Higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide have been deeply affected by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and subsequent lockdown measures. HEIs are environments at high risk of COVID-19 diffusion, due to the high number of people sharing the same environment, and complex to protect, because of the multiple functions present…

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationships between emotional experiences and study motivation in a group of nonworking and never-infected university students, during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants: Participants (N = 353; aged M = 21.5; SD = 2.8) were mostly female (76.2%) Italian university students.…

This study explores the unique experience of disrupted sojourns and early reentry among U.S. college students who were abruptly repatriated from their study abroad experience in March 2020. Using a combination of focus groups and interviews with 25 U.S. returning students, the findings suggest that students' experiences were characterized by…

This article casts light on informal caregiving, an essential aspect of the international postgraduate researcher (PGR) experience, but which is often invisible in literature and discourses on international education. Drawing from qualitative semi-structured interviews with international PGRs in a British university, it highlights their dual role…

The transition to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic uncovered criticalities in the participation of students with special educational needs. The BESt-DaD project responded to these difficulties by developing a user-friendly online platform aimed at accommodating these students' neurocognitive profiles, ultimately promoting inclusion.…

The article focuses on challenges and disruption in the higher education sector in Italy due to COVID-19 pandemic. The study explores the experience of the Single-Cycle Master's Degree in Law of the University of Genoa, especially taking into account students' perspective.

This study investigated the effect of the isolation during the lockdown period on psychological distress and well-being in a sample of professors (N=150), students (N=150) and technical administrative staff (N=150) from 3 Italian Universities, in the region of Tuscany. We administered a self-reported online questionnaire to collect…

What 'sources' of knowledge do higher education students draw on, to prepare for exams? And has the pandemic made any difference? The study presented in this paper addresses these questions, in the belief that gaining awareness of the sources through which students learn is important for the instructional design of the courses and the evaluation…

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about new stressors on university students, with a negative impact on their mental health and well-being. The purpose of this study was to examine the usefulness of a brief psychodynamically oriented intervention on general functioning by investigating changes in symptoms of depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and…

The current study seeks to shed light on social-cognitive resources that mitigate master students' experience of dysfunctional career-related worry before graduation. Based on the career self-management model (CSM; Lent & Brown, 2013), we investigate concurrent and time-lagged direct and mediated relationships between career planning,…

In the last few years, several initiatives based on extracurricular activities have been organized in many countries around the world, with the aim to reduce the digital gender gap in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields. Among them, the Digital Girls summer camp, organized every year since 2014 by two Italian universities with the…

This study investigates the effects of student engagement and rapidity of completing exams on student performance before and during the first wave of COVID-19 in March 2020, examining the effect of the shift from face-to-face to online teaching and exams in a Master's in Business Administration degree at a university in Italy. Prior literature…

Many Italian universities had numerous students attending hospital wards during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The training of healthcare professionals and students was necessary to facilitate good practices, disseminate knowledge about COVID-19, and minimize contagion among students who were completing internships. On 28…

Teaching skills are fundamental for academic positions, which combine research and teaching activities. Thus, universities should look for candidates with excellent research records and teaching experience or skills; another strategy is the training of teaching staff. On the other hand, when dealing with already in-service teachers, the challenges…

The current study focused primarily on the associations that feelings of not mattering have with life satisfaction, stress, and distress among students trying to cope with the uncertain and novel circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 350 University students from Italy completed measures that included the General…