Yan Kong

The internet has become a crucial space for college students to explore and construct their self-identity. However, discrepancies between self-identity in

Adolescents’ sustained engagement in STEM fields is critical for cultivating future scientific talent. While school belonging—a key form of emotional support perceived by students within the school environment—has been widely studied, its specific influence on STEM career interest, particularly within non-Western educational systems, remains insufficiently understood. Drawing on Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), this study examines how school belonging, as a contextual affordance, shapes STEM career interest among Chinese high school students, and whether science identity, as a person input, mediates this relationship. Utilizing data from 451 students in a science-focused Chinese high school, multiple regression analyses demonstrated that school belonging significantly predicts higher STEM career interest. Science identity partially mediated this relationship, with science interest emerging as the strongest mediating component, followed by competence/performance beliefs; external recognition had a comparatively weaker effect. These findings suggest that fostering school belonging in science-oriented environments may support adolescents’ interest in STEM careers, both directly and indirectly through the development of science identity. From a cultural perspective, the study further sheds light on the mechanisms underlying students’ interest in STEM careers, and highlights the potential of inclusive environments that support the development of students’ sense of belonging and identity in promoting their long-term engagement in STEM fields.

Background: Over the past three years, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought an overwhelming impact on China’s hospital system and health care workers, which can lead to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Previous research has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic had long-term adverse effects on the mental health of health care workers. Indeed, PTSD symptoms have emerged as one of the significant mental health issues for health care workers arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we conducted this cross-sectional survey to investigate the prevalence of PTSD symptoms in health care workers and its relationship with the fear of COVID-19 and the COVID-19 burden after the full liberalization of COVID-19 prevention and control policy in China. Methods: This study was conducted three years after the global COVID-19 pandemic (January 15 to January 16, 2023). This study was conducted via the Wenjuanxing platform and used the Chinese versions of the scales PC-PTSD-5, COVID-19 Anxiety Scale (FCV-19S), Social Support Scale, COVID-19 Stress Scale, GAD-2, and PHQ-2. Results: The prevalence of PTSD symptoms in health care workers was 24.3% (232/955). depression(P < 0.001), anxiety(P < 0.05), the fear of COVID-19(P < 0.001), and COVID-19 burden(P < 0.001) were highly correlated with PTSD symptoms in health care workers. Social support(P < 0.05) was a protective factor of PTSD symptoms. Conclusions: This survey shows that PTSD symptoms were highly prevalent among Chinese health care workers after the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments and leaders of medical institutions should, through psychological interventions, address the current situation of PTSD symptoms among health care workers and develop targeted programs and strategies to reduce their psychological problems.

Most people worldwide suffer from resource scarcity in their lives. Perceived scarcity plays an important role in cognitive abilities and decision-making. This study employed the perceived scarcity, self-control, self-efficacy, and delayed gratification scales to explore the relationship among perceived scarcity, self-efficacy, self-control, and delayed gratification as well as the mediating role of self-efficacy and self-control between perceived scarcity and delayed gratification. A cross-sectional survey was conducted via an online survey platform with 1,109 Chinese college students. The results showed that perceived scarcity was negatively correlated with individual self-efficacy, self-control, and delayed gratification, while self-efficacy and self-control played a partial parallel-mediated role between perceived scarcity and delayed gratification. The mediation model accounted for 28% of the variance in delayed gratification. Moreover, the results indicated that perceived scarcity can reduce the delay in gratification through its negative impact on individual self-efficacy and self-control. To some extent, this result explains how perceived scarcity delays gratification from the perspective of motivation and cognition and provides support for further research on the intervention of perceived scarcity’s psychological and behavioral consequences.

Irresponsible research practices damaging the value of science has been an increasing concern among researchers, but previous work failed to estimate the prevalence of all forms of irresponsible research behavior. Additionally, these analyses have not included articles published in the last decade from 2011 to 2020. This meta-analysis provides an updated meta-analysis that calculates the pooled estimates of research misconduct (RM) and questionable research practices (QRPs), and explores the factors associated with the prevalence of these issues. The estimates, committing RM concern at least 1 of FFP (falsification, fabrication, plagiarism) and (unspecified) QRPs concern 1 or more QRPs, were 2.9% (95% CI 2.1–3.8%) and 12.5% (95% CI 10.5–14.7%), respectively. In addition, 15.5% (95% CI 12.4–19.2%) of researchers witnessed others who had committed at least 1 RM, while 39.7% (95% CI 35.6–44.0%) were aware of others who had used at least 1 QRP. The results document that response proportion, limited recall period, career level, disciplinary background and locations all affect significantly the prevalence of these issues. This meta-analysis addresses a gap in existing meta-analyses and estimates the prevalence of all forms of RM and QRPs, thus providing a better understanding of irresponsible research behaviors.

Gifted programs are an indispensable component of gifted education, and have drawn much academic attention in the recent years. However, the public images of such programs are still under-examined. In this study, we employed semantic network analysis and content analysis to uncover the public images of gifted programs in China and their change over time. Based on 1,486 Chinese news reports between 1978-2015 on gifted education, our analysis revealed four different images of gifted programs and their participants in China: “successful graduates”, “early ripe, early rot”, “superb intelligence”, and “all-around development”. The co-existence of two common stereotypes, “the chosen ones” and “Mad genius”, can be concluded from the emerging process of these four images and the correlations between them. In addition, the rise and fall of different images show how the public opinions of gifted programs change over time, influenced by both institutional interventions and culture shifts. The change over time is indicative of the social-constructive nature of public opinions towards gifted education.