Academic Context and Perceived Mental Workload of Psychology Students

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Rubio-Valdehita ◽  
Ramón López-Higes ◽  
Eva Díaz-Ramiro

AbstractThe excessive workload of university students is an academic stressor. Consequently, it is necessary to evaluate and control the workload in education. This research applies the NASA-TLX scale, as a measure of the workload. The objectives of this study were: (a) to measure the workload levels of a sample of 367 psychology students, (b) to group students according to their positive or negative perception of academic context (AC) and c) to analyze the effects of AC on workload. To assess the perceived AC, we used an ad hoc questionnaire designed according to Demand-Control-Social Support and Effort-Reward Imbalance models. Using cluster analysis, participants were classified into two groups (positive versus negative context). The differences between groups show that a positive AC improves performance (p < .01) and reduces feelings of overload (p < .02), temporal demand (p < .02), and nervousness and frustration (p < .001). Social relationships with peers and teachers, student autonomy and result satisfaction were relevant dimensions of the AC (p < .001 in all cases).

2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 191-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Rösler ◽  
Ute Stephan ◽  
Katja Hoffmann ◽  
Katja Morling ◽  
Anett Müller ◽  
...  

Die vorliegende Studie untersuchte die im Job-Demand-Control-Support-Modell und Effort-Reward-Imbalance-Modell beschriebenen Tätigkeitsmerkmale in Bezug auf Depressivität in einer Stichprobe von 265 Erwerbstätigen. Anhand konfirmatorischer Faktorenanalysen wurden Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede beider Modelle geprüft. Anschließend wurde die Bedeutung der nachweisbaren Tätigkeitsmerkmale für die Vorhersage von Depressivität getestet und untersucht, inwieweit die Effekte durch Überforderungserleben mediiert werden. Die Analysen zeigten, dass die Modelle sowohl gemeinsame (Arbeitsintensität bzw. berufliche Anforderungen) als auch distinkte Arbeitsmerkmale (Tätigkeitsspielraum, Arbeitsplatzsicherheit, beruflicher Status, soziale Anerkennung) erfassen. Hohe Arbeitsintensität, geringe Arbeitsplatzsicherheit und fehlende soziale Anerkennung standen in signifikantem Zusammenhang mit Depressivität. Anders als erwartet war der berufliche Status positiv mit Depressivität assoziiert, während für den Tätigkeitsspielraum keine signifikanten Effekte nachweisbar waren. Das Pfadmodell bestätigte sowohl direkte als auch durch Überforderungserleben vermittelte Zusammenhänge zwischen den Tätigkeitsmerkmalen und Depressivität (39 % Varianzaufklärung). Die Ergebnisse bieten eine Grundlage für die Identifizierung potenzieller Risikofaktoren für das Auftreten depressiver Symptome am Arbeitsplatz.


Work ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Linda Widar ◽  
Erika Wall ◽  
Sven Svensson

BACKGROUND: The complex position of a first line manager is characterized by heavy workload and contradictory demands. Little is known about how first line managers experience demand and control in their work. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to explore experiences of demand and control among first line managers within psychiatric and addiction care. METHOD: In the present study, interviews with ten managers in for-profit psychiatric and addiction care in Sweden were analyzed with a phenomenographic approach. RESULTS: The managers experiences of demand and control implied varied and extensive responsibilities for a wide range of professions; regulation by organizational, economic, and political frameworks; creating balance in their work; and handling the emergence and consequences of acute crisis. These experiences of demand and control involved high and contradictory demands together with coexisting high and low levels of control. Many of their work characteristics could be described in terms of both demand and control. CONSLUSION: The first line managers experiences of demand and control are more complex than implied by the job demand control theory. Our results suggest that the organizational position and branch should be considered when identifying health hazards in the work environment of first line managers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Vikram Mehta ◽  
Daniel Gooch ◽  
Arosha Bandara ◽  
Blaine Price ◽  
Bashar Nuseibeh

The emergence of ubiquitous computing (UbiComp) environments has increased the risk of undesired access to individuals’ physical space or their information, anytime and anywhere, raising potentially serious privacy concerns. Individuals lack awareness and control of the vulnerabilities in everyday contexts and need support and care in regulating disclosures to their physical and digital selves. Existing GUI-based solutions, however, often feel physically interruptive, socially disruptive, time-consuming and cumbersome. To address such challenges, we investigate the user interaction experience and discuss the need for more tangible and embodied interactions for effective and seamless natural privacy management in everyday UbiComp settings. We propose the Privacy Care interaction framework, which is rooted in the literature of privacy management and tangible computing. Keeping users at the center, Awareness and Control are established as the core parts of our framework. This is supported with three interrelated interaction tenets: Direct, Ready-to-Hand, and Contextual . Direct refers to intuitiveness through metaphor usage. Ready-to-Hand supports granularity, non-intrusiveness, and ad hoc management, through periphery-to-center style attention transitions. Contextual supports customization through modularity and configurability. Together, they aim to provide experience of an embodied privacy care with varied interactions that are calming and yet actively empowering. The framework provides designers of such care with a basis to refer to, to generate effective tangible tools for privacy management in everyday settings. Through five semi-structured focus groups, we explore the privacy challenges faced by a sample set of 15 older adults (aged 60+) across their cyber-physical-social spaces. The results show conformity to our framework, demonstrating the relevance of the facets of the framework to the design of privacy management tools in everyday UbiComp contexts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Priyanka Pandey ◽  
Raghuraj Singh

Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is mainly designed to set up communication among devices in infrastructure-less wireless communication network. Routing in this kind of communication network is highly affected by its restricted characteristics such as frequent topological changes and limited battery power. Several research works have been carried out to improve routing performance in MANET. However, the overall performance enhancement in terms of packet delivery, delay and control message overhead is still not come into the wrapping up. In order to overcome the addressed issues, an Efficient and Stable-AODV (EFST-AODV) routing scheme has been proposed which is an improvement over AODV to establish a better quality route between source and destination. In this method, we have modified the route request and route reply phase. During the route request phase, cost metric of a route is calculated on the basis of parameters such as residual energy, delay and distance. In a route reply phase, average residual energy and average delay of overall path is calculated and the data forwarding decision is taken at the source node accordingly. Simulation outcomes reveal that the proposed approach gives better results in terms of packet delivery ratio, delay, throughput, normalized routing load and control message overhead as compared to AODV.


Author(s):  
E. Georgiou ◽  
J. Dai

The motivation for this work is to develop a platform for a self-localization device. Such a platform has many applications for the autonomous maneuverable non-holonomic mobile robot classification, which can be used for search and rescue or for inspection devices where the robot has a desired path to follow but because of an unknown terrain, the device requires the ability to make ad-hoc corrections to its movement to reach its desire path. The mobile robot is modeled using Lagrangian d’Alembert’s principle considering all the possible inertias and forces generated, and are controlled by restraining movement based on the holonomic and non-holonomic constraints of the modeled vehicle. The device is controlled by a PD controller based on the vehicle’s holonomic and non-holonomic constraints. An experiment was setup to verify the modeling and control structure’s functionality and the initial results are promising.


Author(s):  
Evelin Daiane Gabriel Pinhatti ◽  
Renata Perfeito Ribeiro ◽  
Marcos Hirata Soares ◽  
Júlia Trevisan Martins ◽  
Maria Ribeiro Lacerda ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze the combined use of models for the evaluation of work-related psychosocial aspects and their association with the prevalence of Minor Psychics Disorders among nursing workers. Method: cross-sectional study with a sample of 285 nursing workers. Data collection was performed through the application of a structured sociodemographic and occupational questionnaire and the Demand-Control-Support, Effort-Reward Imbalance and Self-Reporting Questionnaire. Descriptive analysis and a multiple logistic regression were performed. Results: the prevalence of suspicion of minor psychics disorders was 32.6%. The dimensions of both models were associated with mental health. The full Effort-Reward Imbalance and Demand-Control and Social Support models predict Minor Psychics Disorders to a greater extent than the combined use of partial models. Conclusion: it was found that the Effort-Reward Imbalance model captured better the magnitude of the Minor Psychics Disorders in this sample of workers compared to the Demand-Control and Social Support model. However, the concomitant use of the theoretical models revealed unique contributions in the evaluation of Minor Psychics Disorders. Considering the complexity of mental illnesses, it is important that different factors be evaluated.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0252192
Author(s):  
Helena Eriksson ◽  
Kjell Torén ◽  
Annika Rosengren ◽  
Eva Andersson ◽  
Mia Söderberg

Purpose The aim was to examine potential associations between psychosocial job exposures, evaluated with the Job Demand-Control-model, and presence of coronary artery calcium. Methods We performed a cross-sectional study using the Swedish CArdioPulmonary bioImage Study,(SCAPIS)pilot study. Coronary artery calcium was assessed through computed tomography of the coronary arteries and with coronary artery scoring, CACS. Main outcome was CACS ≥100 compared to CACS 0. Job demand and control was analysed according to the standard categorization of the two variables into: high strain, active, passive and low strain (reference). Associations between these variables and CACS were calculated with prevalence ratios (PR) using Cox regression with robust variance, 95% confidence intervals (CI) and adjusted for age, smoking, education, socioeconomic area and metabolic syndrome. Results In total 777 participants were used in our analyses, for which 20% of the men and 5% of the women had CACS ≥100, respectively. The PR of having CACS ≥100 was non-significantly elevated for men in high strain jobs 1.54 (95% CI 0.88–2.69) and in active jobs 1.67 (95% CI 0.92–3.06), adjusted for covariates. For women there was no association between exposure to high strain and having CACS ≥100 PR 1.02 (95% CI 0.24–4.31). Among women reporting passive job, the PR was non-significantly elevated, 2.40 (95% CI 0.83–6.92), adjusted for covariates. Conclusion The statistical power of the study was limited, but our results suggests the possibility that exposure to a high strain or an active job situation may increase the risk of CACS in men, while in women, it may rather be exposure to passive job.


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