Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This study evaluates the validity and reliability of a restricted structural model that brings together factors relating to online socialization, trust, and Internet dependency in junior high students. Its practical purpose is to explain the coherence and relevance of factors in the theoretical model by way of a multiple regression and correlation analysis. The sample was made up of 4,563 students from public junior high schools in Mexico. The factor analysis revealed that factors relating to online socialization and trust have a direct and indirect impact on Internet dependency in adolescents, which is consistent with the theoretical model proposed. The correlation tests showed convergent validity and high and significant structural coefficients. The results indicate that junior high students exhibit Internet dependency resulting from sociability processes not just with their peers and family, but also strangers, as presented in the model tested.

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between organizational commitment and grade point average (GPA) in MBA students. We also analyzed whether the students´ allocentric and idiocentric tendencies moderate this relationship. A survey was carried out in the university in mention (n= 80). The results indicate that organizational commitment and GPA have a negative relationship that amplifies at high levels of allocentric tendencies and diminishes when idiocentric tendencies are high. In general, organizational commitment is desirable for organizations but it could have negative effects on the grades of those persons who simultaneously study and work.

The objective of the article is to analyze, on one hand, the results of the Social Sciences tests of the 2016 State Examination in Colombia and on the other, the students' opinions on the preparation they receive for said test within the framework of the evaluation processes of the subject. For this, a quantitative methodology was used with information from two sources: the Colombian Institute for the Evaluation of Education (ICFES) and a survey. The data was systematized using the Infostad Professional statistical program. It was determined that although these tests describe the achievement of particular levels of performance of students in the area of Social Sciences, it is necessary that these results can help to understand curricular aspects and teaching practices; this implies a shift from asking how much the students know, to asking what they know and what they are capable of doing and focusing the reflection on the pedagogical uses of the results of the exams.

The studies highlight the need to research the psychological mechanisms that intervene the learnings' development in the classroom. The aim of the study was to assess the mediating role of the types of regulation that compose the autonomous motivation, in the relation among the perception of autonomy support, academic satisfaction and academic performance perceived by university students. The participants were 229 first-year students from four Chilean universities. The mediating effect was assessed using the PROCESS macro for SPSS. The results indicated that both the intrinsic regulation and the identified regulation partially intervene the effect of the perception of autonomy support on academic satisfaction, but only the intrinsic regulation totally intervenes the effect on the academic performance. It is concluded that the types of autonomous regulation are mechanisms through which it is positively influenced the well-being and academic achievement of university students.

The ability to program is one of the capacities developed or, if applicable, computer engineering students, some studies in the literature start from the premise that this ability has a direct association with the creative capacity of students; From the above, the research reported was presented had the objective of identifying the relationship between the creativity of an engineering student in computing and his performance as a programmer, represented by the average obtained in certain subjects. The applied method was quantitative, transversal, of explanatory scope and for the recovery of data, the CREA test was used. The results indicate that creativity is not an incident to the ability to program and that other factors influence the development, such as the motivation encourage mainly by the teacher and the context surrounding the programmer.

This study is a part of a broader research that aims to design a model of evaluation of educational systems based on the improvement of social cohesion. It is a study of metric validation of an instrument for evaluation teacher collegiality. The instrument was designed from the findings of the previos validation study in witch the construct was validated by expert judgment. The sample has been formed by 147 volunteer teachers of elementary and secondary Spanish schools. The method is based on the collection of internal metric evidences of validity of the instrument. Dimensionality was studied by exploratory factor analysis and discrimination capacity by means of the analysis of conglomerates of K means. Also the Rasch Model was used to determine the quality of the items. The results revealed some items that were discarded in the final version of the instrument and provided evidences of validity.

Initial teacher training sets an area of particular interest for research in Chile, as it has promoted a policy known as Mecesup aimed at renewing tertiary education in two ways, one that links resource allocation with performance results, and another, linking training with learning outcomes and demonstration of skills attuned to the world. In this context, the main objective is to determine the harmony product of the curricular renovation between elementary teaching study plans with and without Mecesup program, as organized general and specific skills in design. In terms of methodology, three case studies located in the south central part of the country are built, and through an informed research of the study plans of the teaching programmes relations among the three cases were established. We conclude that there is no harmony between the teaching programmes studied regardless of having or not having Mecesup project.

This paper explores the challenges modern Muslim scholars face when acquiring and producing knowledge and when thinking about what they can borrow and revive from the educational approaches of Muslim scholars of the Middle Ages in order to come up with a new paradigm of learning in education. Some of these challenges are the gaps between secular and religious education, marginalisation of various types of learning and the dominance of one mode of learning - especially the dominance of western-based epistemology and ethical principles in education, struggling to choose between competing and often contradictory paradigms, not knowing much about one’s own cultural and civilizational legacy and what it could offer to resolve these issues, etc. Some scholars started researching these challenges, yet it is very rare that a combined library research and field work is conducted to examine such issues. In this research, drawing on the analysis of relevant literature and qualitative interviews conducted with prominent scholars, we aim to shed light on some of these challenges and provide solutions to them. The seriousness of these challenges and searching for ways to resolve them compels us to look back and critically examine what educational approaches were used by Muslim scholars and pedagogues in the Middle Ages and what happened to those approaches in the modern times. Critical examination of such legacy is very important so that we avoid the temptation of just regurgitating those achievements in terms of Muslims’ world view about education and epistemology in the past and creatively revive those according to the needs of modern times.

As a prelude to the paper it should be stated that its genesis originates in conference presentations delivered on two separate occasions to two separate audiences. The first was to a mixed group of teacher educators, Roman Catholic priests and nuns, as well as others from diverse religious traditions, at a one-day conference on religion and pluralism held in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. The expressed focus for this conference was ‘inter-faith’ but with the addition of a secular dimension. The second presentation was to an international group largely comprised of comparative education scholars in Glasgow, Scotland. Although the two presentations were broadly similar in content the Dublin paper had a distinct orientation. Given that the publicly-funded Irish school system was characterised by a strong involvement of religion (Department of Education and Skills, 2017) – in particular, that of the Roman Catholic Church, the dominant tradition in that country – the Dublin presentation pursued an approach which sought to widen the educational agenda. Specifically, it focused upon the continuing discussion concerning the role of secularity in school systems where confessional approaches to religion were sanctioned by the central state. On the other hand, the Glasgow presentation was more ‘academic’ in tone, seeking to re-position secularity and religion in a non-oppositional relationship which was, in turn, argued to be functional for 21st education systems. 

This article opens by refusing some traditional ways to approach the theme of comparative education and religion-and-education. Partly, this is because some topics, in terms of religion and education, have been well covered. More generally, there is an explicit refusal of the clichéd assumption that ‘comparative education articles’ compare (e.g. education systems in Argentina and Australia, or in Brazil and Bolivia; and so on), juxtaposing narratives on any-old-topic which interests the writer, provided the narratives are about two or more different countries. Fortunately, some current changes in the ‘epistemic gaze’ of comparative education create new levels of theoretical difficulty and permit a break from the classic political equilibrium problem of the liberal secular state juggling education policy choices and juggling competing religious groups. Starting from a different axiom, a sketch of new possibilities is offered. The sketch is theoretically clumsy but it opens up a strategically different way to tell comparative education stories, of the kind which traditionally we have not tried to tell.  The conclusion of the article makes a guess about why religion and education might again become a major topic in comparative education.