Italian University Students Research Articles

Invest in Your Mental Health, Support Your Career. Exploring the Impact of Mental Health Activities on Movement Capital and the Mediating Role of Flourishing and Career Engagement during the Transition to Work

The current theorising of career self-management advocates that personal resources that support an adaptive transition to work are bound to individual agency. Yet, research still needs to enrich the empirical exploration of how behaviours in personal life affect careers. For this reason, we explored the impact of mental-health activities—a group of self-help activities that people can perform to increase their mental health—on movement capital among Italian new entrants in the labour market. We also explored a mechanism underlying this relationship by testing the mediating role of flourishing and career engagement. We collected data from 229 Italian university students and recent graduates through an online questionnaire. Contrary to our expectations, we found no significant direct relationship between mental-health activities and movement capital, yet the results supported an indirect relationship. The findings contribute to existing evidence about how personal life behaviours affect career self-management and advance the understanding of the role of mental health activities. This work suggests ways to encourage engagement in self-help behaviours and implement public and higher education interventions to foster these behaviours’ benefits for an adaptive transition to work.

Consumption of energy drinks among Italian university students: a cross-sectional multicenter study

Consumption of energy drinks among Italian university students: a cross-sectional multicenter study

The Words of Facts: How British and Italian Students Use in Fact in Academic Writing

Abstract This study examines the frequency, meanings, lexico-grammatical and discursive features of the pragmatic marker in fact in an L1 subcorpus of the British Academic Written English corpus and in a learner corpus of essays written by Italian university students. One of four meanings, ‘contrast’, ‘specification’, ‘factuality’ and ‘support’, was assigned to each instance of in fact in both corpora. Similarities and differences emerged in the use of this pragmatic marker. All four meanings are present in both corpora; however, the ‘contrast’ and ‘specification’ meanings occur more often in the L1 corpus, while the ‘factuality’ and ‘support’ meanings occur more often in the L2 corpus. These findings suggest that the Italian learners are not fully aware of the multiple meanings of in fact.

Career Calling, Courage, Flourishing and Satisfaction with Life in Italian University Students.

Career calling is defined as a positive resource promoting vocational development and well-being. The present study focuses on the relationships between career calling, courage and two indicators of well-being, i.e., flourishing and satisfaction with life. The sample consisted of 306 Italian university students (118 males and 188 females) ranging from 18 to 30 years of age. A structural equation modeling (SEM) approach with latent variables was adopted. The results showed that courage plays a mediating role between career calling and well-being indicators. In light of these results, suggestions on the practical implications for career interventions to support university students are also addressed.

Consumption of Energy Drinks among Italian University students: a cross-sectional multicenter study

PurposeThe aim of the study was to evaluate the caffeinated Energy Drinks (EDs) consumption among a large sample of Italian undergraduates and its association with some of the major lifestyle risk factors.MethodsStudents attending twelve public Italian universities were involved between October 2021 and May 2022. Information on socio-demographic characteristics, ED consumption, and on health-related behaviors of participants was collected by the use of a web-based questionnaire.ResultsA total of 2165 students participated in the study and 15.2% of them reported having used caffeinated EDs in the last six months, mainly once a month (41.5%). In comparison with non-users, ED users showed a higher proportion of males (p < 0.001) and a higher father’s educational level (p = 0.003), came mainly from Northern universities (p = 0.004) and life sciences degree courses (p < 0.001). Besides, ED users reported higher BMI values (p = 0.003), more particular dietary regimens (p < 0.001), higher levels of weekly moderate–vigorous physical activity (p < 0.001) and participation in sports (p < 0.001) and in team sports (p = 0.003), and higher proportion of smokers (p < 0.001) and alcohol drinkers (p = 0.005). ED use was negatively related with female gender (OR 0.546; 95% CI 0.374–0.798), the Mediterranean diet (OR 0.587; 95% CI 0.362–0.951) and coming from the center of Italy (OR 0.500; 95% CI 0.275–0.909) and positively associated with tobacco smoke (OR 1.712; 95% CI 1.176–2.492) and participation in a team sport (OR 1.686; 95% CI 1.051–2.707).ConclusionThese findings could encourage figures engaged in education to increase the students’ awareness on this issue in order to prevent the excessive use of EDs and associated unhealthy behaviors, especially in the most interested subgroups.

How COVID-19 impacted cultural consumption: an explorative analysis of Gen Z’s digital museum experiences

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, arts and culture have experienced a paradoxical situation. The sector has been one of the most negatively affected due to both mobility restrictions and social distancing; yet for the same reasons, demand for online cultural experiences has intensified, and digital access has become more critical than ever. While extant research has focused mainly on the offering side of such changes and developments, this paper investigates how the pandemic impacted on cultural consumption online, and particularly for museum products. The research takes on a demand perspective, an often neglected one when analyzing digitalization and innovation in museums’ offering. Through a direct survey approach, the paper addresses a gap in research on younger subjects, the Generation Z, typically a non-demand segment. It specifically investigates their reactions to digital museum experiences, a realm that research based on museum data has pointed out as a probable route to their involvement. The research is based on two surveys on cultural consumption of a sample of Italian university students of over 1000 respondents, before and during lockdown. Results show that during COVID-19 not only has online cultural consumption increased, but so has the quality of the associated experience, where online museum visits are concerned. Results indicate that learning processes occurred during the pandemic, suggesting potential changes in cultural consumption mediated by digital technologies, with implications for multi-channel strategies of museums in the post-pandemic scenario.

In pausa: i giovani e la gestione del “tempo vuoto” durante la pandemia da Covid-19

Discussing the results of a qualitative research conducted with Italian university students (19-27 years), the article analyses young people’s time management strategies during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. The research highlights how the forced deceleration imposed by anti-Covid policies has rarely translated into a conscious “practice of the present” (Sloterdijk 2007). Rather, young people’s experience of the time during the pandemic is marked by a strong projection towards the future – expressed through compulsive practices of programming, planning and accumulation of skills (Rosa 2013) – and regression in the past – noticeable in the return to childhood practices, interests, and behaviors. The article reflects on the potential consequences produced by the combination of these two apparently antithetical dynamics in terms of a “leap” of the biographical time of youth.

Psychological correlates of perceived loneliness in college students before and during the COVID-19 stay-at-home period: a longitudinal study

BackgroundLoneliness is increasingly acknowledged as a serious public health issue. This longitudinal study aimed to assess the extent to which psychological distress and alexithymia can predict loneliness among Italian college students before and one year after the COVID-19 outbreak.MethodsA convenience sample of 177 psychology college students were recruited. Loneliness (UCLA), alexithymia (TAS-20), anxiety symptoms (GAD-7), depressive symptoms (PHQ-9), and somatic symptoms (PHQ-15) were assessed before the COVID-19 outbreak and one year after the spread of COVID-19 worldwide.ResultsAfter controlling for baseline loneliness, students with high levels of loneliness during lockdown showed worsening psychological distress and alexithymic traits over time. Suffering from depressive symptoms before COVID-19 and the aggravation of alexithymic traits independently predicted 41% of perceived loneliness during the COVID-19 outbreak.ConclusionsCollege students with higher levels of depression and alexithymic traits both before and one year after the lockdown were more at risk of suffering from perceived loneliness and may constitute the target sample for psychological support and intervention.

Exploratory and Descriptive Comparison Using the WAIS-IV and LSC-SUA of the Cognitive Profile of Italian University Students with Reading Comprehension Disorder (RCD) vs. Decoding Difficulties—Dyslexia

Background: The “Guidelines for the Management of Specific Learning Disorders” provide clear diagnostic and evaluative guidance on Reading Comprehension Disorder (RCD), as suggested by the DSM-5. The present study investigated the relationship between cognitive abilities in university students with RCD compared to students with Decoding Difficulties—i.e., dyslexia (DD)—and examined possible diagnostic procedures for RCD in young adults. Methods: Twenty university students from the University of Salerno “Disabilities/SLD Help Desk” participated. The sample was divided into the RCD Group (10) and DD Group (10). They were administered (a) the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) to assess their cognitive profile; and (b) the LSC-SUA-Reading tests for the assessment of text comprehension, writing, and calculation skills. Results: With regard to their cognitive profile, the DD Group had a lower mean of FSIQ (91.90 ± 5.82 vs. 92.50 ± 2.41). The RCD Group showed higher means in the subscales of CPI (94.80 ± 5.77), WMI (91.80 ± 78.80), and PSI (101.20 ± 6.20). Text comprehension assessment showed high averages in the DD Group (Track A = 11.50 ± 1.08; Track B = 11.40 ± 0.95). Conclusions: A valid psychodiagnostic model to examine reading comprehension skills for adults must assess the interaction between higher-level linguistic and cognitive processes in order to best define the pathways of skill enhancement.

Interest and Confidence in Death Education and Palliative Psychology in Italian and Indian University Students of Psychology: Similarities and Differences.

Teaching death education and palliative psychology in universities has proven to be of great importance, especially in the health professions. The present study aims to evaluate the similarities and differences in interest and confidence in death education and palliative psychology between university psychology students from two culturally different countries: Italy and India. For this study, 63 Italian and 35 Indian psychology students were recruited to take part in a course on death education and palliative psychology. The results showed the positive impact of a death education and palliative psychology course on the training of professionals. In particular, this course was useful in helping students become familiar with and learn how to manage future professional situations related to death and dying. Specific differences between the two countries also emerged, particularly with regard to their approach to the end-of-life field, due to different cultural contexts. There is still much to be done by institutions to improve the dissemination and academic teaching of this area, which in turn can promote job opportunities for young people and encourage them to work in this field.

Emotional Exhaustion and Engagement in Higher Education Students during a Crisis, Lessons Learned from COVID-19 Experience in Italian Universities

Italian university students face an uncertain future characterised by a competitive neoliberal academic environment with high demands and a weak labour market that often cannot hire those who are best qualified. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated students’ uncertainty and negatively affected their well-being. The purpose of this study is to explore perceptions of academic life during the pandemic and to examine the relationship between study load, reduced academic performance, internet addiction, academic self-efficacy, and engagement and emotional exhaustion. A sample of university students (N = 10,298) from 11 Italian universities completed a self-report questionnaire about their academic and personal lives between May and June 2021. We performed two multiple linear regressions and one ANOVA to highlight gender differences. Results indicate that female students reported lower levels of engagement and academic self-efficacy, and higher levels of exhaustion and study demands compared to male students, while older students generally appear to exhibit higher levels of well-being. Study load, reduced academic performance, and internet addiction showed a negative association with engagement, particularly the first two, and a positive association with exhaustion, while self-efficacy was positively associated with engagement and negatively associated with exhaustion. The results suggest the need to introduce additional forms of support, such as psychological support, internet addiction awareness courses or counseling services.

European Sentiment in time of crises. The point of view of young university students

The latest emergencies – economic, refugee, and the pandemic of Covid-19 – has impacted in European collective identity construction, especially in Southern Europe. This article investigates if the pandemic crisis has activated in young Italian and Spanish university students nationalistic or/and European responses. The analysis, based on an online survey, uses the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) statistical method to perform an exploratory analysis of the explanatory theoretical model of European sentiment. The results show that young people attribute several meanings to Europe during the pandemic, which are based mainly on making informed decisions and recognizing a common space of interaction as an opportunity of peace, security and democracy. The findings highlight the role of EU communicative actions in increasing trust in national and European institutions.

Death Education for Palliative Psychology: The Impact of a Death Education Course for Italian University Students.

The present study investigated the effects of a hybrid online course on a group of Italian Master's degree students involved in a European Erasmus+ project. The course was composed of nine modules about death education, palliative psychology and the use of creative arts therapies-such as psychodrama, intermodal psychodrama and photovoice-in the end-of-life-field. The project involved 64 students in the experimental group (who attended the course) and 56 students as the control group. Both groups completed an online questionnaire before and after the delivery of the course and 10 students from the experimental group participated in a focus group at the end of the course. The quantitative analysis revealed that the experimental group students showed lesser levels of perception of death as annihilation, fear of the death and death avoidance, while they increased their levels of death acceptance, creative self-efficacy and attitude toward the care of the dying. Qualitative analysis identified three main themes: the positive impact of the course on death education and end-of-life care; the role of art therapies on death and end-of-life care; and the unhelpful facets of the course. Overall, this intervention changed the perception and the feelings of the students regarding the themes of death and palliative psychology and increased their creative self-efficacy and their interest in working in an end-of-life field.

Difficulties in emotion regulation mediate the relationship between childhood emotional neglect severity and psychological well-being in Italian young adults

Given the negative impact of childhood emotional neglect experiences on current positive relational functioning and one’s psychological well-being (e.g., Berzenski, 2019; Fitzgerald et al., 2020), it is crucial to understand which mechanisms are able to mediate the impact of childhood emotional neglect on relational well-being in young adulthood. The current study was aimed to analyze the role of individual differences in the use of emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between emotional neglect severity and relational well-being, controlling for multi-type maltreatment experiences. Participants were 375 Italian university students (84% females) (Mage=19.87; SD = 1.92). Findings of the mediational models underlined that reduced self-awareness and lack of emotional confidence are the core mechanisms of emotion regulation that specifically mediate the relationship between childhood emotional neglect experiences and low levels of relational well-being in young adulthood. However, they act differently with respect to the levels of severity of such experiences. Emotional confidence is the most compromised mechanism among those who have experienced low levels of emotional neglect (B = −208, se = .106, p < .05) and emotional awareness is the most compromised mechanism among those who have experienced more severe levels of these traumatic experiences (B = −104, se = .067, p<.05). Findings suggest the need to differentiate clinical and social interventions in relation to the severity of the neglectful experiences.

Willingness to Compromise Scale: Italian Validation and Assessment of the Relationship with Career Decision Self-Efficacy and Career Adaptability during School-to-Work Transition.

Willingness to compromise is defined as the propensity to accept an alternative career-related option that was not the one initially desired. In the literature, there is a validated scale for measuring willingness to compromise but not an Italian validation. Thus, Study 1 aimed to test the psychometric proprieties of the Willingness to Compromise Scale in a sample of 282 Italian university students. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed showing a second-order factorial structure with two well-separated first-order factors, i.e., compromising and adapting. Study 2 focused on the predicting role of willingness to compromise on career decision self-efficacy and the mediating role of career adaptability in this relationship. The sample consisted of 237 Italian university students. A mediation analysis with a 5000-bootstrap resampling procedure was computed. The results showed that willingness to compromise predicts both career decision self-efficacy and career adaptability, while career adaptability mediates the relationship between willingness to compromise and career decision self-efficacy. These findings allowed the discussion of practical implications for career guidance intervention aimed to support school-to-work transitions.

How young pedestrians perceive walkways: gender differences

Promotion of active mobility is a strategy to discourage motorized mobility and solve problems linked to environment protection. Particularly, walking could be considered as an alternative to short trips made by car in more densely inhabited areas. For promoting pedestrian mobility, the quality levels of pedestrian paths should be increased. At this regard, collecting pedestrians’ perceptions about the path characteristics is fundamental. In this paper, perceptions are collected in terms of Stated Preferences (SP) by detecting the choices pedestrians would make in hypothetical scenarios characterized by certain service quality levels. More specifically, this work aims to analyze pedestrian preferences by highlighting gender differences through discrete choice modelling. An SP survey was addressed to a sample of 240 Italian university students, and mixed logit models were calibrated. The results highlight how women and men perceive differently some walkway characteristics

Digital Health Literacy and Information-Seeking in the Era of COVID-19: Gender Differences Emerged from a Florentine University Experience.

Gender appears to be a strong predictor of online health information-seeking behaviour (OHISB), which is related to Digital Health Literacy (DHL). Gender differences in OHISB have been studied in different countries with different results, but no studies have investigated gender-specific OHISB among University students during the COVID-19 pandemic. We sought to investigate any gender differences in OHISB in the period between the first and second waves of the pandemic in Italian university students. A questionnaire developed by the global COVID-HL network, including existing and adapted validated scales and self-developed scales, was administered to 2996 University students in Florence. Gender differences were tested using the χ2 test or the Mann-Whitney U test. Male students reported a higher score in DHL than females (p < 0.001). However, female students seek COVID-19 information more often on different sources (for themselves and other people), on various topics, consider various aspects of information quality to be "very important'' (p < 0.05) and are more likely to be "often dissatisfied'' or "partly satisfied'' with information (p < 0.001). Our study confirmed gender as an important dimension to explain students' OHISB differences, which could help institutions promote gender-specific education programmes and provide gender-oriented health information.

Italian University Students’ Resilience during the COVID-19 Lockdown—A Structural Equation Model about the Relationship between Resilience, Emotion Regulation and Well-Being

Over the past two years, the consequences of the severe restrictions imposed by the rapid spread of COVID-19 among the global population have been a central focus of scientific research. The pandemic has been a singular and unexpected event that found people unprepared and vulnerable in responding to its emergence, resulting in substantial psychological distress. Scientific evidence has highlighted that adolescents and emerging adults have been among those populations at greatest risk of adverse psychological outcomes, even in the long term. In particular, more than one-third of young adults reported high levels of loneliness, and nearly half of 18- to 24-year-olds felt lonely during the pandemic, experiencing both psychological and emotional distress. The lockdown, the consequent suspension of face-to-face academic activities and the severe restriction of social life have disrupted the daily routines of students already involved in coping with developmental tasks related to identity formation and the relational experience. Under such conditions, emotions and emotional regulation skills are crucial in adapting behavior to reach academic goals and face mounting levels of distress. Therefore, several studies have investigated resilience mechanisms and coping strategies of emerging adults during the pandemic. The present study focuses on university students and explores the impact of resilience and emotional regulation on adverse psychological outcomes related to persistent distress conditions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Students were administered a self-report assessment battery through an online platform at the beginning (T0) and the end of the lockdown (T1). A structural equation model (SEM) was used to explore the relationship between resilience, emotional regulation difficulties and psychological distress (depression, anxiety and stress). The findings indicate that psychological resilience and emotion regulation are protective factors that buffer the extent of possible distress resulting from an adverse condition such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Decision times in orthographic processing: a cross-linguistic study

Reading comparisons across transparent and opaque orthographies indicate critical differences that may reveal the mechanisms involved in orthographic decoding across orthographies. Here, we address the role of criterion and speed of processing in accounting for performance differences across languages. We used binary tasks involving orthographic (words–pseudowords), and non-orthographic materials (female–male faces), and analyzed results based on Ratcliff’s Diffusion model. In the first study, 29 English and 28 Italian university students were given a lexical decision test. English observers made more errors than Italian observers while showing generally similar reaction times. In terms of the diffusion model, the two groups differed in the decision criterion: English observers used a lower criterion. There was no overall cross-linguistic difference in processing speed, but English observers showed lower values for words (and a smaller lexicality effect) than Italians. In the second study, participants were given a face gender judgment test. Female faces were identified slower than the male ones with no language group differences. In terms of the diffusion model, there was no difference between groups in drift rate and boundary separation. Overall, the new main finding concerns a difference in decision criterion limited to the orthographic task: English individuals showed a more lenient criterion in judging the lexicality of the items, a tendency that may explain why, despite lower accuracy, they were not slower. It is concluded that binary tasks (and the Diffusion model) can reveal cross-linguistic differences in orthographic processing which would otherwise be difficult to detect in standard single-word reading tasks.

"Imagine Your Career after the COVID-19 Pandemic": An Online Group Career Counseling Training for University Students.

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively influenced the psychological well-being of people around the world; university students have experienced feelings of fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the intolerance of uncertainty, and a worsened quality of life, related to the reduction of social contacts. Scholars all around the world widely suggest the need to take care of this issue, proposing solutions to support students' adjustment in the post-pandemic period. The literature on positive psychology and the life design approach has identified multiple psychological resources, the character strengths, that can sustain people's life satisfaction and well-being in changing contexts, including their university experience. We proposed an online group career counseling intervention for 30 Italian university students (experimental group) to promote university students' psychological resources and mitigate the long-term negative implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on life satisfaction. The other 30 students formed the control group. We found that the students engaged in the online group career counseling intervention evidenced, at the post-test, higher levels than the pre-test of (a) resilience, (b) subjective risk intelligence, (c) career adaptability, (d) self-efficacy, (e) optimism, (f) hope, (g) life satisfaction, and lower levels than the pre-test of (h) fears of COVID-19 pandemic. No differences at Time 1 and Time 2 were found in the control group. Implications for future research and practice will be discussed.