New journal article published in European Journal of Psychology of Education

This open access publication by Justine Stang-Rabrig, Sebastian Vogel, Marco Forciniti, and Nele McElvany investigates in how far relevant personal (resilience, self-efficacy) and social resources (support by family, friends, teachers, important other) could take on a protective role for adolescents’ well-being, learning activities, and learning success during the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether perception of the pandemic as (not) stressful mediated these relations. The pandemic especially negatively affected adolescents, as it hindered the mastery of the various tasks and challenges associated with this developmental period. The strength of these effects may have been influenced by the perception of the pandemic as stressful, which in turn may be mitigated by personal and social resources. The study with 220 participants from 9th to 11th grade showed that perceiving the pandemic as more stressful was associated with a lower average well-being, but learning activities and success were not affected. Additionally, students with higher self-efficacy perceived the pandemic as less stressful, while those who reported more support from an important other perceived it as more stressful. All resources, except support by friends, were related to one or multiple of the variables well-being, learning activities, and learning success. Especially the important role of self-efficacy, a personal resource, was revealed, as it was related with all three of the latter variables.

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