The Covid-19 pandemic has forced the education system to a rapid and unprepared transition to distance learning, inducing many teachers to organize lessons via information and communication technologies (ICTs), albeit often without sufficient technological and organizational support. Our study aims to evaluate teachers' and students' experience with ICTs during the first lockdown, considering three categories of relevant factors: technical issues, attitudes and beliefs towards online learning, and metacognitive skills. Participants were 486 students and 83 teachers of a Northern Italy high school, who were administered a self-reported online questionnaire. Video-lessons and audio-lessons emerged as overlooked teaching modalities. The desktop was the less used device, teachers preferred the tablet, while students preferred the smartphone. In general, students displayed appreciation of distance learning, even if they wished for more interactive activities. Teachers' level of metacognitive competence and self-efficacy were rather high. For students, the perception of the e-learning environment predicted positively the perception of distance education and negatively the experienced anxiety, with anxiety also being higher among females. For teachers, the evaluation of distance learning was positively predicted by their beliefs about ICTs. This demonstrates the importance of promoting positive ICTs beliefs to motivate teachers in engaging in distance learning. Moreover, higher perceived self-efficacy was associated with lower levels of anxiety, thus showing the need to engage in training activities enabling teachers to feel confident when using ICTs.

Background: The protective restrictions (e.g., lockdowns, quarantines, social and physical distancing) consequent to the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 posited new challenges to athletes practicing competitive team sports. This study aimed to gain an understanding of the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being and sports readiness to train and to compete of competitive female and male athletes practicing outdoor (i.e., rugby, soccer) and indoor (i.e., volleyball, basketball) team sports who were active during the Italian first and second waves of COVID-19. Methods: An online survey assessing demographic characteristics, perceived safety of the training environment, COVID-19 risk, fear of COVID-19, well-being, and sport (training and competition) readiness was administered to 619 team sports players. We examined differences by gender, previous COVID-19 experience, and team sport setting (i.e., outdoor vs. indoor). A moderated mediation analysis was conducted to assess the impact of perceived COVID-19 risk and fear of COVID-19 on athletes’ well-being and sports readiness, using perceived safety of the training environment as a mediator and gender and sport setting as moderators. Results: Indoor team sports and female athletes showed higher perceived COVID-19 risk, while athletes with no-COVID-19 experience reported higher fear of COVID-19. Perceived COVID-19 risk (directly and via perceived safety of the training environment) and fear of COVID-19 were negatively associated with athletes’ well-being and sports readiness. Conclusions: This study highlighted an understanding of the psychological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the role of the perceived safety of the training environment on athletes’ well-being and sports readiness. Future studies may advance safety-based interventions to promote well-being and a safer return to sport.

We aimed to validate a long and a short version of the popular SDO₆ scale for children, by testing their reliability and factorial structure, as well as divergent and criterion validity. Italian fourth- and fifth-graders (N = 271; 49.45% female) were administered the Child SDO₆ scale, composed of 16 items, along with a series of personality and intergroup relations measures (using foreigners as the minority group). Paralleling results obtained with adults, findings concerning the short version provided evidence for a two-factorial structure, consisting of an SDO-Dominance and an SDO-Anti-egalitarianism dimension. Both for the long and the short version, greater levels of SDO-Dominance and SDO-Anti-egalitarianism were associated with more neuroticism, attitudinal and stereotypic bias, and with less agreeableness, openness to experience, dispositional and intergroup empathy. In conclusions, the two SDO dimensions as assessed by the short Child SDO₆ Scale may be relevant variables to consider when testing intergroup relations processes among children.