Search results

Given declining tuition funds and government grants, Kenyan universities need to develop strategies, including increased research grants and collaborations, to diversify their income sources. Well-managed doctoral students can boost a university’s teaching and research outputs. However, numbers of students enrolled in doctoral programmes at Kenyan universities are low, and graduation rates and time-to-graduate statistics are disturbing. Research undertaken elsewhere underline the important role played by supervisors and peers in facilitating students’ sense of belonging and their success. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the influence of supervisory and peer support on PhD students’ sense of belonging and their success at Kenyan universities.

In this cross-sectional study, data were gathered through an online questionnaire from 614 students admitted to doctoral programmes at Kenyan universities between 2010 and 2018. We used multi-item scales to collect data on PhD students’ self-efficacy, supervisory and peer support and a sense of belonging.

Structural equation modelling results revealed that PhD students’ modes of study and self-efficacy were significantly associated with the quality of supervision, peer support and a sense of belonging. However, only age, a sense of belonging and the quality of supervision were directly linked to their success.

This study contributes to the literature on doctoral-level education, responding to the need for research on the influence of relationships with supervisors and peers on PhD students’ sense of belonging and their success, especially in developing countries.

With the rising concerns of compulsive use of social media, it is important to understand why users develop such unplanned and irrational behaviors. Leveraging the uses and gratification theory, the authors aim to explore the determinants of compulsive use of social media from the dual perspectives of individual needs (need to belong (NTB) and need for uniqueness) and peer-related factors (referent network size and perceived peer activeness). Due to the importance of self-construal in cognitive deliberation on peer influences, the moderating effects of self-construal were taken into consideration.

The authors empirically test their model by conducting an online survey with 459 WeChat users.

The results show that compulsive use of social media is predicated by both individual needs and influence from peers. Moreover, peer influence could be attenuated when individuals develop a high degree of independent self-construal.

The authors' study contributes to the research of compulsive behavior in the context of social media use by incorporating the dual effects of individual needs and social influence. The authors also offer managerial insights on eradicating the formation of compulsive behaviors.

The authors examine the dual effects of individual needs and peer influence in predicting compulsive use of social media and the moderating role of self-construal, which have been rarely investigated in this context.

This paper aims to investigate the spillover effects of jump and crash events among Chinese nonfinancial firms.

This sample consists of more than 1.5 million weekly observations of over 3,000 Chinese listed firms over the period 1991–2015. The authors utilize univariate tests to compare the post-event performance of matched peer and non-peer control firms and cross-sectional regressions of their abnormal returns/cumulative abnormal returns (ARs/CARs) and returns on assets (ROAs).

The authors find that extreme risk-adjusted abnormal stock returns (stock price crashes and jumps) generate statistically significant ARs/CARs in the same directions in industry, size, leverage, and geographical location matched peer firms in Chinese stock market. Further tests reveal that peer firms' response to the crash event is pronounced more in the group of firms about which the information asymmetry is high between investors and firms.

Portfolio investors can adjust their portfolios accordingly by selling stocks of the matching rival firms during a crash period. Policymakers may develop policies so as to protect the interests of small investors in the events of crashes in the markets. They can reduce the information asymmetry between the firms and the investors by making information about the firms more transparent, so as to reduce the contagion in case of crash event.

This study has important implications for portfolio investment managers and policymakers.

To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first study that combines the jump and crash events and attempts to assess their spillover effects on other firms in Chinese stock market.

Implementing any evidence-based practice into complex systems is hugely difficult. Implementing peer support is very much at an early stage in most systems around the world. This chapter examines the implementation of peer work into health and social care systems by drawing on an ecological perspective. The wider sociocultural context is considered, while the organisational context and how this shapes both the peer and service delivered is further explored. Some tips are provided across the ecology of factors that the research describes as being important to implementation.

Positive psychology helps us understand the knowledge required to contribute to adolescents' societal development and adjustability. Adolescence is the crucial stage to work on for a balanced personality. The present study concerned adolescents' self-strength, happiness, and help-seeking behaviour. The authors aimed to explore the relationship between adolescents' self-strength and happiness and investigate the mediational effect of adolescents' help-seeking behaviour on their self-strength and happiness.

The research design of the current quantitative study was correlational, and 809 adolescents from China and Pakistan participated in the present study. Data were personally collected from participants through self-developed scales.

We deployed Pearson correlation and simple mediation using SPSS software and found a linear, positive, strong (r = 0.654, n = 809, p = 0.000 < 0.01) and statistically significant correlation between adolescents' self-strength and happiness. The authors also found a significant indirect effect of help-seeking on adolescents' self-strength and happiness at (β = 0.373, t(907) = 7.01).

Using self-reported scales to gather information was one of the study's limitations. Adolescents may have misunderstood the notion or construct narrated in words or responded biasedly despite the bilingual scales.

This study offers social and practical implications for educators, parents, and school administrators to address the development of adolescents' personalities using a positive psychology lens.

The findings are of significant importance for teachers working in the elementary schools. They may work on adolescents' self-strength, happiness, and help-seeking to develop balanced personalities.

This research explores the key factors that contribute to the success of Black students in a predominantly White institution (PWI). Two measures of success are examined: cumulative grade point average (GPA) and graduation status.

Using student-level data from a southeastern university, this research estimates education production functions using ordinary least squares regression.

While the negative effect of being Black is significant for both cumulative GPA and graduation status, the effect becomes overshadowed when peer effects are added. The authors also found the critical effect of institutional support on student success.

The student-level data are restricted to a single institution over a relatively short period of time, which limits the authors' ability to analyze institution-level factors.

This research provides a broad view of many significant factors for student success with particular highlights on the importance of encouraging Black students to utilize institutional support.

This study is an extension of the education production function model in the field of student success. The study identified peer effects and institutional support as more powerful determinants of student success than race.

This study aims to examine a second-order latent variable of family functioning built from two established protective factors for American Indian (AI) youth, i.e. family cohesion and parental monitoring. This study then examines if family functioning is related to alcohol use frequency or age of initiation for AI youth. Additionally, this study examines if family functioning served as a moderator for the risk factor of peer alcohol use.

Data came from the 2021 Our Youth, Our Future survey. Participants were 4,373 AI adolescents from Grades 6–12 across the contiguous USA. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the latent variable of family functioning. Structural paths and interaction terms between peer use and family functioning were added to the SEM to explore direct and moderating effects.

Family cohesion and parental monitoring were best represented by a second-order latent variable of family functioning, which was related to later initiation and lower alcohol use frequency.

The findings regarding the initiation of alcohol use may be applicable to prevention programs, with family functioning serving as a protective factor for the initiation of alcohol use. Programs working toward alcohol prevention may be best served by focusing on family-based programs.

The latent variable of family functioning is appropriate for use in AI samples. Family functioning, which is an inherent resilience factor in AI communities, was shown to be protective against harmful alcohol use behaviors.

This study in Iran examined the role of internal and external psychological factors that affected green purchase intention. Moreover, it examined these variables' direct and indirect effects and green purchase intention on green purchase behavior.

An extended version of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) was employed, based on which a theoretical model was designed to reach the authors’ aim. An online questionnaire was used to collect data. For data analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, the bootstrapping method and the Preschool Language Scale (PLS) product-indicator approach were conducted to test the proposed conceptual model.

Results show that self-identity, self-interest, self-efficacy and a growth mindset have a positive impact on green purchase intention. However, the study found no predictive effect from peer influence and warm glow. In addition, self-efficacy and green purchase intention significantly affect green purchase behavior. The study reveals that green purchase intention substantially mediates the relationship between self-interest, growth mindset, warm glow and green purchase behavior. Further, warm glow moderates the impact of peer influence, self-identity and self-efficacy on green purchase intention. This study emphasizes the critical role of dispositional factors on green purchase intention and behavior.

Few studies consider the effect of the individual self, a growth mindset, a warm glow and peer influence on green purchase intention simultaneously. In addition, the authors introduced a different version of the TPB model. Further, this research also conducted how these variables, directly and indirectly, affect green purchase behavior.

This chapter seeks to shed light on the many factors that contribute to people becoming school shooters. These factors are divided into four domains: biological, psychological, social, and cultural. At the biological level, this chapter explores the potential influence of genetics, pre- and post-natal development, and body-related issues that may affect the perpetrators' sense of self. A psychological typology is presented, consisting of psychopathic, psychotic, and traumatized school shooters. Socially, school shooters often have multiple setbacks, failures, and rejections that contribute to their distress. Finally, the cultural domain includes such factors as media violence, role models for killing, and ideologies of hatred and supremacy. Rather than attributing school shootings to a simplistic cause such as bullying, this chapter discusses a wide range of potential influences that combine to cause mass attacks at schools.

Few public places are designed with due consideration to the needs and preferences of teens. Teens in public spaces are often viewed with apprehension from other user groups. Teens hanging out in public spaces are always observed with caution and are sometimes associated with negative behaviour by other community members. In designing public spaces that are suitable for the teens and not alienating them to other members of the community, it is necessary to understand how teens perceive their environment and what they expect from it. The psychological, social and emotional development determines the teens’ preferences regarding public spaces. This research attempts to understand how teens perceive and value those places and the factors that influence teens’ preferences in public spaces. This study aims to deduce some factors that influence teens’ preferences and behaviour from an environmental psychology perspective and then test these factors on a sample of teenagers in an Egyptian setting.

An empirical study was conducted with teens in two districts in Cairo, Egypt: “Dokki” and “Sheikh Zayed,” to understand how teens perceive their neighbourhoods, identify preferred places and discern factors that influence their preferences. A sample of 67 teens, aged between 13 and 19 years old, in which 31 were males, and 36 were females, completed a survey that allowed teens to identify and rate their experiences. This occurred using a map-based mobile application to foster more active engagement by participants, in which they identified their favourite places, the behaviour associated with these places, what teens do there – when, and with whom, as well as their rating of the place.

The most important conclusion drawn from this study was that teens’ preferences are linked to their cognitive, emotional and social development. They influence and are associated with essential aspects such as the sense of freedom, sense of safety, self-identity, enjoyment, thrill-seeking and peer relationships. Therefore, it is important to adopt a new perspective to the design of public spaces to create teen-friendly places.

Adopt a new perspective to public space design to create teen-friendly places by adopting an environmental psychology lens to shed light on the social and psychological dimensions of the built environment.