In Psychology

Human Potentials/Intelligence/Giftedness

1) Careers of Alumnae of a School for the Intellectually Gifted in Pune, India

The objective of this study was to examine the psychosocial processes involved in career

decision-making of the alumnae of Jnana Prabodhini Prashala and the role of their family of origin,

school, work environment, and current family therein. The study was considered significant in view of their special schooling aimed at nurturing intellectual giftedness and the Indian cultural setup. Career was defined as series of goal-directed roles performed by a person during her lifetime, the focus of this study being on the academic and occupational roles. The study was designed in two phases; a survey of the alumnae was conducted in the first phase to collect their career-related information. An online questionnaire was designed and mailed to about five hundred members. Sixty of them expressed their willingness to participate in the study. In the second phase, a purposive sample of eight was selected from amongst the respondents using a maximum variation strategy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand how each participant perceived her giftedness, made her career choices and faced the challenges within her context. The narratives were qualitatively analyzed in light of different theories to explore the Career Development processes. While each participant was unique, some common themes were observed. Their desire/ intentionality to develop their career, post-school, was observed across all cases. Those who were clear about their long-term goals, about the cause they wanted to work for, were seen to proactively design their careers. Others were seen to take opportunities afforded to them, and contribute at their best. Their families-of-origin played a significant role in the early career choices. School left an indelible mark on their cognitive and moral development. Insistence on values (principles) was commonly mentioned by the participants. The work environment was critical to ensure that their high-abilities were challenged and used. Performance feedback helped to build their self-efficacy. Their current family impacted the location and their availability for careers. Family responsibilities, especially maternal, assumed priority over their work role and were seen to be the prime reason for career breaks. In some cases, relationship conflicts were seen to overshadow career development. At each life stage, the support of those close to them was seen to matter a lot. Their satisfaction with the career outcome ranged from average to above-average. As a cohort, the participants demonstrated high learnability and self-efficacy beliefs at work and were firmly anchored to their values.

Principal Investigator – Dr. Sujala Watve Research Assistant – Aparnagouri Phatak

Advisor – Dr. Anagha Lavalekar Duration – 3 years

 

2) Norms Development for “Intelligence Test, Adjustment & Personality (iTap)”

Jnana Prabodhini Samshodhan Sanstha developed a battery of tests named iTap: Intelligence

Test, Adjustment & Personality. It is a battery of tests measuring various abilities, General

Intelligence, Adjustment level at Home & School, and some personality dimensions of 7th, 8th& 9thstandard students.iTap test battery has been created with a specific purpose for giving counseling to students regarding their future education plan or counseling plan. This battery measures general intelligence,three abilities namely: Symbolic ability, Linguistic ability, Social ability, Home adjustment & School adjustment, and personality dimensions namely: Feeling of well-being, Confidence, Openness, selfsufficiency,emotionality. This iTap test battery is based on the Structure of Intellect (SOI) Model(Guilford, 1967, 1972). Since 2015, a large number of students have solved this test in the written mode. Some changes were made to this test battery. Therefore, it is essential to update the norms for the computer versions.For this purpose, data collected during the period 2015-17 was compiled (Total N=300 for 7th, 8th, 9th 100 each). To calculate norms, the obtained Raw Scores were converted to Standard Scores and further to Percentile Ranks for the Ability.In the first version, there were six tests included for measuring general intelligence, and a total score of 60 was calculated. In the new version, two tests of figural abilities were included in general intelligence, leading to a total score of 80 for general Intelligence. Therefore norms have to be updated for the computerized (Web Version) test battery.

Principal Investigator – Sayali Medhekar Co-Investigator – Nilima Apte, Neha Kshirsagar

Advisor – Dr. Sucharita Gadre, Dr. Meenakshi Gokhale Duration – 1 year

 

Quality of Life

3) Olakh sparshachi (ओळख 􀃨पशा􀁛ची): Developing, standardizing and executing the training to prevent child sexual abuse to emotional health of children

Emotional safety & security is one of the basic needs for the emotional health of any individual.

Childhood is very sensitive to this need. Increasing incidences of child sexual abuse are posing a

potential threat to the feeling of emotional safety among children all over the world. The present study tries to unfold a systematic & organized effort to help children maintain their emotional health by making them aware of the “Good touch and Bad touch” & ways to safeguard oneself from abuse. The said project involves a trainer’s training for teachers/volunteers/& educators to attain mastery over the content and skills to inculcate this awareness among children between ages 7 to 12 years.The purpose of the program was to create awareness about sexual abuse in children between 7-12 years and to help them become strong to defend themselves and become emotionally more secure.

Objectives were

– To develop a training program (content and process) for building awareness among primary

school children regarding ‘Good touch- Bad touch’

– To build and develop a core team of master trainers who will be further training the

teachers/volunteers at local places.

– To build a network of teachers/volunteers and train them to impart awareness to children.

– To keep track of sessions conducted by the trainee participants in schools at local places.

– Train 400+ teachers for building awareness among primary school children regarding ‘Good

touch- Bad touch’.

– Help the trained teachers conduct sessions of “Good touch- Bad touch”

– Resolve issues faced by the teachers during the awareness sessions

– Keep a track of the sessions conducted by the trained teachers in their vicinity/ schools.

Data collection: 757 trainees from 13 tahasils of Pune district trained by 30 mater trainers, 77600

children covered across the target area.Impact of the training on the trainers: In all 757 participants took the pre-test. The maximum score was 73 and the minimum score was seen to be 11 indicating a range of 62. The mean score for the pre-test was found to be 56.58 with a standard deviation of 7.79. The skewness value of the data is seen to be -0.72 indicating that the data is moderately negatively skewed. This was treated as the pre-test data and later the trainee teachers were provided with a google form of the same test to be filled in after they conducted the classroom sessions. In all 150 respondents replied with their answers among which 123 responses could be used (others responses being incomplete) for impact analysis for the trainee population.

On considering the data of post-test and the subsequent data of the pre-test with 123 participants

it can be seen that the minimum score for the pre-test is 34 and the maximum score being 73 while for the post-test the minimum score is 25 and the maximum score is 77 indicating an increase in the range of score in post-test. It is seen that there is an increase in the mean score from 58.58 in the pre-test to 60.76 in the post-test. The data of the pre-test is moderately negatively skewed while the data of the post-test is highly negatively skewed with a value of -1.53.Finally, the comparison of the two steps of scores ( Pre- and Post-test) shows that the paired sample t-test value on comparing the scores of pre-test and post-test scores is found to be 3.28 which is significant at 0.001 level. This indicates that the training has brought a significant positive change among the participants.Importance and Relevance: Such interventions are a real need of time when young kids are getting more vulnerable to abusive experiences due to different social factors. This training of their first-hand mentors at schools/ in society will help children get clarity over the concept of abusive behaviors as well as they will get a primary support source to approach if unfortunately, they fall prey to it. The increased scores of the trainers on the attitude scale reflect their readiness to take up the responsibility to spread the word and help children in difficult times. Replications of such training across society will contribute significantly to making children feel safer.

Conclusion: Simple and concrete steps taken to propagate awareness about sensitive issues like

child sexual abuse can be turned into a movement to make children happier, safer, and free of any such threat which tarnishes their childhood forever. User-friendly content and skills can make the field-level persons like teachers motivated and ready to take their share in the positive actions to make children safer and healthier.

Principal Investigator – Dr. Anagha Lavalekar Duration – 2 years

Research Assistant – Sujata Yadav, Shubhangi Patwardhan Funded by – Bajaj Finserv

Field workers – 30 master trainers from Samvadini Group

 

4) Self Awareness in Youth for Anti Addiction Motive (SAIYAM)

The project aimed to create awareness among the adolescent children in Pune city about the

prevention of and abstinence from addictions through ‘self-control and self-regulation’.

The statement of the problem was to empower the teachers and volunteers through a training

program by building their mentoring potential to facilitate self-regulation habits amongst adolescents to avoid Substance abuse, Media abuse, and Sexually risky behavior.

In the present study, a Pretest-Posttest Quasi-Experimental design was used.

The sample was incidental. It consisted of the adolescent children from 8th and 9th standard from government-aided and private schools in Pune city for whom 22 intervention sessions were carried out by trained teachers and volunteers.

Tools used:

1. My Knowledge, My Health test (MKMH): This test refers to information about sexuality issues. It includes scientific information related to anatomy, physiology, myths, and misconceptions related to sexuality and addiction, medical and health issues, and lastly evil practices in sexuality.
2. Myths and Misconceptions about Addiction test (MMAT): This test measures the adolescents’ knowledge, awareness, and attitude about addiction.
3. What is in mind test (WIMT): This is an open-ended test that measures adolescents’attitude towards Locus of control (LOC), Assertiveness, Delay in gratification, and Frustration tolerance.

Procedure: Step 1: Master trainer selection and training was done to maintain uniformity and

standardization in imparting the training content.

Step 2: Master trainer’s manual with a training session plan for each topic was developed for

conducting trainer’s training.

Step3: Teachers and volunteers were enrolled through the digital form. Some basic screening was done based on the information provided by them in the forms. Total 215 trainers were trained in five batches in Pune.During the training, different methods were used for different sessions which included role plays,focused group discussions, stories, paper-pencil tasks, group activities, video clips. The trainers were given practice sessions in small groups for the delivery of the content.

Step 4: After this training, the trainers conducted 22 sessions (35 minutes each) in the schools in

their vicinity for 8th and 9th standard boys and girls as per the lesson notes given during the training (total of 1033 clock hours in 56 schools, for 7279 students). Pre and post-testing for MKMH were conducted for all the sample groups whereas MMAT and WIMT pre and post-testing were conducted for a random sample group. Step 5: Data analysis was done for obtaining: descriptive statistics for all groups, pre-post comparisons for the total group, gender comparisons and gain score comparison.

Overview of Results:

Impact on the total group: Significant difference was obtained on this test for the total group

(0.00 level) on My Knowledge, My Health as well as on Myths and misconceptions about Addiction.A mixed impact was obtained on ‘What is in mind involving significant positive impact on total score, impulse control and frustration tolerance except on locus of control. 57% of children showed positive changes in the above-mentioned four aspects. 85% of children leaped at 1 to 10 scores. Some have shown a leap of 16 to 20 scores.Gender differences: Gender differences were observed at the pretest as well as at the posttest level also, favoring the girls on all three tests.

However, the gain score analysis indicates a small upper hand for the girls though not significant.

Qualitative changes observed: For the trainers: Presentation skills sharpened, Concept clarity

and attitudinal change, towards the topics, Inhibitions of talking about certain topics with students or approaching schools reduced, Communication skills improved, Empathetic behaviour and increased patience towards students.

For students: Willingness for making a resolution, Differentiation between appropriate

/beneficial and inappropriate/harmful behavior, Readiness to receive information about non-academic, but life-related subjects facilitated, Triggered the thought process about topics like gender equality, addictions, and life skills.

Other significant outputs/ outcomes:

 Creation of Additional Training Material

 An extra module on Addiction developed to go along with previous modules

 A module on self-regulation under development

 Master trainer module created

 Process of training the trainers documented

 Lesson Plan book for trainers created

 Exactly replicable sessions even with replacing conducting person-assured

 

Principal Investigator – Dr. Anagha Lavalekar 

Project chief coordinator – Shamangi Deshpande

Project Assistant – Rupali Deshmukh Duration – 1 year

Funded by – Tarachand Ramnath Seva Trust

 

5) The Psychological Impact of Nationwide Lockdown due to the COVID-19 Pandemic on

People in Maharashtra, India

COVID- 19 is an infectious disease caused by the novel and most recently discovered coronavirus. Many countries including India announced a lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19.Lockdown due to COVID-19 is an unanticipated event that has led to unique consequences for

mankind all over the world. Cities like Mumbai and Pune were leading the charts of the highest

number of cases and deaths in India. Due to the fast spread of the virus, there has been fear and

uncertainty in the minds of people. The objectives of the present research were –

– To study the psychological impact of lockdown due to pandemic COVID-19.

– To study the gender differences on the emotions experienced and activities for coping in the lockdown due to pandemic COVID-19.A total of 1365 people from all over Maharashtra, participated in this survey, out of which 38.3% were males and 61.7% were females. 87.3% of participants were graduates and postgraduates whereas

7.7% were undergraduates. Only 5% of participants had completed either the 10th or 12th standard. All the participants were above 18 years of age. Age groups wise distribution of the sample indicates that the highest percentage of participants (55.2%) belonged to the age group that is 36-55 years. During the lockdown, 42.1 % of participants worked from home every day for approximately 8 to 9 hours.To assess this impact, a questionnaire ‘How do I experience the lockdown?’ was developed in two languages, English and Marathi. The Questionnaire consisted of 37 questions, in various forms e.g. multiple-choice, Likert type, sentence completion, open-ended, etc.The questionnaire was divided into five sections. The first section included demographic information like age, gender, marital status, family type, current place of residence, etc. Physical health-related questions were included in section two. Section three consisted of questions related to the nature of the work participants engage in. The fourth section measured sleep patterns, frequency and nature of communication with others, and emotions experienced. Participants were asked to rate the frequency of some emotions experienced during the lockdown on a four-point Likert scale ranging from always, sometimes, rarely, to not at all. To gain information about coping strategies used by the participants, questions were asked regarding specific activities which they engage in to reduce stress during the lockdown. The last section was supposed to collect qualitative responses regarding the experience of lockdown.Two separate Google forms were developed with separate links for each and links were sent through Emails or a WhatsApp message with a letter attached which included the purpose, the importance of the study, and informed consent regarding voluntary participation. For this online study,the snowball sampling technique was used. Data were collected during the second nationwide lockdown period (12th April to 30th April 2020).Data was analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods.Emotions during lockdown – Preliminary analyses of quantitative data regarding emotions showed that participants mostly experienced a diverse range of emotions with varied frequencies.

Gender differences calculated through independent t-test showed that females are higher than males on stress (t=2.64, p=.008), irritation (t=3.99, p=.000) fear (t=3.38, p=.001), and compassion (t=3.74, p=.000) with respect to frequency of experiencing these emotions, whereas, males were significantly higher than females on the feeling of peacefulness (t=1.96, p=.050). No significant gender differences were found in the frequency of experience of emotions like insecurity (t=.88, p=.38), boredom (t=1.55, p=.12), depression (t=1.69, p=.10) happiness (t=.64, p=.32) and satisfaction (t=.97, p=.33).Sleep pattern and quality of sleep during lockdown – 23.1% of participants faced trouble falling asleep whereas 18.9% of participants experienced frequent sleep disturbances during the second lockdown. Social interactions during lockdown – With respect to social interaction, 29.5% of participants mentioned that their interactions with friends and family increased during the lockdown and 27.8% reported reduced social interactions during this period.

Qualitative analysis: An attempt was made to understand the experience of lockdown through

open-ended questions. Stress experienced in lockdown – After reading all responses, stresses are classified into four major categories-Family related stress (this stress was mentioned by most of the women), Job-related stress, Financial stress, Education-related stress (This type of stress was mostly seen in college students.)Coping activities in Lockdown – Participants had their ways of coping with the situation. More than 50% of participants preferred to engage in activities like listening to music/songs (64%), reading (61%), chatting-video, text, phone call, etc. (56%), doing yoga or exercise daily (59%) and watching movies (60%). 44% of people were playing indoor games daily.Activities which they engaged in can be broadly classified into three categories- 1) creative activities (dance, drawing, painting, sketching, new recipes, etc.), 2) physical health and hygiene related activities (Yoga, jogging, diet, cleaning, sanitizing, etc.), 3) spiritual activities (listening to spiritual discourses, bhajan, chanting a mantra, reading religious text, etc.), and 4) entertainmentrelated activities (watching a movie/web series, listening to music, playing indoor games like cards, carom, computer games, etc.). Daily engagement with religious-spiritual practices emerged as a prominent coping strategy used by participants.Based on these results, psychological interventions can be designed to cater to the psychoemotional needs of the people going through this uncertain situation. Online self-help intervention can be implemented for the needy person to reduce the adverse psychological impact of COVID-19.

Principal Investigator – Dr. Pranita Jagtap Duration – Six months

 

6) A study of project-based learning method outcomes: birds and insects observation project

during lockdown

During the pandemic when school was shifted to online mode, it was a challenge to keep the

focus of the students on learning without boredom. The project-based learning method helped a lot to face this challenge. An observational project to observe birds and insects found around them and record their movements, habits, and if possible their life pattern was introduced to the student of class 7th (12 to 13 years age). Eighty students (37 boys, 43 girls) participated in this day-long project.Participants have to look around their surroundings and take photos of birds and insects. These photos will be sent to the facilitator and the facilitator will explain the name species of these birds and insects through a lecture.An exploratory research design was used. The sample collection method was the purposive method.Participants wrote their experience in an 8 item questionnaire.

Qualitative analysis of these experiences reveals 8 themes regarding cognitive and affective

learning outcomes. In these outcomes, 90 and above percent of students gained motivation and

problem-solving skills.71 percent of students gained cognitive skills. 58 percent of students showed ability enhancement. While 56 percent of students get curious about the world of birds and insects after completing the project. 48 percent of students showed more interest in the project. The observation skill of 49 percent of students is enhanced. 41 percent of students showed their sensitivity to the project.

Principal Investigator – Sujata Honap Co-investigator – Prasanna Alone

Research Assistant – Sandhya Khasnis Duration – Six months

 

7) The impact of online child development and sustainable child development activities on

children during the Covid period: A study of parents’ perspectives

Potential Enhancement Services wing has been continuously implementing Child Development

and Sustainable Child Development activities for the last 25 years to develop thinking skills and

psycho-social abilities in children in the age group of Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 12 years). However, during the academic year 2020-21, these camps and activities were conducted virtually using online platforms like WhatsApp, Google meets, and Zoom. During these camps and activities, the parents were the direct and key observers of the change process in the children. Therefore, the observation records were filled by the parents through a questionnaire prepared by the researcher after the completion of seven days of child development camp and after 6 months of continuous child development activities. A total of 65 children participated in this research. Also ‘survey method’ research was done. After the first reading of these entries, a positive change was recorded in the thinking and psycho-social abilities of the children. An in-depth and rigorous qualitative analysis of these responses is currently underway. The purpose of this action project was to examine the impact of a seven-day online child development camp and a six-month online continuous child development initiative on children during the Covid period through parental perspective.

Principal investigator – Sujata Honap Co-investigator – Prasanna Alone

Duration – Six months

Paper –Gadre, S. & Nangare, J. (2020). महाराष्ट्र पोलिसांचे मान्स्वास्थ बलस्थाने व गरजा  . Mental Health of Maharashtra Police: strengths and Needs, Vol. No. 12, pp. 40-44