Abstract
Little is known about interventions aimed at building children’s emotional resilience to combat the psychological trauma associated with future earthquakes. However, natural disasters have potentially a highly traumatic impact on children’s psychological functioning. Therefore, within the Emotional Prevention and Earthquakes in a primary school project, we developed a web application promoting earthquake-related emotional preparedness called HEMOT® (Helmet for EMOTions). We studied the role of achievement emotions as factors associated to learning using the web application, coherently with the assumptions of the control-value theory. We also took into account class level and gender. We involved 64 second and fourth graders who used a nine-level web application focused on earthquake-related knowledge, emotions, and emotion regulation. We assessed children’s digital self-concept, learning at the web application (operationalized as digital text comprehension), application-related achievement emotions, and text comprehension. We analyzed the data through linear and generalized linear models, and path analyses. First, our findings documented class differences in some of the examined constructs: Pride was higher for younger compared to older children, while the digital performance was higher for older compared to younger students. Second, digital self-concept was positively linked to application-related pride and relaxation. In turn, pride, relaxation, and sadness, and also text comprehension, were linked to the digital performance. With some exceptions, these relations were in line with the assumptions of the control-value theory, extending it to a context disregarded within the current literature. This knowledge is a first step to develop further interventions fostering children’s resources to promote learning related to emotional preparedness.
Highlights
Natural disasters, including earthquakes, may have a highly traumatic impact on psychological functioning, both for primary victims experiencing the events directly and for secondary victims indirectly affected through media exposure (Galambos, 2005; Neria et al, 2008; Masten and Osofsky, 2010; Fergusson and Boden, 2014)
Within a project on earthquake-related emotional preparedness, the PrEmT project (Raccanello et al, 2019b, 2020), we studied the role of emotions and their antecedents as factors associated to children’s learning through an educational web application
Its use can enhance children’s preparedness and resilience, helping to reduce both physical and psychological impairments caused by possible natural disasters such as earthquakes
Summary
Natural disasters, including earthquakes, may have a highly traumatic impact on psychological functioning, both for primary victims experiencing the events directly and for secondary victims indirectly affected through media exposure (Galambos, 2005; Neria et al, 2008; Masten and Osofsky, 2010; Fergusson and Boden, 2014). This is notably true for children, whose vulnerability. Within a larger project (Emotional Prevention and Earthquakes in primary school project, PrEmT project, in Italian Prevenzione Emotiva e Terremoti nella scuola primaria; Raccanello et al, 2019b, 2020; Vicentini et al, 2019), we developed a web application called HEMOT R (Helmet for EMOTions, patent pending; Raccanello et al, 2020), promoting earthquake-related knowledge, emotions, and emotion regulation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
