TEACHERS' WELLBEING - BURNOUT PREVENTION - OUTDOOR EDUCATION

The research aims to explore the perception of well-being and happiness of outdoor preschool and elementary school teachers, scattered throughout our national territory, to verify the impact that Outdoor Education can have at a psychophysical and socio-emotional level in this profession.

To this end, it was decided to compare two distinct groups from the point of view of the working environment: teachers who work in schools with outdoor teaching experiences and those who work in schools that use purely indoor educational methodologies.

In this regard, assessment instruments were selected to measure levels of satisfaction with one's life, stress and anxiety, happiness and confidence in the future: Satisfaction with Life Scale - SWLS (Diener et al., 1985); Interdependent Happiness Scale - IHS (Hitokoto & Uchida, 2015); Subjective Happiness Scale - SHS (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999); Depression Anxiety Stress Scales - DASS 21 (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995); Need for Recovery - NFR (Van Veldhoven & Meijman, 1994) and instruments to compare perceptions of the two work environments: Perceived Restorativeness Scale - PRS-11 (Hartig et al., 1991; Pasini et al., 2014); for assessment of affective qualities of places, the Affective Qualities of Places Rating Scale (Perugini, Bonnes, Aiello & Ercolani, 2002); for assessment of the school context, the Revised School Level Environment Questionnaire (Matteucci, Guglielmi & Lauermann, 2017).

These instruments merged into a standardized questionnaire intended for both survey groups, considering background variables used by the INVALSI survey and questions related to the use of innovative methods and strategies of the indoor teacher group.

The analysis of the data seems to exclude the presence of a direct effect of Outdoor Education on the perception of stress, anxiety, depression and happiness in the teacher; on the other hand, the importance of the organizational and managerial characteristics of the school emerges, which seem to be able to regulate the relationship between these two variables. In addition, the positive evaluation of the work context and its ability to facilitate the regeneration of their energies would seem to be significantly associated, in teachers, with greater satisfaction with their lives and management of anxiety and stress.

Work is underway to expand the sample.

Analyses will also be directed to validate the adaptation of the Affective Quality of Places scale to the working context of the school and validate the adaptation to the Italian context of the Interdependent Happiness Scale.

Research manager: Emiliane Rubat du Mérac

Research partners: Sabine Pirchio, Sapienza University of Rome; Emanuela Botta, Sapienza University of Rome; Giuseppe Carrus, Roma Tre University; Michela Schenetti, Bologna University; Orianna Mosca, University of Cagliari; Ferdinando Fornara, University of Cagliari; Carla Meloni, University of Cagliari; Luisa Pedditzi, University of Cagliari. Grad students: Irene Di Nisio and Martina Fanfoni.

STUDENTS' WELLBEING - PROSOCIALITY - ACTIVE LEARNING - OUTDOOR EDUCATION

The research aims to study the effects of active outdoor teaching compared with "traditional" teaching, carried out indoors, on the experience of fifth-grade children in the Lazio region. More specifically, some cognitive processes are analyzed, according to developmental age, such as persistence of attention and performance related to learning content common among the different classes involved; emotional and socialization aspects such as the level of involvement and active participation of the student, together with the quality and characteristics of interactions with peers; mental health aspects such as well-being and Restorativeness; and, finally, Connectedness to nature. To this end, non-participatory direct observations will be conducted. Some standardized instruments, previously adapted to the developmental age group and the Italian context, will be administered: the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) (Mayer and Frantz, 2004; Pirchio et al., 2021), five items taken from the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5; Topp et al., 2015), four items from the Perceived Social Self-Efficacy Scale (Di Giunta et al., 2010), three items from the Perceived Empathic Self-efficacy Scale (Di Giunta et al., 2010), the Student's life satisfaction scale (Huebner et al., 2012), four items from the Children's Attitudes Toward the Environment scale (Musser & Malkus, 1994) and adapted from Pirchio et al., 2021.

Research manager: Emiliane Rubat du Mérac

Research partners: Sabine Pirchio, Sapienza University of Rome; Emanuela Botta, Sapienza University of Rome. Grad student: Ludovica Carnevali.

DIGITAL OPEN BADGES - COMPETENCY-BASED EDUCATION - TEACHER TRAINING - COMPETENCY ASSESSMENT AND CERTIFICATION

In 2018, the CRUI indicated Open Badges and the Bestr platform, developed by Cineca, as national references for representing and attesting competencies. To date, 15% of universities have adopted Open Badges.

This project aims to expand and deepen the creation of Digital Open Badges for education and training paths to enhance, validate and accredit competencies.

Our pedagogical model of Open Badges aims to strengthen the university preparation of future educators and teachers, improve the quality of school teachers and other social, educational or training institutions, and allow students to develop more creative and adaptable methodologies and better respond to educational and social needs.

The previous research has already allowed defining 12 different competence profiles, useful to the student to know his potentialities, demonstrate and enhance his skills, and orient himself professionally. The 12 Open Badges are issued based on transparent assessment criteria, in line with the Europass single Community framework for the transparency of qualifications and competencies (Decision No 2241/2004/EC) and the transparency requirements of the Standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area (2015).

Educational Open Badges certify technical competencies (hard skills) and the ability to transfer these competencies within the educational relationship through valid pedagogical interventions (soft skills). In addition to a technical skills test with an expert, candidates have to write a pedagogical project and put it into practice with a group of children, adolescents or adults (depending on the project).

The current research intends to develop the project by expanding the number of educational badges that Sapienza offers to students and graduates in education and making the training and accreditation processes available in teacher training. In the first design phase, the new badges will be identified and proposed essentially along three lines:

1. methodological skills more related to the disciplinary areas represented in the educational degree courses (docimology, observation, mindfulness, use of digital technologies, etc. with the involvement of the teachers of the degree courses);

2. skills related to the ability to conduct effective educational activities with subjects with disabilities (visual impairment, language disorders, sign language, etc. with the involvement of associations and institutions that carry out these activities in specific areas);

3. skills related to extracurricular experiences of university students.

The badges designed will then be prepared for inclusion in the Bestr CINECA platform.

Research manager: Emiliane Rubat du Mérac

Research partners: Pietro Lucisano, Sapienza Università di Roma; Donatella Cesareni, Sapienza Università di Roma; Snezana Mitrovic, Sapienza Università di Roma; il Centro Regionale "Sant'Alessio - Margherita di Savoia" e l'Associazione Io Se Posso Komunico (insieme a tutti gli esperti del porgetto Open badge Education Sapienza).

SOFT SKILLS - SELF-ASSESSMENT - CROSS-CULTURAL ADAPTATION - PSYCHOMETRICS - SECONDARY SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY

The research is done in collaboration with the University of Malaga, Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid) and Castilla-La Mancha. It aims to adapt to Catalan and Castilian languages and examine the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Soft Skill Self-assessment Questionnaire (3SQ) (Lucisano & du Mérac, 2019). The 3SQ measures the dimensions of self-confidence, openness, collaboration, leadership, empathy, commitment, autonomy, curiosity, problem-solving, and resilience.

The instrument is being administered to first-year students at these three universities.

Research managers: Stefano Scippo and Emiliane Rubat du Mérac

Research partners: Isabel López Cirugeda and Raquel Sánchez Ruiz (Universidad Castilla-La Mancha); Maria Teresa Castilla Mesa (Universidad de Málaga); Jesús Paz-Albo Prieto (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos).