Ali Moghadam Zadeh

This study aimed to address the need for a comprehensive assessment tool to evaluate the mathematical abilities of first-grade students through cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA). The primary challenge involved in this endeavor was to delineate the specific cognitive skills and sub-skills pertinent to first-grade mathematics (FG-M) and to determine the most suitable model for assessment. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research identified nine cognitive attributes essential for FG-M and developed a Q-matrix delineating the relationship between these attributes. A preliminary version of the FG-M checklist comprising 74 items was formulated. Subsequently, the assessment tool was administered to 1018 first-grade students, with their teachers utilizing the FG-M checklist for evaluation. Results indicated a commendable accuracy in classifying the nine cognitive attributes, ranging from 0.68 to 0.92, with an average accuracy of 0.76. Furthermore, the validity of the scores was corroborated by a substantial correlation (r = 0.78) between scores from the FG-M checklist and the arithmetic subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV). Overall, the study concluded that the scores from the FG-M checklist are reliable for assessing the mathematical skills of first-grade students. The findings underscored the students’ proficiency in fundamental mathematical concepts such as cardinality, addition, subtraction, weight, and statistics. However, areas of weakness were identified in concepts related to multiplication, time, symmetry, and geometry. This research contributes significantly to the advancement of CDA in educational contexts, providing educators with a valuable tool for identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses in mathematical cognition.

Scientific reports notified that the pandemic caused by the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has raised an unprecedented mental health emergency worldwide. Abrupt changes in daily routine, environmental constraints, adopted home confinement measures, and uncertainty about a date for returning to usual activities can potentially affect mental health and sports activities in athletes. Hence, we designed a cross-sectional study with a within-subjects design to investigate the impact of the pandemic on mental health, mood states, and life satisfaction of elite athletes. During the three phases of home confinement (April 14–24,n= 525), reopening (May 9–19,n= 464), and current semi-lockdown (July 20–31,n= 428), elite athletes voluntarily responded to an online survey. The self-report questionnaire was prepared to collect demographic and epidemiological variables of interest and the COVID-19-related information. All participants also completed the Profile of Mood State (POMS), General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28), and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). The main result is that the training rate, mental health, life satisfaction, and positive mood have decreased during the home confinement period as compared with the reopening and semi-lockdown phases. However, the need for psychosocial services has increased during the pandemic period. The present study provides the first preliminary evidence that home confinement conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic might have negatively influenced elite athlete’s mood state, mental health, and life satisfaction, as well as training rates. Monitoring the psychological parameters of elite athletes and developing strategies to improve their mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic should be on the agenda. Next studies, therefore, seem reasonable to focus on active interventions for athletes during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

This study was conducted with the assumption that there would be a significant and negative relationship between Coronavirus Anxiety (CVA) and Psychological Well-Being (PWB). However, the findings did not meet our assumption because one of the components of PWB named “purposefulness-in-life” had a strong and positive correlation with CVA, meaning that those participants with a strong goal orientation would experience higher level of CVA. To our knowledge, this finding could be considerable in the new situation of COVID-19 pandemic. In the following analysis, the moderation effects of age and gender on the relationship between CVA and purposefulness-in-life were found significant.

Professional lifestyle and championship period often put a great deal of pressure on athletes, who usually experience highly stressful periods during training for competitions. Recently, biomarkers of cellular aging, telomere length (TL) and telomerase activity (TA), have been considered to investigate the effects of stress and lifestyle factors. Studies in non-athletic populations have shown that stress and poor lifestyle decrease TL and TA. On the other hand, it has been shown that in general, exercise increases TL and its activity, although the underlying mechanisms remained largely unexplored. TL and TA outcomes in elite athletes remain inconclusive and mainly affected by confounding factors, such as age. Elite athletes, therefore, might offer a unique target group for studying exercise-telomere hypothesis for further investigation of the roles of stressors on telomere-related biomarkers. In this perspective, we highlight the potentials for studying these psychophysiological markers in elite athletes in order to understand stress-aging relationship and potential underlying mechanisms. Moreover, we present important methodological aspects that could help in the development of future experimental designs.

The emergence of social media platforms as the main representatives of Web 3.0 applications significantly impacts the co-creation activities among enterprises, customers, and other stakeholders, and has enabled firms to benefit from creativity and ideas of their users and customers for developing and rendering innovative services. This study aims to investigate how the co-creation activities of users on social media platforms have an effect on the enterprises’ innovative services. For this purpose, the authors surveyed customers of innovative services who used social media platforms to meet their needs from the enterprises that innovatively offer such services. An online questionnaire was designed and distributed among the sample of customers, and 505 completed questionnaires were analyzed following the PLS-SEM approach. The findings revealed that customer citizenship behavior and customer participation behavior on social media platforms positively affect the rendering of innovative services. Findings also highlighted that an increase in social co-creation activities, as moderator, positively affects customer citizenship behavior on service innovativeness, and negatively affects customer participation behavior on service innovativeness. The findings of this research could be useful for entrepreneurs and managers of the enterprises that offer innovative services to efficiently use social media tools to benefit from the customers’ co-creation activities and to perform more competitively and sustainably in a hostile business environment.