Mikaël De Clercq

Understanding the factors that drive pro-environmental behaviors (PEB) is critical for both research and practice. While the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) provides a robust framework for predicting PEBs, its findings related to PEBs remain incomplete. First, PEB diversity is still overlooked and differentiating their nature and characteristics warrants further investigation. Second, TPB does not fully account for the emotional nature of the ecological transition. This study addresses these two limitations by implementing a psychometric network study among 2,100 participants testing an improved version of the TPB incorporating climate-related emotions and applied to five distinct types of PEBs: conservation, environmental citizenship, food consumption, transportation, and waste management. Our results identified perceived behavioral control as a particularly central variable in our networks. This paper also highlights the importance of considering different types of PEBs and contributes to the development of more effective strategies for fostering sustainable behaviors and facilitating ecological transition

Cet article propose d’apporter un éclairage nouveau sur les pratiques pédagogiques des enseignants universitaires en cours magistral. Il s’agit, à partir de données collectées au sein d’une université française auprès d’un échantillon de 1 250 étudiants et de 39 enseignants, d’éprouver, d’une part, la validité et la fidélité de trois instruments de mesure des pratiques (observées, autorapportées et perçues) et, d’autre part, d’étudier les différences de perception de ces pratiques en fonction de la mesure employée. Les résultats nous amènent à conclure à une bonne fiabilité des instruments, en distinguant trois dimensions des pratiques. De même, des analyses intrasujets et multiniveaux permettent de relever des différences significatives de description des pratiques en fonction de l’instrument utilisé. L’ensemble des résultats est discuté pour montrer la complémentarité potentielle d’un regard croisé sur les pratiques enseignantes et les limites respectives des instruments isolés.

A vast body of research demonstrated that the first year at the university is a sensitive phase for students (Coertjens et al. 2017; Trautwein and Bosse 2017). Statistics reveal that dropouts and f...

The transition into higher education (HE) is a particularly challenging process for students due to a large variety of difficulties and requirements. Moreover, increasing student numbers and diversity in European HE have complexified the issue of the successful transition to university. Consequently, it is important to further develop our understanding of the heterogeneity of students and the specific challenges that impact their successful and less stressful transitions into higher education. This paper contributes to this scientific endeavour. More precisely, a study was carried out among 1,048 first-year students from a French-speaking Belgian university . Using latent profile analysis, our results yielded five profiles representing different combinations of achievement predictors (high school grade, socio-economic status, informed-choice, and self-efficacy beliefs). When comparing the profiles, our results further highlighted key differences in the way students experienced the specific challenges associated with the transition and succeeded at the end of the first year. The discussion of the results allowed us to provide practical implications and future perspectives on the thorny issue of diversity into the transition to HE.

La transition vers l’enseignement supérieur est une période éprouvante pour une majorité d’étudiants. Une grande diversité d’actions de soutien a vu le jour ces 30 dernières années. Cependant, il est difficile de catégoriser ces pratiques et l’évaluation rigoureuse de leurs effets reste trop rare. Le but de cet article est d’apporter une proposition de clarification conceptuelle et méthodologique venant pallier ces deux limites actuelles. Premièrement, une réflexion théorique couplée à l’analyse concrète de 60 pratiques d’accompagnement permettra de proposer un référentiel commun de classification. Deuxièmement, plusieurs pistes de soutien à la conceptualisation d’évaluation rigoureuse d’une pratique d’accompagnement de l’étudiant seront présentées.

In the literature, social support is depicted as an important determinant of whether someone completes their doctoral process. However, few studies actually test the impact of social support in sound quantitative designs. The present study provides an incremental understanding of the social support effect by (a) assessing the joint influence of three sources of social support (supervisor, academic peers, and relatives) on the emotions of doctoral students, their perceived progress and intention to persist; and (b) testing the interactions between these three sources of support and the doctoral stage of advancement. To this end, we carried out a longitudinal three-wave study with 446 doctoral students from two Belgian universities. The hierarchical regressions showed that (1) only supervisor support significantly predicted the outcomes of doctoral students and (2) the influence of social support on intention to persist was moderated by the stage of advancement in the doctoral journey. We discuss these results and their implications for further work on social support in light of existing literature on doctoral persistence.

Grounded in social-psychological literature, this experimental study assessed the effects of two so-called “wise” interventions implemented in a student study program. The interventions took place during the very first week at university, a presumed pivotal phase of transition. A group of 375 freshmen in psychology were randomly assigned to three conditions: control, social belonging, and self-affirmation. Following the intervention, students in the social-belonging condition expressed less social apprehension, a higher social integration, and a stronger intention to persist one month later than the other participants. They also relied more on peers as a source of support when confronted with a study task. Students in the self-affirmation condition felt more self-affirmed at the end of the intervention but didn’t benefit from other lasting effects. The results suggest that some well-timed and well-targeted “wise” interventions could provide lasting positive consequences for student adjustment. The respective merits of social-belonging and self-affirmation interventions are also discussed.