Publication details
Different cognitive appraisals of the Covid-19 pandemic by three adolescent age groups from the Czech Republic
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Objective: Covid-19 pandemic was an unknown situation for all, some adapted better than others. Lazarus (e.g.: Lazarus, 1991) defines a process of evaluating a certain situation by primary cognitive appraisal, focused on evaluating benefit, harm and threat of that situation, and a secondary cognitive appraisal, focused on finding available resources to handle the situation and ways to cope. As the pandemic situation was such a drastic change in everyday lives of Czech citizens, this contribution will provide a unique opportunity to explore their experience and perception of the situation. Results from three adolescent age groups will be introduced, comparing their cognitive appraisal of the pandemic. Methodology: We conducted six online focus groups altogether with adolescents of different age, 11-12 y., 14-15 y. and 18-19 y., two focus groups within each age group. We collected data from 28 participants (13 males, 15 females; Mage: 14.36). Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019) Results: We constructed several themes that capture Covid-19 pandemic from our participants´ perspective. The youngest age group at first perceived the “pandemic as an adventure”, while this theme appeared also in the middle age group. The adventure was mostly related to the online teaching, not going to school and it seemed like a holiday for some of our participants. But later on, many participants´ feelings of an ease of new adventure were changed for a feeling of “pandemic as an isolation”, where many talked about missing their friends. The 18-19 age group mentioned “pandemic as a cabin fever”, which referred to the necessity to spend all the time in a day with family members and not have an option to leave home. Also, they perceived “pandemic as a lack of old habits”, which referred to known and loved free time activities, such as travelling, sports and culture. Furthermore, the oldest age group experienced “pandemic as an uncertainty”, where they mentioned the feeling of not knowing what was going on balanced by the need to look for information on their own, by themselves. The interesting theme that emerged in the two oldest age groups was “pandemic as an opportunity”, where participants mentioned that they tried new hobbies, found new motivation to get better at certain things and/or try to find a new way of living. Conclusion: Our attempt to understand how adolescents had perceived Covid-19 pandemic revealed that the older our participants were, the more they perceived the pandemic as a threat, as possibly harmful. It is possible that older age groups realize the worldwide consequences of such pandemic into more detail than the younger cohort. The younger participants also expressed negative thoughts and feeling, mostly related to missing their friends and activities, but they also mentioned positive aspects, certain benefits of such situation, such as no school, possibility of cheating during online tests, fun with friends during online lessons at a separate chat and so on. |
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