Modelling internet banking adoption in Fiji: A developing country perspective

The purpose of this study is to investigate the behavioral intention to adopt internet banking (IB) by individuals under the influence of user espoused cultural values in Fiji. A conceptual framework is developed by extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, incorporating customer satisfaction and perceived risk constructs and cultural moderators of individualism and uncertainty avoidance. This research adopts a quantitative approach and collects data from 530 respondents. The proposed model is tested using structural equation modelling. The empirical results obtained suggest that IB adoption is positively influenced by the levels of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions while perceived risk negatively influences IB usage intention. IB intention was found to positively impact usage behavior which ultimately impacts customer satisfaction. This study also reveals that uncertainty avoidance dampens the influence of performance expectancy and facilitating conditions on IB adoption intention. The study highlights the importance of individual’s cultural values in promoting IB adoption. It contributes to the literature by extending and testing a comprehensive research model to better understand IB behavior.     

How and why students make academic progress: Reconceptualizing the student engagement construct to increase its explanatory power

This paper sought to explain how the student engagement construct could be reconceptualized so to increase its capacity to explain course-specific academic progress.To do so, we proposed that agentic engagement should be added as a new engagement component while the status of emotional engagement should be reconsidered. In two longitudinally-designed studies, secondary-grade students self-reported four aspects of their course-specific classroom engagement (behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and agentic) throughout an 18-week semester, and these scores were used to predict their objectively-scored course achievement (Study 1) and end-of-semester gains in perceived academic progress and perceived autonomy-supportive teaching (Study 2). In both studies, multilevel regressions showed that agentic engagement explained independent variance in the outcomes, while emotional engagement (and cognitive engagement) did not. These findings highlight the need to add agentic engagement and to reconceptualize the role of emotional engagement, so the discussion offers a reconceptualized model with greater explanatory power than its 3-component (behavioral, emotional, cognitive) predecessor.     

居民用水阶梯式水价的可行性研究——政府视角下的模型分析

我国现行的居民用水定价方法总体上有四种,分别是统一定价、两部制定价、统一计量式定价和阶梯式定价。文章在分析了统一定价和两部制定价的优势和劣势后,主要就统一计量式定价和阶梯式定价两种计量收费模式进行分析,在这两种定价方式的约束下分别建立了居民和供水企业的水资源消费行为模型,并从政府的角度,本着节约用水、提高供水企业的运营效益、保障低收入家庭的基本生活用水三个原则,讨论得出阶梯式水价更适合我国现阶段国情。     

An assessment of customers’ e-service quality perception,satisfaction and intention

This study examines the dimensions of web service quality based on e-customer's, expectations and perceptions. We develop operationalized web service quality constructs, and analyze, their relationships with customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions in an e-business environment. The three identified dimensions of web service quality are perceived risk, web content and service, convenience. One of the major findings of this study is that although less perceived risk may lead to a favorable perception of web service quality, it does not necessarily translate to customer satisfaction, or positive behavioral intentions. Individual PC skill sets may affect perception of service convenience, but seems to have no influence on how customers assess web service quality, customer satisfaction or, behavioral intentions to use the e-service. The indirect or mediating influence of satisfaction on web, service quality and behavioral intentions is indeed stronger than the direct influence of web service, quality on behavioral intentions.     

Associations between perceived positive and negative parental contact and adolescents’ intergroup contact experiences

This study investigated the association between perceived parental positive and negative contact and adolescents’ own positive and negative contact experiences and tested perspective-taking, intergroup anxiety, outgroup attitudes, and approach behavioral tendencies as potential mediators. A total of 325 7th and 8th Year Turkish students completed questionnaires in classrooms (M_age = 13.46, SD = 0.75). Structural equation models demonstrated that percieved negative parental contact was directly and strongly associated with negative, but not positive, adolescent contact, whereas parental positive contact had a direct positive association with adolescent positive contact. We further found that perceived parental positive contact was related to higher perspective-taking and lower intergroup anxiety which promoted approach behavioral tendencies which was, in turn, related to more positive and less negative contact among adolescents. The study highlights the critical function of parental positive and negative contact on the formation of adolescents’ contact behaviors.     

The role of ingroup assortative sociality in the COVID-19 pandemic: A multilevel analysis of google trends data in the United States

This study tested how family ties and religiosity, two extended elements of ingroup assortative sociality, would predict group-level COVID-19 severity in the U.S. and how COVID-19 threat would predict ingroup assortative sociality at a weekly level. Multilevel models which analyzed the state-level archival (e.g., religious participation) and Google trends data (e.g., marriage for family ties; prayer for religiosity) on ingroup assortative sociality showed that religious search volume (from 2004 to 2019) significantly and negatively predicted COVID-19 severity (i.e., shorter time delay of first documented cases, shorter overall doubling times, higher reproductive ratio and higher case fatality ratio) across states (Study 1a) and counties (Study 1b) while search volume for family ties only significantly and negatively predicted county-level COVID-19 severity. Multilevel analyses also found that weekly COVID-19 severity weakly predicted weekly search volume of marriage and religion (Study 2a), but when COVID-19 threat was in the collective consciousness in a given week (i.e., Google search volume for coronavirus within 52 weeks), collective levels of ingroup assortative sociality increased from the previous week (Study 2b). Evidence across studies suggested that religiosity, compared with family ties, could serve a more important role for the U.S. people during the deadly pandemic.     

女子健美操运动对推动高校体育发展的价值研究

运用问卷调查法、访谈法,对西安市9所高校普通院系女生体育选修课的调查与心理趋向分析;以及对健美操运动的功能分析;探讨女子健美操运动对推动高校体育发展的特殊价值,指出健美操运动在高校广泛开展的重要性。     

Leveraging spectator emotion: A review and conceptual framework for marketing health behaviors in elite sports

Elite sport provides an exciting and dynamic emotional experience for spectators. Social marketers using sport sponsorship to promote health messages are yet to consider the impact of the temporal emotional sporting context in which health messages are promoted. The authors provide a critical review of the evidence for the influence of emotion on behavior and seek to elucidate the implications for health sponsorship in sport. Articles were identified via electronic database searches and returned-article references, with thirty-three suitable articles included. Drawing on evidence from sport sponsorship, social marketing, advertising, and cause-related marketing, the review highlights few studies have investigated emotion, health communication, and behavior in a sport sponsorship context. The findings indicate that positive (e.g. happiness, compassion) and negative (e.g. fear, guilt) emotions influence intentions and behaviors with the interaction of message framing important when delivering social marketing messages. A conceptual model presents how emotions may influence behavioral health sponsorship outcomes and provides areas of future research to develop best policy and practice when delivering health sponsorship in a sporting context.     

Factors related to attrition from trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy

Attrition from child trauma-focused treatments such as Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) is common; yet, the factors of children who prematurely terminate are unknown. The aim of the current study was to identify risk factors for attrition from TF-CBT. One hundred and twenty-two children (ages 3–18; M = 9.97, SD = 3.56; 67.2% females; 50.8% Caucasian) who received TF-CBT were included in the study. Demographic and family variables, characteristics of the trauma, and caregiver- and child-reported pretreatment symptoms levels were assessed in relation to two operational definitions of attrition: 1) clinician-rated dropout, and 2) whether the child received an adequate dose of treatment (i.e., 12 or more sessions). Several demographic factors, number of traumatic events, and children’s caregiver-rated pretreatment symptoms were related to clinician-rated dropout. Fewer factors were associated with the adequate dose definition. Child Protective Services involvement, complex trauma exposure, and child-reported pretreatment trauma symptoms were unrelated to either attrition definition. Demographics, trauma characteristics, and level of caregiver-reported symptoms may help to identify clients at risk for premature termination from TF-CBT. Clinical and research implications for different operational definitions and suggestions for future work will be presented.     

20世纪80年代小城镇小说精神向度片论——以《新星》《矮凳桥风情》《古船》《浮躁》为例

20世纪80年代优秀的小城镇小说《新星》《矮凳桥风情》《古船》和《浮躁》,呈现出共同的精神走向：对小城镇现代化进程的积极回应。对小城镇小说精神向度的探析,有助于我们更好地把握现代中国乡镇逐渐城市化的过渡脉络,更好地见证与研究中国逐步现代化的历史进程。