Problems of Psychology in the 21st Century

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Authors: Editorial Board

Cover, PPC, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2020

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Authors: Maria Annarumma

The great catastrophes of humanity – be it the plague of 1347 or that of 1629, the Spanish flu of 1918, the tsunami of 2004, the Coronavirus of 2020 – are all showing that, despite scientific progress or the arrogance of the "Promethean syndrome", the human being is constantly in danger. Violently and unexpectedly dropped in an atypical situation, which has subverted values and annihilated ancient certainties, we keep convincing ourselves that nothing will be the same. We try to hypothesize scenarios, outline reference frames, look ahead to the future. Probably, after the first months of austerity, of virtuous assertions about moral commitments to restore the frugality of customs as well as considerations about the sense of death and destiny, we will be carried away by the joy of having survived and we just would like to forget what happened. We will be rejecting the memory of suffering, bereavement, hospitals and intensive care. We will try to forget painful traces and go back to saying yes to life.

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Authors: Maria Annarumma, Luigi Vitale, Francesco Sessa, Ines Tedesco

In the life cycle of family systems, transition periods are important stages for the maturation of the individual and his family as it allows the reorganization of relational arrangements. The health emergency of recent months makes it necessary for us to reflect on resilience education, to cultivate more authentic educational relationships and to react to stressful and problematic situations with greater self-effectiveness. If rigid family systems risk of causing communicative and relational diseases, investing in emotional literacy and empathy means providing adults and children with the tools to deal with the painful situations, that are inevitably part of everyday life, to share negative experiences and bring out the inner resources. In this perspective, technologies play a significant role in the media, both because they are a bridge between the family context and the external social network, and because they potentially allow more inclusive and flexible learning-teaching processes. A meticulous analysis of assistive technologies is thus necessary in order to call for a reconfiguration of information flows, spatial-temporal arrangements, methodologies and tools that are to be reconfigured ad habitus of the new individual and social educational needs.

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Authors: Mehboob Ul Hassan, Rafaqat Ali Akbar

Applications of teachers’ pedagogical approaches for learners’ educational gains have been remained one of the educational debates since ago. Teachers transfer chunk of information among students through implementing techniques to strengthen teaching learning process. Relevance of ground-breaking instructional strategies put concrete effect on students’ entire academic success. Present quantitative research was conducted to explore the effect of teachers’ usage of students’ centered teachers’ pedagogical approaches on students’ educational gains. Researchers adopted ex-post-fact research design on sample of 800 respondents; 400 urban and 400 rural students randomly selected from public sector secondary schools of District Kasur Punjab-Province of Pakistan. Data were collected by administering self-constructed questionnaire mode of 5-point Likert type options. Validity of the instrument was confirmed from experts and Cronbach’s Alpha was applied to ensure instrument’s reliability scores; .864. Learners’ educational gains of science and arts students were obtained from gazette of Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Lahore. Results of independent sample t-test and regression analysis ascertained that teachers’ centered students’ pedagogical approaches effect 58% on learners’ educational gains whereas brainstorming 43%, inquiry 57%, problem solving 54% and cooperative technique effect 50% on learners’ educational gains. Science teachers were making more use of brainstorming, inquiry, problem solving, and cooperative teaching as compared to arts teachers. Study recommends that Govt. may train heads of the institutions on students’ centered teachers’ pedagogical approaches and bound them to implement with true spirit and vigor through teachers to overcome science and specially arts students’ declining level of educational gains; stakeholders’ cause for concern.

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Authors: Ahmed Saeed Yahya, Shakil Khawaja, Jude Chukwuma

Both philosophy and cognitive science have made valuable contributions towards accounting for the aetiology of Schizophrenia, an illness that possesses a disparate assortment of symptoms. However, there is no firm agreement on what causes such experiences to arise. A theory is proposed which simplifies the signs and symptoms of Schizophrenia and is something which does not appear to exist in the field to date. The model proposed is a hybrid theory, combining the phenomenological approach of Sass and Parnas with elements from Frith and Hemsley’s cognitive science perspective. An argument is that if a hybrid theory was used it would assist in the early intervention of Schizophrenia by providing a focus for treatment during developmental stages.