Editorial

As an international outlet for high-quality empirical reports based on experimental and behavioural studies in psychological aspects of education, Educational Psychology has been committed to bringing the latest knowledge to the area. As a result, it saw influential growth, with its impact factor rocketing from 1.586 to 2.903 within a year. To achieve such success, it takes more than the commitment and dedication of the Editor. We are extremely fortunate to have worked with an outstanding editorial board, comprising the Advisory Board, associate editors and consulting editors. We especially would like to thank the highly professional pro bono reviewers for providing their valuable insights to the 227 scholars from 124 universities and institutions in 123 countries and economies who contributed 68 articles in Volume 41. From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, their efforts and consideration during challenging and turbulent times are fully acknowledged and treasured.

To prevent outbreaks at schools, most students around the globe are still learning from home at this writing. A Special Issue is planned for publication this year, inspired by the huge impact on and changes to education brought about by the pandemic. Organised by four Guest Editors, Dr. Ronnel B. King, Prof. Ching-Sing Chai, Dr. Hanke Korpershoek and Dr. Allen Kelly-Ann, it will be published in two parts – Teaching & Learning and Well-being – and will delve into those implications of the pandemic while providing evidence-based solutions to key issues from educational psychology perspectives.

The collection of papers brought together in this first issue of Volume 42 acknowledges the critical role education plays in the well-being of students and teachers. In this issue, four studies, which included participants from primary school to university levels from five countries, explored factors associated with the well-being of learners and instructors. These studies reflect the fact that well-being is a theme deserving research attention all across educational levels and systems.

Collie (2021) and Jiang and Tanaka (2021) independently investigated the relationships between students’ well-being and instructional supports. By examining primary school students’ perceived competence for emotion regulation and conflict resolution from their teachers, Collie (2021) found positive associations to their behavioural and emotional well-being outcomes. The study highlights the importance of promoting students’ social-emotional development. Jiang and Tanaka (2021) reported the impact of autonomy support on undergraduate students not from their lecturers but from the support staff in campus life. They found that receiving such supports was positively related to students’ academic engagements and psychological well-being. The study provided a new angle to educational support research. The significance of support from personnel in the learning environment, irrespective of the learners’ education level, is well elucidated by Collie (2021) and Jiang and Tanaka (2021).

The two articles by Nalipay et al. (2021) and Tomek and Urhahne (2021) focussed on the well-being of teachers. Nalipay et al. (2021) addressed the question of whether teachers’ implicit beliefs towards their teaching capability could predict the four dimensions of their well-being, namely, engagement, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishment. Approximately 550 teachers from the Philippines were surveyed on these variables, and the data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results revealed that a teaching growth mindset positively predicted all four dimensions of well-being. Tomek and Urhahne (2021) hypothesised that noise affects teachers’ stress and further, their work performance. In a German university, 178 student teachers were randomly assigned to one of three noise conditions from students: no noise, short noise and continuous noise. The research provided empirical evidence that noise exposure inevitably affects instructors’ mental well-being and cognitive performance.

Three other articles in Issue 1 drew readers’ attention to cognition in learning. Liu et al. (2021) studied the relationship between cognitive activation and maths self-efficacy and considered whether cognitive activation increases maths anxiety. Most interestingly, the results indicated that cognitive activation was positively associated with maths self-efficacy but negatively with maths anxiety.

Wang and Chiou (2020) and Kuan and Zhang (2020) independently explored the perception of time in educational settings. Wang and Chiou (2020) focussed their attention on the planning fallacy. Their study found that when given an assignment that required more effort, the participants felt less optimistic about completing it within the deadline, which, in turn, reduced the planning fallacy. The findings identified a new method to help with students’ planning fallacy. Kuan and Zhang (2020) investigated the relationship between thinking styles and time perspectives (TP). Their study discovered that students who use more types of thinking styles usually possess more desirable TP, illustrating the close link between thinking styles and TP.

In summary, the articles in this issue provide evidence of the importance of instructional supports for students’ well-being and the positive connection between the well-being of teachers and teaching effectiveness, as well as innovative approaches to aid learning in terms of cognitive aspects. We thank the authors for choosing Educational Psychology as the publication outlet for their invaluable studies and congratulate them on their accomplishments. We would also like to express our utmost gratitude to all the reviewers who helped to enhance the present issue.