despite the use of just three predictor variables, the most variance was explained in the present study. Whilst the study does have useful directions for both educators and future research, the use of self-report scales to measure a range of psychological concepts, that individuals tend to see themselves in a favourable manner in, does limit the study’s validity.
Method Participants The sample consisted of 246 participants who were all students at universities in the U.K. After the exclusion of incomplete responses (N = 5); invalid responses to demographic questions (N = 1); and invalid ratings on scales (N = 7), the final sample consisted of 233 participants. There was 165 females and 68 males with ages ranging from 17 to 52 and the mean age was 24.3 years (SD = 4.8). Participants were primarily recruited through Facebook dissertation exchange groups and online participant recruiting software SONA was also used, thus a simple random sample was employed. To ensure the desired number of participants was reached, the chance to opt-in to a raffle draw for five £10 Amazon vouchers was offered to participants. Measures Academic Resilience. Consisting of 30 items and a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree), the Academic Resilience Scale (ARS-30; Cassidy, 2016) was used to measure academic resilience. On this measure, individuals read a short vignette and were asked to imagine themselves in the situation described. The vignette details how a student has recently received a number of poor grades and one fail and has subsequently received critical feedback. The items are presented as statements and these are grouped into three sub-scales (i.e., perseverance, reflecting and adaptive help-seeking, and negative affect), and consist of both positively (e.g., I would try to think of new solutions) and negatively phrased statements (e.g., I would just give up). A summed score of the three sub-scales was used as a measure of academic resilience in the present study and the scores can range from 30 to 150, with a high score reflecting a highly academically resilient individual. Academic Self-Efficacy. Owen and Froman’s (1988) College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (CASES) was used to measure academic self-efficacy. This measure comprises of 33 items and individuals used a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (very little) to 5 (quite a lot), to indicate how confident they feel when engaging in a range of behaviours at university (e.g., challenging a lecturer’s opinion in class). As this measure was originally intended for use with American students, certain words and phrases were altered to suit the present study’s sample who were all students in the U.K. For example, ‘professor’ became ‘lecturer’ and ‘math course’ was changed to ‘statistic module’. The scores on the CASES can range from 33 to 165, with a high score being indicative of those who are confident when completing academic tasks. Anxiety. To measure the extent to which individuals worry about their academic performance, the anxiety sub-scale from the Motivation and Engagement Scale (MES; Martin, 2020) was used. This measure consists of four statements (e.g., when exams and assignments are coming up, I worry a lot) and individuals used a seven-point Likert scale to specify how much they agree with each statement, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Scores can range from 4 to 28 and a higher score is indicative of those who tend to worry about their academic performance. Variations of this measure are available for populations in primary, secondary, and higher education from the author. Social Support. The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS; Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet & Farley, 1988) was used to measure individuals’ perceptions of their social support. This measure consists of 12 items (e.g., I can talk about my problems with my friends) and a seven-point Likert scale is used, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The items can be divided into three sources of social support (family, friends, and significant other) and scores are produced for each grouping factor. However, in the present study an overall score of perceived social support was used and scores can range from 12 to 84 – with higher scores indicating greater perceived social support. Procedure A total of four self-report measures was used in the present study and these were presented online using the Qualtrics software. Participants were initially presented with the participant information sheet and consent form – for participants’ ease, both of these were presented on the same page so that when participants were completing the consent form, they could refer to the information sheet to read what their participation would entail. On the following page, demographic questions were collated regarding the participants’ age and sex. Next, the self-report measures were completed by participants. The anxiety, academic resilience, academic self-efficacy, and social support scales were presented in a fixed order and each scale was presented on separate screens. Once participants had completed all four measures, they were directed to the debrief sheet which provided some background to the present study and also included a link to a separate survey, whereby participants could enter the raffle draw by providing their personal details. Although each scale differed in terms of the number of items used, it generally took participants between seven and ten minutes to complete the study. Design and Analysis A correlational design was employed in the present study. A series of zero-order correlations between the dependent variable and each of the predictor variables were initially carried out, followed by a multiple regression analysis. The dependent variable was academic resilience and the predictor variables include academic self-efficacy, social support, and anxiety.
RK Dissertation_August 8, 2020_07.57 inc. res reversed.csv
The Effect of Ambient Temperature on Cognitive Processing
Ambient temperature Cognitive reflection Syllogistic reasoning Logistic mixed effects modelling.
Over recent decades, climate change has caused the world to get warmer and this trend is set to continue into the future. Relationships between increased temperature and changes in human behaviour, such as increased aggression, have been identified and it is therefore important to consider the impact it may have on other aspects of behaviour. At present, there are limited amounts of research on the effect of temperature on cognitive performance. Within the framework of dual-process theories of cognition and using a Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT) and a Syllogisms Task, the current report researches whether increased ambient temperature (artificially manipulated in a temperature lab) encourages the use of System 1 (i.e. fast, unconscious) processing as opposed to System 2 (i.e. slow, deliberate) processing. The paper asks whether increased temperature leads to more heuristic answers on the CRT and more belief bias on the Syllogisms task. We observed no effect of temperature on performance on the CRT or the Syllogisms task. Similarly, we observed no effect of ambient temperature on belief bias or confidence in answers to the Syllogisms task. However, an effect of ambient temperature was found on how many heuristic responses were given to the CRT, with those in the cold condition giving more heuristic answers than those in the hot condition. We conclude that these findings do not provide support for increased temperature impairing certain aspects of cognitive performance, but also explore unexpected results and discuss potential reasons for these
Participants 65 individuals participated in this research study. Three were excluded for not meeting the pre-decided eligibility criteria of being a native English speaker aged between 18 and 65. This left 62 participants, 19 male and 43 female (Mage = 25.29 SDage = 8.83). Prior to the study, 1.61% had attained a PhD, 9.68% a Master’s degree, 40.32% a Bachelor’s degree, 33.87% A-Levels, 3.23% GSCEs, 9.68% a Certificate or Diploma and 1.61% had no qualifications. All participants completed the whole study, and none indicated awareness of the true aims of the study, thus, following pre-agreed exclusion criteria all participants were retained for analysis. Materials Cognitive Reflection Task. To test participants’ cognitive reflection, a form of the CRT (Frederick, 2005) was utilised. The CRT consists of a series of problem solving questions, with four multiple choice answers. For example, the question, ‘A bat and a ball cost £1.10 in total. The bat costs £1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?’ is presented alongside the following four options; ‘10p’, ‘5p’, ‘15p’ and ‘90p’. In this case the gut instinct is usually to respond with ‘10p’ however this is incorrect, and the correct response is, ‘5p’. Frederick’s (2005) original version of the task only consisted of three items and has since been criticised for being too short; about 44% of participants who are given the task have previously seen the questions and this leads to the inflation of their scores on subsequent testing sessions (Stieger & Reips, 2016). Consequently, both Primi, Morsanyi, Chiesi, Donati and Hamilton (2016) and Travers, Rolison and Feeney (2016) have since developed longer versions of the tasks; Primi et al.’s (2016) consisted of 6 items, whilst Travers, Rolison and Feeney’s (2016) consisted of 8. The present study combined items from both papers, taking 6 critical items from Primi et al. (2016) and 4 items, used as fillers, (adapted) from Travers, Rolison and Feeney (2016). The filler questions are included to reduce the chance of participants identifying the aims of the study. These questions differ from the critical questions in that the most obvious answer is the correct one. See Table A1 for a full list of the items used in the CRT. Syllogisms Task. In order to test participants’ syllogistic reasoning 10 Syllogisms were presented to the participant. Six critical Syllogisms (where the answer was invalid) were taken from Morley, Evans and Handley (2004) and used in the present study. Half of these Syllogisms had believable conclusions, whilst half had unbelievable ones. The believable Syllogisms, concluded with a statement that was believable in the real world (e.g. ‘Some addictive things are not cigarettes’), but remained invalid given the two premises, whilst the unbelievable ones concluded with a statement that was both unbelievable in the real world (e.g. ‘Some millionaires are not rich people’), and illogical given the two premises. The task also consisted of four filler Syllogisms. Again, half of the filler items had believable conclusions and half had unbelievable conclusions, however all of the conclusions were valid. See Table A2 for a full list of the items used in the Syllogisms task. Procedure Participants were either recruited through the University’s recruitment portal (SONA), or through individual volunteer sampling. Each testing session was pre-designated as either a hot or cold session and each session consisted of multiple testing slots which were advertised to participants. Participants were unaware of this temperature manipulation and blindly signed up to a testing slot under the pretence of completing a study which investigated behaviour in decision making tasks. As varying numbers of participants signed up to each session, the researchers updated the pre-designated condition of each session accordingly, to ensure there were the same number of participants, 31, within each condition overall. The study was conducted in a temperature control lab at Lancaster University. This room contains a temperature control panel, which was used to set the ambient temperature of the room to either 16˚C in the cold condition, or 28˚C in the hot condition. A KTJ TA318 Thermometer (with precision of 0.1˚C) was used to record the exact temperature at which each participant completed the study. In the cold condition, the temperature ranged from 15.5˚C to 16.9˚C (M = 16.14) and in the hot condition the temperature ranged from 27.8˚C to 29.8˚C (M = 28.56). The room consisted of five workstations, separated by partitions, meaning it was possible to test up to five participants at once. Each participant completed the study independently at one of the workstations, which contained a computer monitor, keyboard and mouse, stood on an individual sized table. When participants arrived at the study, they were seated at an adjustable chair facing the computer, within easy reach of the keyboard and mouse. If participants commented on the temperature of the room, the researcher responded with short statements of agreement, such as ‘yes, it is isn’t it’, but did not elaborate further to ensure that researcher influence was kept to a minimum. Each participant was given time to read the information sheet and provide consent (both digitally presented). Participants then entered demographic information such as their age, nationality and education level. Following this, the main section of the study began, and participants completed both the CRT and the Syllogisms task along with two other short tasks administered on behalf of a separate researcher. These two other tasks were not part of this research study. As part of the Syllogisms task, participants were asked to rate how confident they were in their response to each item, on a sliding scale from 0 (completely unconfident) to 100 (extremely confident). The order in which all four tasks were presented was randomised and counterbalanced across participants to negate any potential order effects. Additionally, the order of items within a task was also randomised for the same reason. Participants were given 5 minutes to complete the CRT, as this is consistent with previous administrations of a CRT (e.g. Primi, et al., 2016) and 30 seconds to complete each of the items on the Syllogisms task. These time limits were utilised to encourage participants to keep focus and to mimic the kind of time pressure associated with examinations. After these tasks, participants were asked 3 debriefing questions (see Appendix B) to assess whether they had identified the aims of the study. Answers to these questions were reviewed independently by two members of the research team and if participants demonstrated a link between temperature and cognitive performance their data would have been removed from the analysis, as their results may have been influenced by their awareness. Both assessors agreed that there was no cause to remove any participant on this basis. Finally, participants provided information about how comfortable they felt in the lab, on a 6-point scale, and then also how hot or cold they feel on average, on a sliding scale from -50 (extremely cold) to +50 (extremely hot). This second measure was taken to account for individual differences, as many people generally feel warmer or colder for reasons such as illness or medical condition, and this may influence how hot or cold they felt in the lab. At the end of the study participants were offered the chance to enter a prize draw to win one of twelve £10 Amazon vouchers. This rumination method was chosen above the option of paying every participant, to mimic the uncertainty of reward which is common in many settings such as examinations. Pre-registration This project was verified and registered on the Open Science Framework on the 21st May 2018 (https://osf.io/p6879/). The present study deviated from the initial plans in the followings ways. Firstly, the initial plan to recruit 120 participants proved unachievable within the time constraints and therefore 62 participants were tested. Secondly, logistic mixed effects models were used for most analyses instead of linear mixed effects models. This was a consequence of reformatting the data to be able to take into account the random effect of items on each task, resulting in the dependent variable being binary. Thirdly, the random effect of items and participants were not always included. This was because models with and without these factors were compared and random factors were only included if they helped the model to better fit the variation in the data. Finally, the initial plan was to investigate the effect of mood as an exploratory factor. The data on mood was collected, however further investigation was not possible due to project constraints. Analyses Strategy The aim of this paper was to determine whether increased temperature impairs cognitive performance as measured by a CRT and Syllogisms task. To facilitate assessment of results, the data was analysed using R (R Core Team, 2017). The numerical variables used as predictors in analysis were then scaled using the ‘scale’ function from the ‘standardization’ package (Eager, 2017). To conduct the desired analysis, the data was transformed from wide to long format using the ‘gather’ function from the ‘tidyr’ package (Wickham & Henry, 2018). To assess whether the data collected supported the hypotheses and therefore the extent to which temperature condition predicted test performance, several logistic mixed effects (LME) models were computed, using the ‘glmer’ function from the ‘lme4’ package (Bates, Maechler, Bolker & Walker, 2015). This was the most appropriate method of analysis to use as both the dependent and key independent variables were binary and it allowed the random effects of participants’ individual differences, as well as the random effect of items within each task, to be taken into account, which is necessary in a repeated measures design. The models contained the fixed effects of condition (Hot vs. Cold), baseline temperature and comfort level and the interaction effects of condition with comfort level and with baseline temperature. They also included the random effects of participants and/or items, depending on which random factors (if any) were found to aid the model to fit the variation in data best. To evaluate whether the inclusion of the random effects was required in each model, comparisons were made between the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) of the final model and identical models with (a) the random effects removed, (b) only the random effect of items, and (c) only the random effect of participants, see Table C1. When reporting logistic models, we give estimated coefficients (ß), standard errors (SE), z-values (z) and p-values (p) of predicting variables. We also report the conditional R2 value (R2_c) for each model; a ratio which gives the variance explained by the fixed and random effects as a proportion of the total variance explained by the fixed effects, random effects and residuals. This is calculated using the ‘r.squaredGLMM’ function of the ‘MuMIn’ package (Barton, 2018). Where significant effects are found, estimated log odds are transformed into odds ratios by exponentiating the coefficients, to aid the interpretation of the effect. Cognitive Reflection Task. To investigate whether there was a difference in performance on the CRT between individuals in the hot condition and individuals in the cold condition, the data was coded such that a correct answer was given the value of ‘1’ whilst incorrect answers were given the value of ‘0’. To address whether there was a difference in the number of heuristic responses given on the CRT, the data was recoded (‘1’ = Heuristic response, ‘0’ = Other response). Syllogisms Task. To investigate whether there was a difference in performance on the Syllogisms task between individuals in the hot condition and individuals in the cold condition, the data was coded such that a correct answer (‘Invalid’) to a critical item was given the value of ‘1’ whilst incorrect answers (‘Valid’) were given the value of ‘0’. In order to investigate whether participants in the hot condition showed more belief bias than those in the cold condition, we extracted the three invalid believable Syllogisms and the two valid unbelievable Syllogisms. The data was recoded such that when a ‘valid’ answer was given to an invalid but believable syllogism or when an ’invalid’ answer was given to a valid but unbelievable syllogism, responses were given a value of ‘1’, to signify belief bias. Other responses were given a value of ‘0’. To analyse the ratings of confidence in participants’ answers to the Syllogisms task a linear mixed effects models was used, as the dependent variable was continuous. Exploratory Analysis. Data collection was conducted during the summer months, partly whilst Britain was experiencing a period of unusually hot weather. It is therefore possible that participants may not have been fully affected by the temperature manipulation. For example, those in the cold condition may have still suffered the negative effects of heat as a result of spending time prior to the study, outside in the heat. To address this, actual environmental temperature at a local weather station, for the times of participation were taken from ‘WeatherOnline.co.uk’ and added to the data set. The LME models included the outside temperature along with condition and the interaction between outside temperature and temperature condition as the fixed factors, and the random effects of items and participants.
Figurative language comprehension and links to autistic traits
figurative language comprehension emotions autism
Figurative language is used quite frequently in both speech and writing, as to express our creative and abstract thoughts. Traditionally, it was thought that metaphors are ornamental in nature, as well as they are used rarely compared to literal language. However, today’s research suggests that people use metaphors in everyday communication. Moreover, people seem to pay more attention to sentences which are emotionally evocative, rather than neutral ones. In addition, it has been extensively reported that socio-communicative skills might be related to the successful comprehension. Special populations, such as autistic individuals, often struggle with both figurative language comprehension and acknowledging properly other people’s emotions. However, no prior research has explored both different types of sentences and their content (emotional or neutral). Sixty-two participants took an online questionnaire measuring their comprehension abilities and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) test, in order to measure their socio-communicative skills. Significant results were found for both the type of sentences, and the content. No significant effect of socio-communicative skills affecting comprehension was found. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and clinical importance.
Participants Sixty-two typically developed participants (M=31, F=31) between the ages of 18 and 62 (M= 24, SD=9.32) were got involved in the study. The majority of sample were students at Lancaster University (N=51). Participants were recruited in Lancaster (United Kingdom) via SONA or email. Twenty-nine participants were paid £5 (five British pounds) for taking part in the study. The remaining participants were not re-imbursed for their time. Only the adults (minimum age of 18) who were British English native speakers could have taken part in this study. Participants were not aware of a true aim of the study. Participants were simply told that the project is about figurative language comprehension, as to avoid any possible bias. At the end of their participation, they were informed about the details and the aims of the study. The study has been approved by the ethics committee. Apparatus and materials The participants were asked to complete an online questionnaire developed with the Qualtrics survey software. Upon recruitment, participants were sent a Qualtrics link to the survey. All participants were exposed to the same stimuli but each of them got a different randomised order. Approximately ten minutes were sufficient for participants to take part in the study. Participants could start answering the questionnaire and then finish it at another point of time if needed, as their answers were automatically saved for seven days after they opened the questionnaire on their browser. No more than 10 sentences were shown per page, as to avoid fatigue. Both literal sentences and novel metaphors used as stimuli in this project were originally structured by Cardillo, Schmidt, Kranjec, and Chatterjee (2012). Their aim was to construct a design of matched metaphoric and literal sentences as to test the role of novelty and different metaphor types involved in metaphor comprehension. The authors managed to control the next ten dimensions: dimensions: length, frequency, concreteness, familiarity, naturalness, imageability, figurativeness, interpretability, valence, and valence judgment reaction time. What makes these sentences even more different than previous work is the fact that the same word was used in both literal and novel metaphors. As such, literal sentences and novel metaphors were further analysed and selected in a laboratory by Francesca (my supervisor) Citron’s students. The students selected the stimuli based on existing value of valence and imageability, so that sentences from different condition would differ in emotional valence, but not in the imageability. Conventional metaphors were structured by the same students, as well. Students created simple sentences which contained similar structure as the existing ones. Yet, it was not possible to use the same word as from literal sentences and novel metaphors, so conventional metaphors were a bit more diverged. The content of sentences was controlled in a way that half of the sentences were positive, and another half of them was neutral, so that their level of imageability would have been similar to novel metaphors and literal sentences. Finally, for the current research, the conventional metaphors were edited as to make them shorter to be more alike to both literal sentences and novel metaphors. The length was calculated and analysed statistically, for both the content and the types of sentences. There was no significant difference neither between the number of words nor the number of letters, both regarding the content and the types of sentences, p>.05. It is important to note that the current study did not replicate what Cardillo, Schmidt, Kranjec, and Chatterjee (2012) already explored since their main interest was to investigate neural processes underlying metaphor meaning. The questionnaire consisted of 120 short questions such as ‘To which extent do you understand this sentence?’ containing one type of a metaphor expression (e.g. ‘The woman dove into the pool.’). Participants were required to rate the ease of the comprehension on a scale from one (‘It does not make any sense at all.’) to five (‘It makes perfect sense.’). The questionnaire included 20 sentences of each of the following groups, which are presented in the Table 1. The Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) The AQ test was used at the end of the questionnaire. It is a self-report measure of autistic traits and presents a valuable instrument for rapid quantifying where any given individual is situated on the continuum from autism to normality (Ruzich et al., 2015). The test was constructed by Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, and Clubley (2001) since no prior instrument at that time could have measured such factor. It can be administered to adults of at least average intelligence with autism or to nonclinical controls but can also be administered to clinical control groups (e.g., individuals with depression) (Ruzich et al., 2015). The AQ consists of 50 questions assessing five different areas: social skill, attention switching, attention to detail, communication, and imagination. Thus, participants’ scores could range between 0 and 50. Approximately half the items were worded to produce a “disagree” response, and half an “agree” response. This was to avoid a response bias either way. Following this, items were randomized with respect to both the expected response from a high-scorer, and with respect to their domain (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, & Clubley, 2001). Design and procedure The dependent variable was the ease of figurative language understanding. The within-participants independent variables were type of a sentence (conventional, novel, and literal) and content (positive or neutral). Conventional metaphors represent expressions commonly used in everyday setting, whereas novel metaphors were made up for this occasion. The between-participants independent variable was the degree of autistic-like traits (either high or low). To obtain this latter variable, participants were divided into two groups based on their AQ scores. The median score was used to split them. Participants were instructed to rate their understanding of metaphors in 120 sentences. There were 20 sentences of each type × content (e.g., conventional positive) (see Appendix A). Thus, six different mean scores were calculated for each participant (conventional positive, conventional neutral, literal positive, literal neutral, novel positive, novel neutral).The Likert scale consisted of five points (1-‘It doesn’t make any sense at all’, 2-‘It doesn’t make much sense’, 3- ‘It makes some sense’, 4- ‘It makes sense’, 5-‘It makes perfect sense’). The following coding rules were applied to calculate the AQ score: “definitely agree” or “slightly agree” responses scored 1 point on items number 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 33, 35, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46. “Definitely disagree” or “slightly disagree” responses scored 1 point on items number 3, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 44, 47, 48, 49, 50 (see Appendix B). Subsequently, the AQ scores were divided in two groups based on the median score (Med = 19.5). Any results above the median threshold were categorised as high, and those below were categorised as low. Half of the sample (N = 31) scored high, while the other half (N= 31) achieved a low score. Results were analysed using a 3x2x2 mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA).
Influence of an autobiographical memory recollection on moral decision making.
The language effect emotional decision making guilt empathy pro-social behaviour
Research shows that emotional states are involved in moral reasoning and may affect people’s decision-making processes (Achar, So, Agrawal, & Duhachek, 2016). However, in recent research emotional states were shown to be easily influenced by such factors as the language type. It was found that a stimulus presented in the native language was perceived more emotionally when compared to stimuli presented in the second language (Pavlenko, 2005). This difference in emotionality was called the language effect (Puntoni, S., Langhe, & Van Osselaer, 2009). The relationship between used language (native vs. second) and emotionality level is important as it may provide potential applications in promoting beneficial decision making and consequent behaviour. Many advertising campaigns already target emotions (i.e. empathy, guilt, regret) in order to persuade people to act by their request (Lee, Andrade, Palmer, 2013). Thus the focus of this research was to analyse the relationship between emotional language processing (native vs. second language) targeting guilt, empathy levels and how they influence the consequent behaviour (i.e. helping). A multicultural sample of 126 bilingual adults, who all speak English, as a second language, completed an online questionnaire, assessing self-reported guilt, pro-social behaviour inclination, empathy and pro-social behaviour. Results showed that no significant differences were found between two language groups, indicating the lack of language effect in the present sample. Also, the results showed that high levels of self-reported guilt were significantly and positively associated with high levels of pro-social inclination and pro-social behaviour. Empathy was shown to have the same association – high levels of empathy being associated with high levels of pro-social inclination and pro-social behaviour. Lastly, further analysis found selfreported guilt as a predictor of pro-social behaviour and pro-social behaviour inclination. Overall, this study contradicted the previous research on the language effect, but at the same time, it supported the relationship between guilt and pro-social behaviour. Based on current findings and consideration of potential limitations, future research could examine the emotional language processing and its’ influence on behaviour by targeting specific two languages and presenting text adverts as an emotional stimulus in order to control more variables and to increase applicability.
Participants Participants of this study were adults, who spoke English as a second language (N= 126, 58 males, 68 females) and ranged in age from 18 to 46. Originally there were 138 participants, but 12 were excluded from further analysis due to being the native speakers of the English language and therefore not fitting the core requirement – speaking English as a second language. Also 10 participants wrote the memory in English instead of their native language, so they were diverted to the second language condition before proceeding with the analysis. The whole sample of participants was very diverse, which consisted of 25 different nationalities and 24 different native languages (see Appendix D), the top four languages being - Lithuanian (40), Spanish (14), German (13) and Polish (13). All participants signed an online consent form and answered questions about their nationality, native language, country of residence, and English language proficiency before proceeding with the questionnaire. Materials Self-reported guilt Self-reported guilt was measured by asking participants to first – recall and describe a memory in either their native or second language (i.e. English) and then to evaluate how bad they feel about their recalled actions, how guilty they feel about those actions and how much they regret them (Nelissen, 2012). All of the three questions testing self-reported guilt were assessed by 6-point forced choice Likert scale from 1 (‘Very much’) to 6 (‘Not at all’). Before the start of analyses, the scale was reverse scored from 1 (‘Not at all’) to 6 (‘Very much’) to ensure consistency with other measures. Pro-social behaviour The pro-social behaviour was measured by asking participants, how many additional questions they would be willing to answer after completing the survey. Participants were informed that they are almost done with the survey. However, it was stated, that it would be a great help to the researchers if participants could answer some additional questions from a different survey. Participants were provided with a choice to answer from zero to 10 questions, after completing the original survey. Consequently, willingness to answer the higher number of questions was perceived as an indication of higher pro-social behaviour. Pro-social behaviour inclinations Pro-social behaviour inclination was measured using a set of five moral dilemmas from the research done by Zhang, Chen, Jiang, Xu, Wang, and Zhao (2017). This measure tested how much a person is inclined to display helping behaviour. The answers to these moral dilemmas were assessed by a forced choice Likert scale from 1 (‘Strongly disagree’) to 6 (‘Strongly agree’), which was changed from the original 7-point Likert scale to ensure consistency with the measures of the present study. Also, some moral dilemmas were adapted by changing mentioned currency from yens to pounds in order to make dilemmas more relatable for mostly UK based participants. A sample of the item measuring pro-social behaviour inclination is: ‘Your school’s foundation is raising money for children from poor areas. The money will be used to buy textbooks and writing materials for the children. You have 100 pounds to spare. Are you willing to donate the money to the student?’ Empathy Empathy was assessed by using The Short 3 Factor Version of Empathy Quotient (Muncer & Ling, 2006). The empathy measure consisted of 15 items, with a choice of answers assessed by a forced choice 6 point - Likert scale from 1 (‘Strongly disagree’) to 6 (‘Strongly agree’). The original measure was provided with a 4 point Likert scale (1-strongly disagree, 2- disagree, 3- agree, 4- strongly agree), but it was changed for the current research into 6 points Likert scale in order to ensure consistency with other measures and provide a wider range of answers. Seven items (6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14) of this empathy measure were reverse scored before the start of analysis to ensure its’ reliability and validity. A sample of the item measuring empathy is: ‘I am quick to spot when someone in a group is feeling awkward or uncomfortable.’ Procedure This study received the ethical approval from the Psychology Department Research Ethics Committee of Lancaster University. The hypotheses, method and analyses of the current study were preregistered before the collection of participants has started. The whole information about the study will be available on the Open Science Framework page. Participants were recruited using social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram and in person, inviting people to complete the survey online. The survey was distributed using an anonymous link, which directed to a Qualtrics page of the survey. Participants were presented with an information sheet and the consent form and only after signing it, they were allowed to proceed with the questionnaire. At first, participants were asked to provide some general information about themselves such as age, gender, nationality, English language proficiency and country of residence. Participants were then randomly allocated to an experimental condition (native language, second language). Then they were requested to recall a memory, when they caused someone harm and felt bad about it. They were asked to recall and describe this memory either in English or in their native language at random. Participants in the native language condition were asked to recall the memory in their native language. Participants in the second language condition were asked to recall the memory in English. After providing the memory, participants were asked to evaluate how bad, guilty and regretful they feel about their recalled actions. Afterwards, they completed the measure of pro-social behavior, by indicating how many additional questions they would be willing to answer after the current survey ends. The last part of the survey consisted of five moral dilemmas assessing pro-social behaviour inclination (see Appendix A) and the measure of empathy (see Appendix B). Overall, the survey took approximately 15 minutes to complete. At the end of the survey, participants were presented with a debrief sheet, explaining the aims and the importance of this research (see Appendix C).
Academic Resilience: Adversity and traumatic experience in an educational context at university
academic resilience traumatic experience resilience nontraumatic experience stress self-esteem self-efficacy academic performance
Resilience is a process whereby individuals bounce back or beat the odds despite the significant threat that can jeopardise their development. Academic resilience pertains to student´s success after educational adversity and their coping behaviour in challenging circumstances. Recently academic resilience became a validated psychological construct, and the present study uses this Academic Resilience Scale (ARS) to measure students response to academic adversity in a university sample with three analysis. The primary analysis: estimated the Life Event Checklist (LEC) or traumatic experienced and academic resilience which is unresearched. The findings indicated that students´ who have experienced a traumatic life event(s) and stressful situations are showing slightly more academic resilience than those who have not experienced a traumatic life event and stressful situations. A second analysis: academic resilience in a relationship with the life event, brief resilience, self-esteem, self-efficacy, perceived stress, and academic performance. Both self-efficacy and brief resilience predicted academic resilience. Third analysis: same parameters from the second analysis was utilised but now in a relationship with traumatic experienced and displayed that traumatic students had a more tendency for brief resilience, self-efficacy, self-esteem but perceived more stress than nontraumatic student´s. These results show that the academic resilience could be used as an intervention in the educational environment to enhance student´s coping behaviour and facilitate them to adjust more effectively in challenging circumstances.
Participants The sample was based on an internet survey of 154 Lancaster University students from 29 different nationalities who enrolled either as an undergraduate at first year (n = 47), second year (n = 49), third year (n = 30), Master student (n = 19) or PhD student (n = 3). Subsequently, five participants were excluded because of not being a student. The final sample contained 149 participants between the ages of 18 and 52 years old (M = 21.21; SD = 3.66). Majority of participants ethnicity was 51.6% British, 10.5% Chinese, 3.3% Indian, 2,6% South Korean and 2.6% Cypriot and other nationalities were in the minority. The principal investigator was not able to obtain gender because of a technical problem. Materials Academic Resilience Scale-30 (ARS-30) ARS-30 (Cassidy, 2016), measures academic resilience and is developed to estimate university students. Participants answer 30 statements of an imaginative vignette where a comment or feedback from a tutor about a low grade on an assessment that was presented. Participants imagine themselves being in that position and their response is confined to a statement: „You have received your mark for a recent assignment, and it is a ‘fail.’ The marks for two other recent assignments were also poorer than you would want as you are aiming to get as good a degree as you can because you have clear career goals in mind and don’t want to disappoint your family. The feedback from the tutor for the assignment is quite critical, including reference to ‘lack of understanding’ and ‘poor writing and expression,’ but it also includes ways that the work could be improved. Similar comments were made by the tutors who marked your other two assignments.“ Responses were on a 5-point Likert scale 1 (very likely) to 5 (very unlikely). Items include, “ I would not accept the tutors´ feedback”; “I would just give up”; and” I would blame the tutor.” Following the guidelines provided by Cassidy (2016), 9 of the items were reverse-coded (e.g., “I would not accept tutors´ feedback”). The author of the scale report high internal consistency (Cronbach´s alpha = 0.90). The ARS-30 has a theoretical range of 30-150, with higher scores indicating greater academic resilience (Cassidy, 2016). The internal consistency of ARS-30 in the current study was (Cronbach's alpha = 0.85). Life Event Checklist-17 (LEC-17) LEC-17 (Blake, Weathers, Nagy, Kaloupek, Charney, & Keane, 1995) is a measure of traumatic experiences and stressful situations which range from single stressful life experience to aggregates across multiple incidents. Participants respond to 17 items on 5-point nominal scale 1 (happened to me) 2 (witnessed it) 3 (learned about it) 4 (not sure) and 5 (does not apply). Example of questions, “Natural disaster (for example, flood, hurricane, tornado, earthquake)”; “Assault with a weapon (for example, being shot, stabbed, threatened with a knife, gun, bomb)”; “Sudden, unexpected death of someone close to you.” The measurement is usually used in a clinical setting to assess PTSD (Gray, Litz, Hsu, & Lombardo, 2004). In the present study, the measurement is merely utilised to examine if participants have experienced traumatic and stressful situations. Other than that, internal consistency of recent studies (Bae, Kim, Koh, Kim, & Park, 2008) is (Cronbach alpha = 0.66), LEC-17 also shows external reliability from r = .44 to r = .55, suggesting significant correlation with other measures that assess traumatic experiences and stressful situations in supporting of the scale´s construct validity (Gray, Litz, Hsu, & Lombardo, 2004). The internal consistency of LEC-17 in the current study was (Cronbach´s alpha = .90). Subsequently, the life event variable was divided into two variables (1 = Traumatic and 2 = Nontraumatic). Previous studies assigned participants who scored 1 (happened to me) as only traumatic individuals and 0 was assigned if any other responses option was endorsed and recorded as nontraumatic individuals (Gray et al., 2004). In the current study, participants who responded to 1 (happened to me) and 2 (witnessed) were combined as traumatic based on the effect of witnessing a traumatic event; it can not be ruled out how intense and excessive this experiences might be (American Psychiatric Associations, 2013). On the other hand, participants who based their responses on 3 (learned about it), 4 (not sure) and 5 (does not apply) was registered as nontraumatic. Brief Resilience Scale-6 (BRS-6) The resilience of participants was assessed with the BRS-6 and participants responded to 6 items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree), on items such as “I tend to bounce back quickly after hard times”; “It does not take me long to recover from a stressful event”, and “I tend to take a long time to get over set-backs in my life.” Three items were reverse-coded (e.g., “I have a hard time making it through stressful events”) to follow the structure of prior studies. The internal consistency of (Cronbach alpha 0.80-0.91). A higher score indicating greater resilience (Smith, Dalen, Wiggins, Tooley, Christopher & Benard, 2008). The internal consistency of BRS-6 in the current study was (Cronbach´s alpha = 0.39). Rosenberg Self-Esteem-10 (RSE-10) Self-esteem was measured with RSE-10 (1965) by evaluating both positive and negative feeling about the self. Participants answer ten items on 4-point Likert scale 1 (Strongly agree) to 4 (Strongly disagree). Example of items are, “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself”; “I feel I do not have much to be proud of”; “I take a positive attitude toward myself.” Five items were reverse-coded (e.g., “At times I think I am no good at all”). Reported (Cronbach's alpha = 0.84-0.86) (Tinakon & Nahathai, 2012). A higher score indicates greater self-esteem. The internal consistency of RSE-10 in the current study was (Cronbach´s alpha = 0.87). Student Self-Efficacy-10 (SSE-10) Self-efficacy was assessed with SSE-10 which is an estimation of the student´s belief in their capabilities to carry out, organise and perform a task successfully. The previous study by (Rowbotham & Schmitz, 2013) used a different way to measure with a four-point response format 1 (Not at all true) to 4 (Exactly true). Participants in the current research respond to 10 items on 4-point Likert scale 1 (Strongly agree) to 4 (Strongly disagree). Item example, “ I am convinced that I am able to successfully learn all relevant subject content even if it is difficult”; When I try really hard, I am able to learn even the most difficult content”; “I know that I can stay motivated to participate in the course.” Reported (Cronbach´s alpha = 0.84), and external r = .70 reliability and implying that students self-efficacy correlates significantly with similar measures of self-efficacy showing construct validity (Martin & Marsh, 2006; Cassidy, 2016). Scores ranged from 10-40 with higher scores representing higher student self-efficacy (Rowbotham & Schmitz, 2013). The internal consistency of SSE-10 in the current study was (Cronbach´s alpha = 0.85). Perceived Stress Scale-14 (PSS-14) Perceived stress was evaluated with PSS-14 which is a measure of stress quite general and consequently relatively free of content specific to any sub-population group. Participants respond to 14 items on 5- point Likert scale 0 (Never) to 4 (Very often). Related items are, “In the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?”; In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and “stressed”?”; In the last month, how often have you felt that you were on top of things?”. Following the guidelines provided by Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein (1983), seven items were reverse-coded (e.g. “In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems”). Internal consistency of previous studies is between (Cronbach´s alpha = 0.70) (Lee, 2012) and (Cronbach´s alpha = 0.82) (Andreou, et al., 2011). A higher score indicates greater stress. The internal consistency of PSS-14 in the current study was (Cronbach´s alpha = 0.82). Academic Performance Academic performance derives from average grade from each participant, undergraduates at first year provided merely two marks at the second year and master students provided only part 1 mark. Both undergraduates at a second and third year offered part 1 mark and part 2 mark. These average grades were combined and used as a measure of their academic performance. Not all participants gave permission for obtaining their average grades, but hundred and three participants approved this inquiry. The undergraduate at first year with part 1 mark was (M = 62.6; SD = 10.0) and part 2 mark was (M = 71.9; SD = 2.33). The undergraduate at second year with part 1 mark with two participants was (M = 63.0; SD = 8.56 and part 2 mark (M = 63.5; SD = 9.42). The undergraduate at third year with part 1 mark was (M = 62.6; SD = 6.41) and part 2 mark (M = 63.7; SD = 7.05). Masters mark with merely part 1 mark (M = 68.7; SD = 5.41). The combination of these marks are measured as Academic Performance (See Table 1.). Cronbach alpha threshold Each questionnaire met Cronbach alpha level or internal consistency where the criterion is at .70 or above (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994), apart from Brief Resilience which showed (Cronbach´s alpha = 0.39), even though will not be excluded. Procedure The methodology was pre-registered before data collection (see Appendix 1). After a review and approval from Lancaster University´s Psychology Department´s Research Ethics committee, the study commenced. Hundred and fifty-four participants were collected and answered an internet survey on Qualtrics (2018) but were reduced to a hundred and forty-nine. Participants were immediately informed of the purpose of the study without revealing the research hypothesis to prevent social desirability or to avoid demand characteristics. Participants were also enlightened that their data will be anonymised and treated as confidential and only used to understand who has taken part in the study. In the following, participants were given an explanation of possible risks in two measures, and for ethical issues, participants were told in advance that they would be asked about whether they have experienced any traumatic or difficult life events. For example in LEC-17 questions like “sexual assault (rape, attempted rape, made to perform any type of sexual act through force or threat of harm” among other questions in relation to recalling of events that were related to traumatic experience and could cause some inconveniences. Second, PSS-14 with a question such as “in the last month, how often have you been angered because of things that happened that were outside of your control?” could cause some inconveniences also in association to antecedent stress or stress that the participant perceived at the moment. Participants were made aware that participating in the study is entirely voluntarily and informed about the rights to withdraw at any time during the study without being penalised or being in debt to the Lancaster University by any means. Participants were also informed about the benefit of participating in the survey by contributing to a better understanding of academic achievement and how different events can affect the academic process (See Appendix 2). Therefore, after participants agree to participate in the study, the demographics were obtained such as which university participants study at, if participants responded to at Lancaster University, they were asked for permission of acquiring their average grade with dichotomous yes and no. Then records of age, nationality, student status (Undergraduate 1,2,3 year, Master, PhD, Other or Not a student), and what major they are studying (See Appendix 4). The participants were approached at the university campus regardless of locations and responded to six measurements with 87 items on an Ipad owned by the principal investigator(See Appendix 5,6,7,8,9,10). In the debrief part of the research, participants were informed about the purpose of the study and the study hypothesis along with short details of the literature behind this review. Additionally, contact information such as the principal investigator or supervisor if any questions were provoked afterwards about the research itself or anything related to the process of the study. If participants wish to discuss with someone outside of the study, information about the head of the Psychology department was also tangible.
A Match Made in Heaven? The Effect of Congruency Between Accent and Promoted Product in Radio Adverts
Research consistently shows that accents are powerful social cues used in our everyday interactions as well as in advertisements; they can change how we perceive others and potentially also associated products or brands. Recent studies have explored the effect of congruency between the accent of the speaker in adverts and the country-of-origin of the advertised products. Yet the findings from research on the congruency effect is mixed and sparse. Therefore, this study investigated further into the effect of congruency. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions. The study employed a 2 (Accent: Northern English vs. Italian) x 2 (Product: fish and chips vs. pizza) between participant design. In doing this, two adverts had a congruent accent-product pair (e.g., Northern English speaker advertising a fish and chips brand) and two ads were accent-product incongruent (e.g., Northern English speaker advertising a pizza brand). After listening to the ads, participants then completed a questionnaire which measured participants’ brand memory, attention to the ad, purchase intentions, perceived similarity to the speaker and evaluations of the brand, advert and speaker. The results showed no congruency effect, however other striking findings were revealed that will be discussed in this paper.
This study used a 2 (Accent: Northern English vs. Italian) x 2 (Product: fish and chips vs. pizza) between subject design. The dependant variables were participants’ attention to the ad, memorability of the advertised brand name, purchase intentions, evaluations of the speaker, and attitude towards the ad and brand. Additionally, the evaluations of the speaker included their perceived warmth, competence, sociointellectual status, aesthetic qualities, and dynamism traits. Participants Through opportunity sampling, 82 participants were recruited. This sample comprised of 29 males and 53 females. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. The participants’ age ranged from 19 to 65 (Mage = 25.5 years, SDage = 10.8). All but one participant were native speakers of English. Materials Radio Advertisements. For this experiment, four radio adverts were created (see Appendix A). Two ads were accent-product congruent (Italian accent and pizza, Northern English accent and fish and chips) and two ads were accent-product incongruent (Italian accent and fish and chips, Northern English accent and pizza). In order to create the adverts, two male speakers were recruited. One of the speakers spoke with an authentic Northern English accent and one of the speakers spoke with an authentic Italian accent, both spoke at similar paces with no major differences in their tone of voice. Questionnaire. The questionnaire used in the experiment was created via the survey software, Qualtrics. The questionnaire took approximately 10 minutes to complete. The items and scales used to measure the dependent variables are discussed below. Brand attitude. Participants’ attitude towards the advertised brand was measured using a 4-item, 7-point bipolar scale used in Liu, Wen, Wei. and Zhao’s (2013) study (ɑ = .92). See Appendix B for the full subscale. Ad attitude. Participants’ attitude towards the advert subscale was taken from Lalwani, Lwin, and Li’s (2005) study. The participants were asked to rate the radio advert using 4-items with 7-point bipolar scales (ɑ = .87). See Appendix C. Attention to the ad. Also taken from Lalwani et al.’s (2005) study, were 3- items with 7-point likert scales to measure participants’ attention to the ad (ɑ = .24). The Cronbach’s alpha score was low however removing items did not increase the alpha significantly to represent a robust measure. See Appendix D. Purchase intentions. In addition, based on the scales used in Hornikx, van Meurs, and Hof’s (2013) research, the questionnaire included 3-items with 7-point bipolar scales to measure participants’ purchase intentions (ɑ = .88). See Appendix E. Competence and warmth. The questionnaire included questions which measured the perceived competence and warmth of the speaker. The 9-items for competence (ɑ = .90) and 9-items for warmth (ɑ = .92) were presented together. The scale used for the items were 7-point likert scales (1= Strongly Disagree, 7= Strongly Agree), taken from Rudman and Glick’s (1999) study. The list of items used can be found in Appendix F and G, respectively. Socio-intellectual status, aestheticism and dynamism. Also, the questionnaire included the Speech Dialect Attitudinal Scale by Mulac (1975, 1976). This consisted of 12-items (four items for each subscale) with 7-point bipolar scales measuring the participants’ perceived socio-intellectual status (ɑ = .85), aestheticism (ɑ = .85), and dynamism of the speaker (ɑ = .76). See Appendix H. Similarity. To measure participants’ perceived similarity to the speaker in the ad, the questionnaire included 3-items with 7-point likert scales (ɑ = .80) taken from Lalwani et al.’s (2005) questionnaire. See Appendix I. Manipulation check. The questionnaire examined if participants correctly identified the accent used by the speaker in the ad. Participants were asked “What was the accent of the speaker in the ad?”. Memorability of the brand name. At the end of the questionnaire the participants were asked the open-ended question “Please write down the product’s brand name that was advertised in the radio ad you listened to.”. Additional questions. The questionnaire included additional questions which investigated whether any factor other than accent affected participants’ responses. These questions consisted of 7-point bipolar scales, 7-point likert scales, unipolar scales, and open-ended questions (see Appendix J). The questions measured the comprehensibility of the speaker in the ad, participants’ attitudes towards the accent, accent of the participant, likability of the advertised products, hunger, and native language of the participant. The questionnaire also asked demographic questions. Procedure After giving the informed consent, participants were randomly assigned to an experimental condition and sent the link to the Qualtrics questionnaire. At the beginning of the questionnaire the radio ad was played followed by the questions. The order in which the items were presented were brand attitude, ad attitude, attention to ad, purchase intentions, warmth, and competence, socio-intellectual status of speaker, aestheticism of speaker, dynamism of speaker, similarity to speaker, comprehensibility of speaker, accent of the speaker, attitude towards the ad, accent of the participant, likeability of the advertised product, frequency of eating advertised product, hunger of participant, participants’ first language, brand name memorability, and finally followed by the demographic questions. On completion of the questionnaire, participants were thanked and debriefed. Analysis A multivariate ANOVA was used to test the main and interaction effects of accent and product on participants’ evaluations. Also, separate univariate ANOVAs were conducted to explore if there were any covariate effects on participants attention to the ad, brand memorability, evaluations of brand, ad or speaker. The covariate variables were participants’ perceived similarity to the speaker, comprehensibility of the speaker, participants’ attitude towards the speaker’s accent, hunger, frequency of, and likability of eating the advertised product.
Investigating the Effects of Challenging Behaviour on the Sibling Relationship: Influenced by Behaviour Topography and Shaped by Attributions of Controllability?
Challenging behaviour (CB) displayed by individuals with an intellectual disability (ID) is consistently identified as a stressor on the relationship that they have with their typically developing (TD) sibling. Given the potentially damaging effects of CB on the quality of the sibling relationship and the wellbeing of the TD sibling, understanding the cognitions that underpin TD siblings’ emotional and behavioural responses to CB is essential to direct sibling-targeted psychoeducational interventions. This study considered whether siblings’ responses to CB vary according to behavioural topography. Further, the study considered whether any effects detected were shaped by attributions made by TD individuals regarding the controllability of their siblings’ CB. Thirty-eight siblings of individuals with ID, and 36 participants with a nondisabled sibling, completed a web-based questionnaire measuring participants’ positive and negative affect towards their sibling, the nature of their sibling’s CB, and controllability perceptions regarding their sibling’s CB. The results of this study reiterate that CB is a stressor on the sibling relationship, with externally directed CB (i.e. aggression, destruction) eliciting greater negative affect in siblings compared to internally directed behaviours (i.e. self-injury). However, it could not be concluded with an appropriate level of significance (i.e. p<.05) that this was due to participants perceiving their siblings as more in control of their externally directed behaviours. These findings may have resulted from the diverse nature of the participant group. Further research is required to examine specific differences in the emotional impact of each type of challenging behaviour (and then subsequently, whether any differences detected arise due to contrasting perceptions of behaviour controllability).
Participants Seventy-four TD individuals who had a sibling completed this study. Participants were allocated to one of two conditions according to whether they had a sibling with an ID, or did not (i.e. their sibling was TD). There were 38 participants who had a sibling with ID (82% female, Mage=27.32, SD=9.65) and 36 participants with a TD sibling (92% female, Mage=28.61, SD=10.81); ranging between 13 to 60 years old. Siblings diagnoses are reported in Table 1. Table 1: Diagnoses of participants' siblings Participants were recruited on a voluntary basis through social media advertisements posted by the researcher and by disability organisations (who also sent emails to their followers), and through word of mouth. The researcher developed a digital research flyer summarising study’s purpose and procedure, distributed as described above. To incentivise participation, participants had the option to enter themselves in a prize draw for a £20 Amazon voucher upon completion of the study. A minimum participation age was determined after inputting the text of each questionnaire included in the study into Coh-Metrix (Version 3.0; Graesser, McNamara, Louwerse & Cai, 2004): a web-based software tool assessing the cohesion and coherence of a text. Coh Metrix provides an index of readability by generating the reading age of a piece of text, and the reading age determined of the questionnaires was “grade six”; indicating that 10/11-year-olds should have the ability to comprehend and respond to questions. Thus, it was decided that the questionnaires were suitable for TD individuals aged 12 or above. Consent was gained from all those over 16 years of age, and parental consent for and assent from those aged 12-15 years of age (see “Ethical Considerations” below for further information). Design The study was of a correlational design, investigating the relationship between the following continuous variables: the quality of the sibling relationship, CB displayed by the sibling with ID, attributions of controllability made by participants in respect to their sibling’s behaviour, and participants’ general relational abilities. As part of further analysis, the intention was to examine whether there were effects of having a brother/sister with a disability, gender, and birth order (i.e. whether participants were older/younger than their sibling) (all between-subjects factors) on the sibling relationship. Materials During this study, four self-report questionnaires were administered to all participants: the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) (Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988) (Appendix A), the Behavioral Problems Inventory (Short Form) (BPI-S) (Rojahn, Matson, Lott, Esbensen, & Smalls, 2001) (Appendix B), the Controllability Beliefs Scale (CBS) (Dagnan, Grant & McDonnell, 2004) (Appendix C), and Social Competence and Close Friendship subscales taken from the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (Harter, 2012) (Appendix D). The development and presentation of the questionnaires was done using online Qualtrics software (Qualtrics, Provo, UT). The Harter Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents (Harter, 2012) is a multidimensional measure of how young people evaluate their scholastic, social, athletic, and job competencies, as well as physical appearance, romantic appeal, behavioural conduct, and close friendship. However, for the purposes of this study, only the subscales regarding social competence and close friendship were included to detect an individual’s general ability in forming and maintaining relationships with others, which might be a confounding influence on detecting the quality of the sibling relationship. Furthermore, the phrasing of the questionnaire was deemed suitable for both adult and adolescent participants. The questions are presented as two clauses (e.g. "Some people know how to make others like them, but…”, and “Some individuals do not know how to make others like them”). Participants are able to select whether each clause is “really true for me” or “less true for me”, though are required to make the one selection out of four options across both clauses that is most self-descriptive. These responses are coded into a 4-point scale, with “1” representing poorer social/friendship abilities, and some items are negatively coded. Sufficient levels of validity and reliability of the Profile have been reported within a range of population groups (e.g. Donnellan, Trzesniewski & Robins, 2015; Rose, Hands, & Larkin, 2012). A modified version of the PANAS (Watson et al. 1988) was used to assess participants’ feelings towards their brother/sister with a disability, which were then used to infer the quality of the sibling relationship i.e. greater positive affect would indicate a positive and fulfilling sibling relationship, whilst greater negative affect would indicate poor sibling relationship quality. The PANAS is a self-report questionnaire that consists of two separate scales containing emotion-based items that encapsulate positive and negative affect. Participants were asked to think about their sibling and whether they had felt each emotion towards them, rating this on a 5-point scale to specify how often they feel that emotion, ranging from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely often). Higher total scores on each scale indicated greater positive/negative affect. “Total negative affect” and “total positive affect” scores were obtained for each participant; whereby higher scores pertain to greater affect. The PANAS has been widely utilised to measure variation in affect, and previous research investigating its psychometric properties concludes it to have high reliability and validity across many populations (e.g. Merz, Malcarne, Roesch, Ko, Emerson, et al., 2013; Bakhshipour & Dezhkam, 2006). In this study, certain items of the PANAS were adapted to ensure that they were recognisable to younger participants; for example, “hostile” and “strong” were changed to “angry” and “happy”, respectively. The items “jittery”, “active” and “determined” were excluded as the researcher did not view them as relevant to the sibling relationship. Nevertheless, statistical analysis revealed that internal consistency remained, with the positive and negative affect scales showing high reliability in the current sample, Cronbach’s αnegative=.87; Cronbach’s αpositive=.93. The BPI-S (Rojahn et al. 2001) is a psychometrically sound behaviour rating instrument (Rojahn, Rowe, Sharber, Hastings, Matson, et al., 2012; Mascitelli, Rojahn Nicolaides, Moore, Hastings et al., 2015) constituting a series of items referencing examples of CB. When completing the BPI-S, respondents consider whether a specific individual (in this study, participants’ sibling) engages in a behaviour, and then rate its frequency on a 1-to-6-point scale; corresponding to responses ranging from “never” to “daily”. The original BPI-S also contains a severity-rating subscale; however, this was excluded from the study, as rating the severity of behaviour was deemed to be too complicated for younger participants to judge. The BPI-S contains questions relating to three types of problem behaviours: self-injurious, stereotypic, and aggressive/destructive behaviours. For the purposes of this study, the behavioural items of the BPI-S were grouped and scored according to whether they constituted IDB (i.e. self-injury) or EDBs (i.e. aggression and destruction). Items referencing stereotyped behaviour were excluded, as it was not possible to neatly categorise them into IDB or EDB. As an addition to the questions of the BPI-S, an opportunity for “free text” was included immediately after, whereby participants could describe any behaviours of concern that were not specified by the questionnaire and rate their frequency. Total scores for the BPI-S were obtained, as well as separate total scores for IDB and EDB frequency, whereby higher scores represent a greater number of incidences of CBs. Lastly, the CBS (Dagnan et al., 2004) is a 15-item measure designed to capture participants’ perceptions regarding an individual’s (in this case, their siblings’) control over their CB. Responses are scored on a 1-to 5-point scale, corresponding to ‘disagree strongly’, ‘disagree slightly’, ‘unsure’, ‘agree slightly’ and ‘agree strongly’. Ten items are worded such that agreement reflects participants attributing high control over behaviour (e.g. ‘They are trying to wind me up’). In contrast, five items are phrased whereby agreement indicates participants attributing low control over behaviour (e.g. ‘They don’t mean to upset people’); thus, these items are reversed scored. A “total CBS” score was calculated for each participant, with higher scores pertaining to perceptions of greater control over behaviour. Moreover, Dagnan et al. (2004) report good internal reliability, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.89. Demographic information relating to participants’ age, gender, birth order (i.e. were they older/younger than their sibling) and the diagnosis of their disabled sibling (if their brother/sister was disabled) was collected prior to participants completing the questionnaires. Procedure After receiving expressions of interest from prospective participants and confirming they had a sibling (with or without an ID), the researcher issued a participant information sheet detailing the nature and aims of the study. Both groups of siblings followed the same study procedure but received participant information sheets that were relevant to their role in the study. The researcher also provided a weblink to the online consent form hosted by Qualtrics. Once participants completed the consent form, they answered demographic questions and generated a participant code to ensure anonymity of responses. Participants were informed prior to the study commencing that they could withdraw at any time, either by closing the webpage or by contacting the researcher and asking to be removed from the dataset. Initially, participants responded to items of the Close Friendship and Social Competence subscales of the Harter Self Perception Profile. Following completion of these questions, participants then completed the PANAS, BPI-S and CBS (in that order). Upon finishing the CBS, participants who had a sibling with ID proceeded to a debrief form that outlined the study in detail and provided contact information for support organisations (if needed following discussion of their encounters with CB). Control participants received a debrief form detailing their role in determining the baseline/typical sibling relationship. The procedure differed slightly for participants aged under 16 years old. With one exception, who contacted the researcher directly (but ultimately could not participate due to lack of parental consent), this group expressed their desire to participate through their parents contacting the researcher. In response, the researcher sent a consent form for a parent/guardian to complete, giving their permission for their child to participate in the study. Two participant information sheets were also provided; one for parents and another simplified version of the adult participant information sheet for individuals under 16 years old. Once the researcher had received the completed consent form, the weblink to the study was emailed. It was stressed to parents that, though they may wish to support their child in understanding the questions of the study, they should refrain from guiding their child’s answers. After clicking the weblink, younger participants completed an assent form and were informed about the participation withdrawal procedures, if required. The presentation of the questionnaires was the same as for those aged 16 years old and above. However, the debrief form was simplified in its language and content to ensure it was accessible to younger participants. Contact information for organisations who could support this group of participants specifically was also provided. Additionally, younger participants with a non-disabled sibling received a simplified version of the adult participant debrief form relevant to their role in the study. After reading the debrief sheet, all participants were given the opportunity to enter into a prize draw for a £20 Amazon voucher. The study lasted roughly 15-20 minutes. All participant information sheets, consent forms and debrief sheets are listed in Appendices E – S. Ethical Considerations This study was reviewed and approved by the Psychology Department Research Ethics Committee at Lancaster University. The topic of this study revolved around participants’ experiences of CB, which could involve reflection upon sensitive experiences (including those of violence and destructive behaviour) that elicit negative psychological reactions (such emotional upset, worry, stress, and shame). Furthermore, the minimum age specified for participants is 12 years old, so some participants recruited would be minors (i.e. a vulnerable participant group). In case the discussion of CB experiences elicited negative psychological reactions in participants, contact information for sources of wellbeing support was given as part of the study debrief for both young and adult participants (e.g., talking to a trusted family member or a teacher; information and contact details for free services such as Childline, the Samaritans, The CB Foundation etc.). Offering access to support services was particularly important to younger participants, who may not feel able to speak to their parents about any issues they have. Furthermore, consent was required from all participants over the age of 16. If a participant indicated being under the age of 16, consent was sought from a parent/guardian, whilst assent was obtained from all 12-to-15-year-old participants. Consent and assent were monitored throughout the study. All participants were given sufficient opportunity to understand the nature, aims and expected outcomes of research participation. Complex technical information was suitably adapted so that participants aged under 16 years old could give consent to the extent that their capabilities allowed.
Accessing Cortical Hyperexcitatbility and Its Predisposition Using Two Types of Measurements
This study aimed to explore in depth about the cortex hyperexcitability. In order to do so, the study will use the pattern glare task and three questionnaires. These three questionnaires include the Cortex Hyperexcitability Index II, Cardiff Anomalous Perceptions scale, and the Multi-Modality Unusual Sensory Experiences Questionnaire. The pattern glare task induces on-spot hallucinations and distortions, while the questionnaires measure the long-term daily unusual sensory experiences one may have experienced. In this study, both the questionnaires and the task measured the same underlying factor, the cortex hyperexcitability. In the sense that it was hypothesized that the predisposition of seizure-like hallucinations and distortions and of daily-based hallucinations and anomalous experiences should be associated in a particular way. The pattern glare task had two blocks in the experiment, one with a blindfold and the other without. They were presented to participants in different orders to counterbalance the order effect. In between the two blocks, the participants answered the three questionnaires. The result of the study showed no significant effect of the blindfold, suggesting that wearing the blindfold for five minutes neither increased the sensitivity of the eyes nor the visual cortex. Most of the relationships between the pattern glare and questionnaires failed to be significant. The investigation on the association between the predispositions of the two types of hallucinations also failed to show any significance, only MUSEQ and pattern glare has a significant correlation. The migraine and migraine with aura groups appeared to be more sensitive to the phosphene phenomena. Their sensitivity, though the results were not significant, could be clearly observed through descriptive statistics. Although the results and findings failed to prove the research hypothesis, probably due to the main limitation of the poorly presented stimuli, the current study to some extent was able to expand the current understanding of cortex hyperexcitability demonstrated by the previous works, and further offered more possibilities for future studies.
Along with the pattern glare task, there were three more questionnaires used in the study, these are MUSEQ (Mitchell et al., 2017), CAPS (Bell et al., 2006), and CHI II (Fong et al., in press). This study has been ethically approved by the Department of Psychology in Lancaster University on 11th May 2018. Participants The current study screened participants before they could take part in the experiment, the screening standard is whether they have been diagnosed with photosensitive epilepsy, epilepsy, or that they recently had a brain or eye surgery. This criterion was created as the viewing of the striped pattern of particular spatial frequencies may induce seizures in patients with photosensitive epilepsy (Wilkins et al., 1984). It turned out none were excluded due to disease or had a history of diseases. There was a total of 43 participants who took part in the study. Among them, 15 were males and 28 were females. The age ranged from 19 to 36, with a standard deviation of 2.92, and around half of the participants were native English speakers. The six participants who self-reported having a migraine or a migraine with aura were noted before the study, as the pattern glare task may induce or intensify their symptoms, which can cause visual discomfort, visual distortions, or a headache. Among the six participants who reported they had migraineur, three of them were migraineurs with aura. Stimuli and Procedure The current study used stimuli that were printed onto cards, and the stimuli were presented to the participants from around 50 cm away at eye level. The patterns were the same size at 20mm * 15 mm, all in black and white, and with the shape of the ellipse. According to the given conditions, the visual angle was calculated to be 12.84 degrees. The three questionnaires were all printed on paper, and the participants were asked to read aloud their answers instead of writing it down. The plain black blindfold which participants were asked to wear during the study was bought from the drugstore. Material There were three different patterns used in this study, the spatial frequency gratings for these patterns are 11 cpd (cycles-per-degree), 3 cpd, and 0.7 cpd respectively. All the patterns were achromatic, with a fixation dot in the centre of them. After each of the stimulus was presented, there were 17 questions which the participants had to answer. The questions asked about the intensity of the anomalous visual phenomena, the types of visual hallucinations, and whether they have a headache or dizziness after the experiment. The materials were adapted from the previous works of Braithwaite et al. (2014). The three questionnaires in between the two blocks of stimuli presentations were MUSEQ, CAPS, and CHI II. MUSEQ (Mitchell et al., 2017) has 43 items of six factors, including Auditory, Visual, Olfactory, Gustatory, Bodily sensations, and Sensed presence; the measurement is a five-point Likert scale which targets the frequency of USE. CAPS (Bell et al., 2006) has 32 items, also addressing the anomalous experiences from different modalities. For each item, if the participants confirmed that they have had related experiences, they then rated their experiences out of three five-point scales on distress, intrusiveness, and frequency. CHI II has 30 items, and each one will be questioned about its frequency and intensity. The measurement is a seven-point Likert scale, with zero as never or not intense and six as all the time or extremely intense. The questionnaire is the recently updated version of the original CHI, and the 30 items in it can be loaded onto three non-overlapping factors, includes heightened visual sensitivity and discomfort (HVSD), aura-like hallucinatory experience (AHE), and distorted visual perception (DVP). For the MUSEQ and CAPS, the original unrevised questionnaire was used during the experiments, however, only parts of the answers given was used in the analysis. This decision was made as the data analysis would be too complicated to take all the factors into consideration, especially when they are just partially related to the research question. Therefore, for the MUSEQ questionnaire, only Visual, Auditory, and Bodily modality were analysed, and for CAPs, the primary concern is exclusively about the temporal lobe experience factor. For the non-blindfold block, all three stimuli were presented; but for the blindfold block, only the medium and high CPD stimuli were included. The low frequency stimulus is excluded because it was too mild to induce any hallucination on the participants. Including it in the blindfold condition is more for its suggestibility; participants who have given a high rating for the low frequency stimulus may produce unreliable scores on the other measures as well (Wilkins et al., 1984). Therefore, participants with too high low PG value would be excluded from the analysis. Procedure Prior to the experiment, the participants were asked to sit in a specific spot where the distance between them and the stimuli was fixed at around 50cm. Then they were given the information sheet and consent form, which contained the information they needed to know in order to proceed with the study. On the consent form, there was a list of questions asking about specific medical conditions including epilepsy, photosensitive epilepsy, neuro and eye surgery, and migraine and migraine with aura. The researchers then confirmed that the participants did not suffer or had suffered from those conditions before the experiment could take place. The first phase of the experiment was the pattern glare test that comprised of two blocks, one with the blindfold and the other without. Participants were labelled with a number which was used as their order of participation. Participants with odd numbers had non-blindfold block first, and the ones with even numbers had blindfold block first. The numbering and manipulation of the block presentation were kept unknown from the participants. The blindfold block contained two stimuli presentation, one was the medium spatial frequency (SF), and the other was the high SF. The reason why the low SF one was not included is that it worked as a control in the non-blindfold block, as there is minor to no effect of this stimulus (Braithwaite et al., 2013, 2015). The blindfold wearing was prior to the presentation of the stimuli; thus, participants wore the blindfold for five minutes before the blindfold block. After the participants finished viewing each pattern, they would answer the 17 questions about the associated visual distortions. They were asked to read aloud the answers and the answers would be immediately recorded using a computer. There was no break in between each trial, and the participants would keep on viewing the next one once they finished all the questions. In between the two stimuli present blocks, the participants were asked to finish the three questionnaires: MUSEQ (Mitchell et al., 2017), CAPS (Bell et al., 2006) and CHI II (Braithwaite et al., in press). It takes approximately 20 minutes to complete the three questionnaires. After the questionnaires are completed, the next block of stimuli was presented with a blindfold or no blindfold respectively. After both of the blocks and the three questionnaires were completed, the debrief sheet was given to participants at the end of the experiment. The entire process took about 30 minutes for a native English speaker, for participants who speak English as their second language, the duration took slightly longer, at around 35 to 40 minutes.
Assessing Inference Making in Listening Comprehension in Children in Special Education
Successful listening comprehension involves making accurate inferences to interpret the meaning of a story. We assessed inference making in listening comprehension of children in special education in years 4, 5, and 6 (n=12). Children listened to short stories and answered questions to assess local and global coherence inference after each story. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed no significant main effects for children’s first responses for presentation type (whole, segmented) and inference type (local, global). However, after children had received prompts a significant main effect of inference type was shown with children performing better on global than local coherence inferences. Correlational analysis revealed no significant correlations between IQ and inference type but there was a stronger correlation between verbal IQ and inference type than non-verbal IQ and inference type. An independent t-test revealed no significant effect of diagnostic group on IQ or inference type but children in the Autism group performed better than children in the MLD group on both IQ measures and the MLD group scored better on both inference types. We conclude that inference type is important to consider when setting and asking comprehension questions along with the use of prompts to portray and assess children’s full comprehension ability.
Participants The participants were 12 children from years 4, 5 and 6 aged between 8 and 11 (N=12, 3 girls and 9 boys, M=9.67, SD=0.99) from a special needs school in the North West of England. All children had a statement of special educational needs including; Autism, Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, Moderate Learning Disability, Nonans Syndrome, Fetal Vulprate Syndrome and Speech and Language Impairment. All children were verbal with English as their first language. Consent was provided by parents/ carers, the Head of School and each class Teacher. Measures IQ Task The WISC IV was used to determine children’s IQ levels. Children completed one verbal and one non-verbal measure of IQ. The verbal measure was a vocabulary task, children were first shown pictures of items and asked what this is, progressing onto words asking, what does this mean? Children could score either 0, 1 or 2 points depending on the accuracy of their definitions according to the WISC IV manual. There were 36 items, increasing in difficulty, and testing stopped when children answered 5 questions incorrectly in a row. The non-verbal measure was a block design task, this comprised of 14 items starting with simple designs progressing to more difficult designs. Children had to copy patterns either demonstrated by the experimenter for the first 3 patterns or presented in picture format for the following items. There were time constraints for each pattern starting with 30s progressing in length for the more difficult items to 120s. Once children had failed to complete 3 patterns in a row, testing ended. Listening comprehension task The listening comprehension task was taken from Freed and Cain (2016) devised by the Language and Reading Research Consortium (LARRC) (2015). The full set of materials comprised 6 short stories however, for the current study only 4 stories were used: Grandma’s Birthday, The Game, New Pet and A Family Day Out. The stories were all topics appropriate to this age group. There were 8 questions paired with each story assessing both local and global coherence inferences; 4 of each. With questions either asked throughout the stories (segmented format) or at the end of the stories (whole format). In 2 of the sessions, stories were presented in a whole format and in the other 2 sessions, the stories were presented in a segmented format. All the stories were pre-recorded by Freed and Cain (2016) and delivered on PowerPoint presentation on the researcher’s laptop to ensure consistent delivery of the stories regarding pace and word emphasis. All stories were available in a whole and a segmented format. The format in which children listened to the stories was counterbalanced based on children’s IQ levels from low to high. • Whole story format. Children listened to the full story and at the end were asked 8 comprehension questions. The delivery of each whole formatted story followed the same format. • Segmented story format. Children listened to the story in 5 segments. After each segment the child was asked either 1 or 2 questions with 8 questions in total. The delivery of each segmented story followed the same format. The average length of the story was 157 words, there were no pictures included in the PowerPoint which the story recordings were presented on. This was to avoid children using the pictures to help them answer the questions. Children were provided with verbal prompts if incomplete answers were given to direct them to the correct answer. If children were still unable to answer full knowledge checks were provided, see Table 1. All prompts were pre-written to ensure all children received the same level of prompting. Procedure Pre-test The IQ assessments were implemented individually in a quiet room in two separate sessions. Each session lasted between 10 and 15 minutes depending on how many questions/ trials they completed. First children completed the vocabulary test then in a separate session completed the non-verbal measure, block design. Main assessment Children were presented with 4 short stories on 4 separate occasions, each story paired with 8 questions. Each story had to be completed in a separate session due to the attention and engagement levels of the children being tested. Each session lasted approximately 10 minutes depending on children’s accuracy and speed of answering. The procedure was explained to the children at the beginning of each session using a script to ensure consistency. They were informed that they would either be asked questions throughout the story or at the end of the story.
Recalling Memories of Childhood Bullying: Links Between Early Victimisation and Anxiety in Adulthood
Objectives: This study investigated the relationship between retrospective reports of bullying (primary school, secondary school and general experiences of bullying) with social anxiety (SAD), generalised anxiety (GAD) and grit (perseverance). Method: Demographic information was obtained from participants (n=147) as well as measures from primary school bullying, secondary school bullying and general bullying experiences utilising the Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire (RBQ; Schafer et al., 2004). The Social Phobia Inventory (Connor et al., 2000) measured social anxiety in participants, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer et al., 1990) assessed general anxiety and the Grit Test (Duckwoth et al., 2007) evaluated participant’s determination. Results: There was evidence that primary school bullying was associated with higher levels of GAD whilst higher levels of SAD were associated with general bullying experiences. There was no evidence to suggest that the individual difference measure of grit impacted upon anxiety for participants. The results support previous studies which have linked anxiety disorders in adulthood to earlier experiences of bullying
In the Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire (RBQ) (Schafer et al., 2004), there are a number of sections, three of which were used in this study. The first looks at bullying in primary school, the second at bullying in secondary school and the third section at general bullying behaviour. The general bullying behaviour section concentrated on the long-term effects of any bullying the participants had experiences of in primary or secondary school. This section asked such questions as “Do you ever have dreams or nightmares about the bullying events?” and “Do you ever feel distressed in situations which remind you of the bullying event(s)?” (appendix A). This questionnaire was subject to intensive pilot studies by Schafer et al. (2004) and insight was gained from the success of Rivers (2001) study which also utilised a retrospective measure. Reliability of the RBQ was assessed in the Schafer et al. study, which found a good level of test-retest reliability (Spearman correlation coefficients, primary school r=.88, secondary school r=.87). The Social Phobia Inventory is a 17-item self-report questionnaire (Connor et al., 2000) that screens for social anxiety disorder and assesses the acuteness of such a disorder. The measure has three subsections which evaluate key symptoms of SAD: fear of social situations, avoidance of social situations and physiological discomfort within social situation. Each item is rated on a scale from zero to four. Scores ranged from 0 to 68, and a cut off score of 19 or above distinguishes between healthy controls and SAD sufferers. The SPIN has previously demonstrated good internal consistency as well as suitable test-retest reliability. The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer, Miller, Metzger & Borkovec, 1990) is a 16-item questionnaire which has been considerably utilised in existing studies to measure generalised anxiety disorder in participants. This questionnaire has been shown to differentiate between different anxiety disorders, e.g. General anxiety sufferers score higher than phobics (Meyer et al., 1990). The scoring for questions 1, 3, 8, 10 and 11 were reverse scored for the analysis. Each answer is scored on a five point likert-type scale ranging from 1= not at all typical to 5= very typical. The scores could range from 16 to 80 where the average score in a “normal” student population was 49. The average score in a GAD population was 68 for men and women (Hawkins, 2008). The Grit Test (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, D.R. (2007) is 12-item questionnaire which considers how ‘gritty’ a person you are. It looks at how you face challenges as a person and what your reaction to them is. The scores are added up and divided by 12. The maximum score on this scale is 5 (extremely gritty), and the lowest scale on this scale is 1 (not at all gritty). This measure was included as a personality measure to explore if there are any links between what type of person you are, and whether this affects if you are bullied or not. Procedure Following the briefing sheet, participants received a consent form to inform them of the nature of the study, their participation requirements, and their right to withdraw should they so wish. Once consent was gained, participants were asked to provide some demographic information on the following: gender, age, educational achievement, relationship status, ethnicity and employment status. For the purposes of analysis, females were coded as 1, whilst males were coded as 2. Questionnaires made up the materials for this research project. Once participants had completed these they were informed of the end of the study and given more insight into the nature of the study. Participants were also given helplines and details of advisory websites, where they could go if they felt they had been affected by the nature of the research. The information for two journal articles whose research has facets of the current research were given, so that participants could gather more information if they so wished