Prior and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions have resulted in substantial changes to everyday life. The pandemic and measures of its control affect mental health negatively. Self-reported data from 15,375 participants from 23 countries were collected from May to August 2020 during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two questionnaires measuring anxiety level were used in this study—the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), and the State Anxiety Inventory (SAI). The associations between a set of social indicators on anxiety during COVID-19 (e.g., sex, age, country, live alone) were tested as well. Self-reported anxiety during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic varied across countries, with the maximum levels reported for Brazil, Canada, Italy, Iraq and the USA. Sex differences of anxiety levels during COVID-19 were also examined, and results showed women reported higher levels of anxiety compared to men. Overall, our results demonstrated that the self-reported symptoms of anxiety were higher compared to those reported in general before pandemic. We conclude that such cultural dimensions as individualism/collectivism, power distance and looseness/tightness may function as protective adaptive mechanisms against the development of anxiety disorders in a pandemic situation.

Researchers in educational psychology have researched Teacher Self-Concept (TSC) and Teacher Efficacy (TE) as two main predictors predicting burnout. Guided by a model developed by Zhu, Liu, Fu, Yang, Zhang & Shi (2018), the researchers aimed at building a model involving TSC, TE, and three components of burnout; Emotional Exhaustion (EE), Depersonalization (DP), and Reduced Personal Accomplishment (RPA) through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The researchers investigated predicting factors of burnout by reporting TSC and TE that might directly affect the components and examine the probability of TE to become a mediator of the correlation between TSC and burnout. This research also examined whether the difference emerges constantly among demographic information (gender and teaching experience) regarding all involved variables. A sample of 876 teachers across three Indonesian provinces completed a printed form of questionnaires. Some statistical procedures namely Content Validity Index (CVI), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling (CB-SEM), and t-test were conducted. Findings informed that the model is valid and reliable. TSC could directly affect EE, DE, and RPA, as well as indirectly influence them mediated by TE. Besides, TE is also reported to have significant relationships with EE, DE, and RPA. No significant differences in terms of age and teaching experiences emerge, except for EE.

In line with the rapid development of IR 4.0, school leaders need to seize the opportunity to transform them by integrating technology in leadership style. Hence, this study is aimed at developing a measurement model and identifying the functions and behaviors of the digital leadership of the school leaders. Using the SEM AMOS analysis, a questionnaire collected from 352 primary and secondary school principals.The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was carried out in ascertaining the proposed factor. The finding succeeded in developing a digital leadership measurement model. The findings also identified two dimension, nine functions and 42 behaviors practiced by principals in digital leadership practice. These two dimensions are communication and school climate, while nine functions include virtual meetings, virtual discussions, virtual information sharing, online file sharing, virtual communication, virtual teaching and learning supervision, virtual monitoring of students’ performance, virtual promotion of development and professionalism and virtual promotion of school’s goals.

Teachers' competence has been identified as the most effective contributor to student's achievement. Despite high expectations, diversity of backgrounds and student variations have led to the teaching and learning process to be challenging, causing teachers to be less clear to choose the best teaching method to be implemented in the classroom. This study was conducted to develop a model for determining the best constructs and skills to measure teaching competence. This crosssectional survey study involved 328 teachers of secondary schools at province of Terengganu, Malaysia. The data were collected through questionnaires and analysed using SEM-AMOS by emphasizing four main elements of measurement such loading factor, convergent validity, discriminant validity and composite reliability. This study had successfully developed a measurement model of teacher's teaching competency that contains constructs of (i) communication with students, (ii) teaching strategies, and (iii) classroom management. The findings also identified 21 behavioural skills that teachers can use to improve their teaching competence. It is recommended to all parties whether teachers or educational leaders to utilize this result towards empowering the quality of teacher's teaching, especially in terms of improving the training curriculum, teaching supervision, incentive schemes, promotions and so on.

The COVID-19 restrictions have impacted people’s lifestyles in all spheres (social, psychological, political, economic, and others). This study explored which factors affected the level of anxiety during the time of the first wave of COVID-19 and subsequent quarantine in a substantial proportion of 23 countries, included in this study. The data was collected from May to August 2020 (5 June 2020). The sample included 15,375 participants from 23 countries: (seven from Europe: Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Russia; 11 from West, South and Southeast Asia: Armenia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey; two African: Nigeria and Tanzania; and three from North, South, and Central America: Brazil, Canada, United States). Level of anxiety was measured by means of the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) and the 20-item first part of The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)—State Anxiety Inventory (SAI). Respondents were also asked about their personal experiences with COVID-19, attitudes toward measures introduced by governments, changes in attitudes toward migrants during a pandemic, family income, isolation conditions, etc. The factor analysis revealed that four factors explained 45.08% of variance in increase of anxiety, and these components were interpreted as follows: (1) personal awareness of the threat of COVID-19, (2) personal reaction toward officially undertaken measures and attitudes to foreigners, (3) personal trust in official sources, (4) personal experience with COVID-19. Three out of four factors demonstrated strong associations with both scales of anxiety: high level of anxiety was significantly correlated with high level of personal awareness of the threat of COVID-19, low level of personal reaction toward officially undertaken measures and attitudes to foreigners, and high level of presence of personal experience with COVID-19. Our study revealed significant main effects of sex, country, and all four factors on the level of anxiety. It was demonstrated that countries with higher levels of anxiety assessed the real danger of a pandemic as higher, and had more personal experience with COVID-19. Respondents who trusted the government demonstrated lower levels of anxiety. Finally, foreigners were perceived as the cause of epidemic spread.