Page 174 - Ana Mlekuž in Igor Ž. Žagar, ur. • Raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju: Izobraževanje učiteljic in učiteljev za raziskovalno učenje in poučevanje. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2024. Digitalna knjižnica, Dissertationes 48

raziskovanje v vzgoji in izobraževanju: izobraževanje učiteljic in učiteljev ...
in their initial levels of COVID-19 anxiety. The slope mean was also signifi-
cant and negative, indicating that there was a significant decrease in COV-
ID-19 anxiety over the weeks. The unconditional LCG model for mental
well-being showed that there were significant differences in the initial lev-
els of mental well-being between participants (significant variances of the
intercept; the intercept mean was also significant, which in our case has
no practical value as explained above for COVID-19 anxiety) and that the
change in time is not significant (nonsignificant slope mean).
The results of the LCG unconditional models show that the slope
(changes during lockdown) was significant for COVID-19 anxiety, but not
for mental well-being, indicating that COVID-19 anxiety significantly de-
creased over time through the four waves in the three weeks of lockdown,
while the levels of mental well-being remained stable. This could be due to
different levels of specificity/generality in the constructs; mental well-be-
ing could be considered more general, and perhaps, as such, more stable,
whereas COVID-19 anxiety is more situation-specific (state anxiety), and
was thus more subject to change during the lockdown. State anxiety is a
combination of the person (trait anxiety) and the situation effects (End-
ler & Kocovski, 2001). Under stressful or acute fear situations, such as the
COVID-19 pandemic, it is considered a normal response (Endler & Kocov-
ski, 2001). It is also expected that situational/state anxiety will be, as sug-
gested by its name, situationally dependent. For COVID-19 anxiety specif-
ically, this means that it is high during the higher risk of getting infected
(or when there is perception of high risk; i.e., when there are strict restric-
tions), and low when the risk (or perception of the risk) of being infected
decreases. This means that it is high in the initial stage of the spread, when
COVID-19 was perceived as an unknown threat (and the risk of being in-
fected was perceived as increased), and low when the threat was better un-
derstood (e.g., more information on the virus) and the risk of being infect-
ed was perceived as decreased. Once the situation or perception of threat
is no longer present, state anxiety lowers, which is the phenomenon that
was documented in the Spanish study with the ending of the lockdown
(González-Sanguino et al., 2020). The context-dependence of the specific
COVID-19 anxiety mentioned was also established in the comparison be-
tween COVID-19 anxiety in Russian and Belarussian students (Gritsen-
ko et al., 2020). The context of the pandemic was different in both coun-
tries, with Russia imposing stricter measures and Belarus continuing with
“life as usual”. Students from Belarus thus reported lower levels of COV-

174