Affective and interpersonal expression in young adults during simulated interviews: implications for mental health research

Background: Awareness of youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services (YFSRHS) is an important starting point for enabling young people to identify and seek appropriate sexual and reproductive health information and care. However, awareness of these services may vary across settings, including higher education institutions. Objective: To determine the level of awareness of YFSRHS among undergraduate students at Saint Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT), Malimbe Campus. Methods: A quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate students at SAUT Malimbe Campus. Data were collected using a structured, self-administered questionnaire. Of 109 questionnaires distributed, 108 completed questionnaires were included in the analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize students’ awareness and reported sources of information. Results: Of the 108 respondents, 96 (88.9%) reported having heard of YFSRHS, while 12 (11.1%) had not. Social media was the most frequently reported source of information (44.0%), followed by friends or peers (41.0%) and health facilities (36.0%). University programmes and posters or advertisements were reported less frequently. Conclusion: Most respondents had heard of YFSRHS, with social media and peer networks serving as prominent information channels. Strengthening accurate information through these channels, alongside university-based communication, may help address the awareness gap among students who remain unreached.

Character education is an important foundation for preparing preservice teachers. However, the internalization of moral values does not necessarily entail the ability to make ethical decisions in professional practice. This article aims to synthesize the conceptual relationships among character education, moral development, professional identity, and professional ethics among preservice teachers and formulate a framework for strengthening teacher education. The study employed an integrative literature review involving targeted searches for major theoretical works and scholarly articles on character education, moral reasoning, teachers’ professional ethics, and preservice teacher education. The literature was analyzed thematically by comparing theoretical foundations, research contexts, findings, and pedagogical implications. The synthesis indicates that the transition from personal character to professional ethics is a nonlinear process integrating five mechanisms: recognition of values and moral sensitivity, role modeling, reasoning through ethical dilemmas, guided reflection during field placements, and an institutional culture consistent with ethical values. The synthesis also identifies a gap between ethical knowledge and the ability to apply moral concepts explicitly when considering conflicts between values. These findings underscore the need for ethics education that connects an understanding of norms with reasoning practice and reflection on professional experiences. This article proposes a Character–Professional Ethics Transition Model linking value internalization, moral reasoning, professional identity formation, and accountable ethical action. In practical terms, the framework may guide the integration of learning based on ethical dilemmas, reflection on field placements, and the strengthening of institutional culture into preservice teacher education. The proposed model requires empirical testing, particularly through longitudinal research in Indonesian teacher education contexts.

ABSTRACT Introduction Anxiety is central to the psychotherapy process, yet psychotherapists routinely infer a client's anxiety intensity from observable behaviour rather than from formal measurement, with no widely accepted framework to organise which observable markers indicate which levels of anxiety. This exploratory study examined how therapists make such classifications. Method Ninety‐one mental health professionals were randomly assigned to classify 41 text‐described behavioural and physiological markers using either a 5‐level or a simplified 3‐level category system, both derived from an integrated model of state anxiety in psychotherapy. Results Response distributions departed significantly from uniformity for nearly all markers in both formats, and the rank ordering of markers by intensity was highly consistent across formats, suggesting that therapists may share broad intuitions about relative marker intensity. Which markers elicited agreement, however, was far less reproducible, depending substantially on the response format. Convergence also depended on where the agreement criterion was set, declining from 90.2% to 51.2% of markers in the 3‐level format and from 63.4% to 22.0% in the 5‐level format as the criterion rose from > 0.50 to > 0.70. The 3‐level format yielded more classifiable markers at every criterion, although this advantage was not consistent across indices, whereas the 5‐level format elicited fewer ‘Insufficient to Determine’ responses. Markers placed at the highest intensity levels were classified most consistently. Discussion These findings offer preliminary groundwork for research on marker operationalisation, contextualised rating tasks and the development of training materials for psychotherapy process research.

Student engagement positively influences academic achievement, yet instruments suited to the Indonesian cultural context remain limited. This study aimed to develop a valid, reliable, and user-friendly student engagement scale for high school students. Using a quantitative descriptive design, the study involved 295 male and female students aged 15–18 years recruited through convenience sampling. The scale comprised three dimensions: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. The results showed that the scale demonstrated a good model fit based on the goodness-of-fit indices (χ2/df = 1.60; CFI = 0.966; TLI = 0.962; SRMR = 0.074; RMSEA = 0.045) and good reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.844 for emotional engagement, 0.753 for behavioral engagement, and 0.782 for cognitive engagement. The developed scale can be used by teachers, counselors, and educational researchers to identify students’ levels of engagement and inform the development of programs to improve student engagement.

Emotional contagion refers to the process through which people's emotions may be influenced by the emotional states and expressions of others. This study examined self-reported responses to stress in other people and explored their association with perceived stress. A quantitative, cross-sectional online questionnaire was completed between October 25 and 27, 2026. Of 33 submissions, 32 participants consented and were included in the emotional-response analysis; 31 had sufficient responses for the preliminary perceived-stress analysis. The questionnaire included 15 researcher-developed statements about responses to others' stress and 10 perceived-stress questions resembling the Perceived Stress Scale?10 (PSS-10). Descriptive results showed that 90.6% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that they could sense stress in people around them, while 75.0% reported that stress in family, workplace, or educational settings affected their emotional well-being. An exploratory Spearman correlation indicated a positive association between the emotional-response composite and perceived-stress scores (rs = .526, p = .002, n = 31). This association must be interpreted cautiously because the emotional-response questionnaire was not validated and the exact perceived-stress instrument requires confirmation. Findings provide preliminary descriptive insight but do not establish causation.