Background: Various online rumors have led to inappropriate behaviors among the public in response to the COVID-19 epidemic in China. These rumors adversely affect people’s physical and mental health. Therefore, a better understanding of the relationship between public emotions and rumors during the epidemic may help generate useful strategies for guiding public emotions and dispelling rumors.Objective: This study aimed to explore whether public emotions are related to the dissemination of online rumors in the context of COVID-19.Methods: We used the web-crawling tool Scrapy to gather data published by People’s Daily on Sina Weibo, a popular social media platform in China, after January 8, 2020. Netizens’ comments under each Weibo post were collected. Nearly 1 million comments thus collected were divided into 5 categories: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and neutral, based on the underlying emotional information identified and extracted from the comments by using a manual identification process. Data on rumors spread online were collected through Tencent’s Jiaozhen platform. Time-lagged cross-correlation analyses were performed to examine the relationship between public emotions and rumors.Results: Our results indicated that the angrier the public felt, the more rumors there would likely be (r=0.48, P<.001). Similar results were observed for the relationship between fear and rumors (r=0.51, P<.001) and between sadness and rumors (r=0.47, P<.001). Furthermore, we found a positive correlation between happiness and rumors, with happiness lagging the emergence of rumors by 1 day (r=0.56, P<.001). In addition, our data showed a significant positive correlation between fear and fearful rumors (r=0.34, P=.02).Conclusions: Our findings confirm that public emotions are related to the rumors spread online in the context of COVID-19 in China. Moreover, these findings provide several suggestions, such as the use of web-based monitoring methods, for relevant authorities and policy makers to guide public emotions and behavior during this public health emergency.

Previous studies have mainly focused on the negative effects of teacher–student conflict; the positive effects of conflict have rarely been mentioned. This paper suggests that encouraging conflict could act as a teaching method to improve students’ innovative competence. This study has two objectives: (1) to examine how various types of teacher–student conflict affects students’ innovative competence and (2) to identify the mediating role of a psychological safety climate in the association between conflict and students’ innovative competence. To achieve the objectives, we used evidence from 1207 university students. Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that conflicts were associated with students’ innovative competence, and the mediation role of a psychological safety climate is significant. Specifically, the results revealed that Cognitive Conflict had significant positive effects on students’ innovative competence, whereas Affective Conflict had a significant negative effect on students’ innovative competence. In addition, we clarified a psychological safety climate as the boundary condition for the relationship between conflict and students’ innovative competence.

En este estudio, investigamos los efectos mediadores del uso de Internet por parte de los niños en la relación entre el nivel socioeconómico de la familia y su éxito académico y si los efectos mediadores varían entre diferentes disciplinas académicas. Usamos los datos de Estudios de Paneles de las Familias Chinas sobre el nivel socioeconómico de las familias de los niños, el uso de Internet por parte de los niños y su rendimiento académico. Hubo 2.686 participantes en 2014 (mujeres=1.272), 2.330 participantes (mujeres=1.069) en 2016 y 2.485 participantes (mujeres=1.151) en 2018. El estado socioeconómico y el uso de Internet se midieron mediante un cuestionario. Las pruebas estandarizadas midieron el rendimiento académico. Nuestros hallazgos mostraron que el nivel socioeconómico de la familia se relaciona positivamente con el éxito en matemáticas, pero no significativamente con los puntajes chinos. Los resultados indicaron que el uso de Internet no mediaba en la relación entre el estatus socioeconómico familiar en 2014 y el rendimiento matemático en 2016, mientras que la frecuencia de uso de Internet para estudiar en 2016 mediaba en parte la relación entre el estatus socioeconómico familiar en 2016 y el rendimiento matemático en 2018. Nuestros hallazgos proponen que el uso de Internet sólo puede mediar en la relación entre el nivel socioeconómico de la familia y el éxito en matemáticas, y los efectos mediadores se vuelven más fuertes con el paso del tiempo. In this study, we investigate the mediating effects of children’s Internet use on the relationship between family socioeconomic status and their academic achievement, and whether the mediating effects vary across different academic subjects. We used the data from the China Family Panel Studies on the socioeconomic status of children's families, children’s Internet use, and their academic performance. In the 2014 sample, there were 2,686 participants (females=1,272). In 2016, there were 2,330 participants (females=1,069), and in 2018, there were 2,485 participants (females=1,151). The socioeconomic status and the Internet use were measured by a questionnaire. Standardized tests measured the academic performance. Our findings showed that family socioeconomic status was positively related to math performance, but not significantly related to Chinese performance. The results also indicated that Internet use did not significantly mediate the relationship between family socioeconomic status in 2014 and math performance in 2016, while the frequency of Internet use to study in 2016 partly mediated the relationship between family socioeconomic status in 2016 and math performance in 2018. Our findings suggest that Internet use can only mediate the relationship between family socioeconomic status and math performance and the mediating effects become stronger over time.

As China is experiencing its dramatic transition from planned economy to market economy and undergoing its economic and political reform during the last two decades, there are many new phenomena worth studying. The emergence of Master of Public Administration (MPA) education is certainly one of them. Borrowing and learning experiences from advanced countries has been a main theme for the curriculum development for China’s MPA education. Using personal experience as a graduate from a full-time MPA program in the United States and research in this field, the author discusses in this article the issue of how to learn from the American theories and practices and develop an MPA curriculum that fits China’s specific political, economic and social environment. The four main areas of discussion include theory development, quantitative skills, technology training, and case study.

BACKGROUND Various online rumors have led to inappropriate behaviors among the public in response to the COVID-19 epidemic in China. These rumors adversely affect people’s physical and mental health. Therefore, a better understanding of the relationship between public emotions and rumors during the epidemic may help generate useful strategies for guiding public emotions and dispelling rumors. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to explore whether public emotions are related to the dissemination of online rumors in the context of COVID-19. METHODS We used the web-crawling tool Scrapy to gather data published by People’s Daily on Sina Weibo, a popular social media platform in China, after January 8, 2020. Netizens’ comments under each Weibo post were collected. Nearly 1 million comments thus collected were divided into 5 categories: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and neutral, based on the underlying emotional information identified and extracted from the comments by using a manual identification process. Data on rumors spread online were collected through Tencent’s Jiaozhen platform. Time-lagged cross-correlation analyses were performed to examine the relationship between public emotions and rumors. RESULTS Our results indicated that the angrier the public felt, the more rumors there would likely be (r=0.48, P<.001). Similar results were observed for the relationship between fear and rumors (r=0.51, P<.001) and between sadness and rumors (r=0.47, P<.001). Furthermore, we found a positive correlation between happiness and rumors, with happiness lagging the emergence of rumors by 1 day (r=0.56, P<.001). In addition, our data showed a significant positive correlation between fear and fearful rumors (r=0.34, P=.02). CONCLUSIONS Our findings confirm that public emotions are related to the rumors spread online in the context of COVID-19 in China. Moreover, these findings provide several suggestions, such as the use of web-based monitoring methods, for relevant authorities and policy makers to guide public emotions and behavior during this public health emergency.