Francesco Sulla

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Verified

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• PhD, Doctor Europaeus, Educational Psychology
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Foggia

This study explores the effects of digital storytelling using Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) on knowledge acquisition in primary school children. TUIs, which bridge the physical and digital worlds, provide an interactive and multisensory learning experience. Grounded in the principles of embodied cognition and constructivist pedagogy, this researc...

Gender stereotypes and sexist attitudes continue to persist in educational settings, with significant implications for students’ achievement and well-being. This study aimed to investigate the development of gender stereotypes and sexist attitudes among Italian high school students and trainee teachers. A series of focus groups were conducted with...

Gender inequalities continue to pose a significant issue across various aspects of life, adversely impacting the well-being of both females and males. These disparities often stem from the ingrained gender stereotypes passed down to young individuals through parental guidance, educational systems, and media portrayal. For this reason, within the ps...

The rapid integration of digital technologies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed various aspects of professional life. In particular, the literature found teachers to be among the professional categories most affected by technostress. Because assessing technostress is still a priority for scholars and mental health professionals,...

The COVID-19 pandemic drastically affected many areas and contexts of today’s society, including school and family. Several studies focused on the worldwide effects of school closures on students’ learning outcomes, context, and well-being. However, the data emerging from these studies are often inconsistent and fragmentary, highlighting the need o...

In the current educational context, international institutions are being called to rethink education and declining new strategies that aim to teach sustainable behaviors. From this perspective, the present study aims to investigate the attitudes towards the sustainability of trainee teachers, verifying their connection with psycho-social variables,...

The term “giving” refers to the altruistic act of offering something to another person for free without expecting anything in return. While prosocial behavior can also be found in very young children, altruistic behavior emerges later, with the moral and cognitive development, also supported by adult praise, that children may receive within the edu...

The communication by di Furia and colleagues describes useful elements for prevention programs against cyberbullying, highlighting the importance of cooperative learning strategies to increase positive students’ digital relationships and decrease exclusion mechanisms with positive effects on well-being.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have been trying to identify which personal resources can contribute to minimizing the mental health costs in students incurred due to the restrictions that disrupted safety and predictability in their academic lives. The aim of the study was to verify if and how individual factors (resilience and positivity...

Interpersonal physiological synchrony and collaboration in educational contexts have been identified as key aspects of the learning environment to foster critical thinking, decision-making, problem-solving, and shared knowledge construction and learning of students. In addition to this, teachers’ support and interaction with students result in a pr...

Introduction Self-determination construct is a motivation theory used in professional and educational context to foster special needs teachers’ development of metacognition, and psychological wellbeing. The Learning Climate Questionnaire (LCQ) is a validate questionnaire used to underly teachers’ professional and personal competence, and improving...

In light of the alarming results emerging from some studies and reports on the significant increase in aggressive online behaviors among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, the current research aimed at providing a more detailed evaluation of the investigations focusing on the cyberbullying prevalence rates published between 2020...

During the COVID-19 pandemic, entire university courses were moved online. This represented a challenge for universities, who were required to move toward an entirely online learning environment without adequate time to manage the change from traditional courses to online courses. However, beyond the emergency of the pandemic, higher education does...

Although cyberbullying and cybervictimization prevention programs have proved effective in the short term, their effectiveness remains unclear in the long run. Thus, the present study evaluated the long-term effects of the Tabby Improved Prevention and Intervention Program (TIPIP). Participants were 475 middle and high school students (Mage = 12.38...

Adolescents who have to make decisions regarding their future career or academic path can be greatly influenced by parental expectations and other individual and contextual factors. The aim of this study is to explore the impact of adolescent–parent career congruence on adolescents’ well-being and future intention to enroll in a university course....

Introduction Special needs teachers deliver crucial care to their students by showing a particular attitude toward them. However, they usually face stressful situations that negatively impact their capacity to support their students, often reporting higher levels of burnout compared to teachers from mainstream education. Self-compassion has been se...

Teachers who continually experience behaviour problems in their classrooms may believe they are ineffective at working with children. Indeed, student misbehaviour is often identified as the main cause of teacher stress. Strategies designed to increase teacher rates of approval in their class have been shown to be effective in decreasing students’ i...

People with sub-threshold autistic traits (SATs) are more prone to develop addictive behaviors such the ones linked to Internet abuse. The restrictions for anti-COVID-19 distancing measures encourage social isolation and, consequently, increase screen time, which may lead to Internet addiction (IA). However, a better quality of life (QoL) may have...

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Distance Learning (DL) supported teachers and students, allowing them to have a virtual educational context in which continuing to teach, study, and interact. However, several difficulties were reported by teachers in using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which in turn negatively influenced their emot...

La tipizzazione di genere è il processo attraverso cui i bambini e le bambine acquisiscono valori e comportamenti considerati appropriati per il loro genere entro la loro cultura di appartenenza. I genitori hanno un ruolo rilevante nella tipizzazione di genere dei propri figli, nella misura in cui insegnano loro a comportarsi in certi modi (tipizza...

Background and aim: simulation became gradually pivotal in training of health professionals: indeed, it showed an improvement in practical skill of the trainees compared to theoretical lectures. Among others, ACLS (advance cardiovascular life support) courses are now one of the standard learning practices most spread around the world. The primary...

RIASSUNTO Introduzione: La gestione e la rilevazione del dolore nelle Unità di Terapia Intensiva Pediatrica (UTIP) rimane tutt'oggi una delle sfide più difficili affrontate dagli operatori sanitari. La valutazione del dolore nel bambino è complessa e lo è ancora di più nell'ambito delle UTIP. È necessario l'utilizzo di strumenti adatti alla misuraz...

The governmental restriction due to COVID-19 pandemic led to Italian Universities moving teaching from face-to-face, to online. This represented an unexpected transition from traditional learning to what can be considered “e-learning.” This, together with the psychological distress that may be associated with the experience of lockdown, might have...

Background: Intensive Care Units are emotionally intense environments where professional autonomy and interprofessional collaboration are essential. Nurses are at high risk of burnout, and the level of compassion satisfaction has a deep impact on the quality of their professional life. Although leadership styles and burnout have been the subject of...

Background and aim: Pain assessment in pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is a demanding challenge. The COMFORT-B scale is recognized as the gold standard in such patients. However, the use of this instrument in PICU setting is disputed. The Behavioral Pain Scale (BPS), instead, is considered to be the gold standard for pain assessment in deeply...

Background and aim of the work: Spiritual care in nursing is a critical part of providing holistic care. Whilst patients might desire spiritual care and value the opportunities that nurses take to engage with them to meet their spiritual needs, research suggests that nurses do not consistently engage in spiritual care with their patients. To ident...

Recent systematic observations of UK classrooms are reviewed. Findings about how verbal teacher-feedback and students' on-task behaviour are associated are discussed. The method, utility and impact of this type of quantitative research are discussed using a large-scale (mass) secondary school study. Findings include: the use of positive feedback by...

Recent systematic observations of UK classrooms are reviewed. Findings about how verbal teacher-feedback and students’ ontask behaviour are associated are discussed. The method, utility and impact of this type of quantitative research are discussed using a large-scale (mass) secondary school study. Findings include: the use of positive feedback by...

The effects teachers have on their students on-task and social behavior in the classroom has been widely researched (e.g. Apter, Arnold and Swinson, 2010; Apter, 2016; Brophy, 1981; Harrop and Swinson, 2000; Nafpaktitis, Mayer and Butterworth, 1985, White, 1975). This article aims at looking at patterns in these studies and describe what is known a...

Since the 1960s, researchers have been demonstrating the power of teacher approval on the behaviour of students. Despite the huge amount of research in English-speaking countries the natural rates of approval and disapproval had never been investigated in Italian schools. The aims of this study were: (a) to examine the proportionality of different...

Background and aim of the work: Spiritual wellbeing has important implications for an individual's health and wellbeing. Whilst the provision of spiritual care and assessment of spiritual needs is a vital part of the nurse's role, literature suggests that nurses do not always engage in spiritual care with their patients or assess their spiritual n...

Background and aim of the work: Numbers of elderly people worldwide continue to grow. Increasingly these individuals require nursing and residential care to meet their needs. Nursing is an occupation associated with burnout amongst its workforce, associated with increases of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and decreases in personal accompl...

Background and aim of the work: Numerous negative outcomes of inadequate pain management among children have been cited in the literature. Inadequate pain management may be particularly detrimental to children and adolescents facing life-threatening injury or illness on a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). It is therefore absolutely necessary...

Background and aim: The Integrated Narrative Nursing Model (INNM) is an approach that integrates the qualitative methodology typical of the human sciences, with the quantitative methodology more often associated with the natural sciences. This complex model, which combines a focus on narrative with quantitative measures, has recently been effectiv...

Since the 1960s, researchers have been demonstrating the power of teacher approval on the behaviour of students. Despite the huge amount of research in English-speaking countries the natural rates of approval and disapproval had never been investigated in Italian schools. The aims of this study were: (a) to examine the proportionality of different...

Increasing teacher verbal approval has been shown to produce both increased pupil “on-task” behaviour and academic achievement. The present study aimed to address gaps in current knowledge about the effect of different kinds of teacher approval, other than verbal approval, on students’ performance. An exploratory study, followed by an experimental...

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Pain in intensive care units (ICUs) is a frequent and often undermanaged problem. Brain-injured patients are often unable to reliably self-report their pain, calling forth the need to use behavioural scales such as the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT). This study aimed to test the reliability and validity of the Italia...

Previous studies showed that mothers vary in the way in which they discuss past experiences with their children, since they can exhibit narrative (elaborative) or paradigmatic (repetitive) styles to different extents. Given this background, the aim of the present study was to analyze differences in the mothers’ use of narrative styles and mental st...

La disposizione dei banchi è una variabile strutturale dell’ambiente classe che può aiutare a prevenire i comportamenti di disturbo che influiscono sull’attenzione degli studenti e tolgono tempo alla didattica. Uno studio osservativo condotto, in Italia, su nove classi di scuola primaria e cinque classi di scuola secondaria di primo grado, aveva l’...

In this study, we investigated the relationship between mothers' psychological lexicon and children's cognitive and socio-emotive development as assessed through conceptual and semantic understanding tasks, in addition to the traditional tasks of theory of mind. Currently, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the frequency of mothers' men...

There have been demonstrated effects of teachers’ verbal approval on pupils’ behavior (e.g. Swinson and Harrop, Educ Psychol Pract 17(2):157–167, 2001) and academic achievement (e.g. Weinstein et al., Coll Stud J 43(2):452–453, 2009). Although much of the teachers’ time is spent on marking pupils’ work, not too much is known about the effect of wri...

There have been demonstrated effects of teachers’ verbal approval on pupils’ behavior (e.g. Swinson and Harrop, Educ Psychol Pract 17(2):157–167, 2001) and academic achievement (e.g. Weinstein et al., Coll Stud J 43(2):452–453, 2009). Although much of the teachers’ time is spent on marking pupils’ work, not too much is known about the effect of wri...

Introduzione: Manipolare la qualità e la quantità di feedback che gli insegnanti rivolgono agli studenti ha effetti sul loro comportamento. Vale quindi la pena domandarsi: con che frequenza gli insegnanti lodano e/o rimproverano gli studenti? Con quali effetti sul loro comportamento? Nell’ambito della letteratura che indaga i tassi “naturalistici”...

In a recent study on approval and disapproval in the classroom (Sulla, 2015), Italian and British teachers were compared: higher rates of both teacher disapproval and pupils off-task behaviour were found in Italian classrooms across the school grades. As a result, a group of 32 Italian primary school teachers took part in a training programme speci...

Introduzione Numerose ricerche hanno dimostrato l’efficacia dell’approvazione verbale da parte dell’insegnante nel promuovere una buona condotta da parte degli studenti in classe (Swinson e Harrop, 2012). Mentre il feedback in forma scritta è uno strumento molto utilizzato dagli insegnanti, non ci sono, invece, studi che abbiano studiato le potenzi...

A review and analysis of the research literature on teachers' behaviour in the classroom is provided. We have clarified what approval is, why it is advisable to be used and how we can use it effectively. Firstly, the state of the art about teachers' approval and disapproval in the classroom is presented; secondly, studies concern with training whic...

Practical, actionable information about the positive behavioral approach to education is in desperately short supply, and yet when implemented properly the impact on school behavior and achievement can be enormous (Swinson & Harrop, 2012). A considerable number of behavioral research and demonstration studies, carried out over the past 40 years, ha...

Introduzione Numerose ricerche hanno dimostrato che il comportamento dell’insegnante ha una forte influenza sul comportamento degli studenti (Stronge, 2008). Da una rassegna (Beaman & Wheldall, 2000) è risultato che: gli insegnanti emettono più disapprovazioni che approvazioni nei confronti degli studenti; le approvazioni sono perlopiù rivolte ai c...