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

Introduction. The study of alexithymia in children (especially in healthy children), contrary to adult populations, has not been studied extensively, despite its relevant relation to health and quality of life. The purpose of this study was to analyze, in healthy children, the relation between children's alexithymia and their parents' alexithymia, the relation between children's alexithymia and children's quality of life, as well as to understand whether this relation is mediated by parents' alexithymia.Method. Alexithymia and quality of life questionnaires were administered to children aged 8- 12, and Alexithymia questionnaires were administered to their parents, father or mather who was the main care-takers. Correlational study. Means and standard deviations of the all variables were described. Pearson’ correlations, t-tests, multiple linear regressions and mediation analysis using ordinary least squares multiple regression and Sobel test were employed.Results. Results indicated a significant relation between Alexithymia dimensions for children and parents (except for the externally oriented thinking dimension). Children’s difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings predict all their quality of life dimensions (except for physical well-being). Results further indicated that this relation was partially mediated by parent’s difficulty describing feelings for some of the children’s quality of life dimensions.Conclusion. These findings have important practical implications regarding the planning of educational school programs for children. Specifically, within an educational system according to competences, identification and emotional expression strategies should be incorporated for the enhancement of quality of life in children and the prevention of alexithymia and somatization problems in adults.

Introduction. Student’s metacognitive knowledge as well as their goal orientations are related to educational achievement. Metacognitive knowledge enables the learner to choose learning strategies in such a way that they are situation-appropriate as well as efficient. It develops in conjunction with domain-related learning activities, which in turn are influenced by students’ goal orientations. This leads to the assumption that goal orientations differentially influence the development of metacognitive knowledge, and that the latter mediates the effect of goal orientations on educational achievement.Method. Respective hypotheses were tested using data from a longitudinal study with 928 German secondary school students in which goal orientations were assessed in grade five and metacognitive knowledge and educational achievement in the domains of reading and English as a foreign language (EFL) were repeatedly tested from grade five to seven.Results. Findings indicate that learning goal orientation had a positive impact on metacognitive knowledge and on achievement in reading, which was mediated by metacognitive knowledge. The opposite was found for performance goal orientation, which focuses on the demonstration of competence and the intention to outperform others.Conclusion. Learning goal orientation not only affects achievement directly but also indirectly through a positive effect on metacognitive knowledge. Performance orientation does not have a positive effect on the relation between metacognitive knowledge and performance.

Introduction. The present study analyzes differences in university students' opinions towards  persons with mental disorder, as a function of whether they have had previous contact with  them and whether they have received training about them. Method. The Opinions about Mental Illness Scale for Spanish population (OMI-S) was applied  to a sample of 474 students at the University of Extremadura (Spain). They were also  asked whether they had had previous contact with such persons. Within the total sample, 279  students were pursuing a degree in Social Education.Results. Training received seemed to exert greater influence than previous contact. Moreover, having contact with these persons appeared to produce significant differences in opinion only  in students who had received such training. Discussion and conclusions. Based on the above, it would be beneficial to carry out educational measures that are based on contact, since training would make this contact more positive  and meaningful.   

Introduction. Since self-efficacy is a belief about one’s capability in doing something successfully or unsuccessfully and it relates to academic achievements directly and indirectly. The understanding the sources of one’s self-efficacy could assist that person to achieve a better result in learning or doing something, or, at least, to minimize a reflection from negative sources that could decrease his/her self-efficacy. This study investigated the sources of selfefficacy of English language learners with different genders, nationalities, types of study program, and fields of study.Method. This study used stratified random sampling to draw 480 first-year students at a university to complete a questionnaire. Then, the data was analyzed by descriptive statistics, ttest, and One-Way ANOVA.Results. The result showed slight differences in sources of self-efficacy between learners with different nationality and types of program. Findings revealed that vicarious experience became the highest ranked source for positive self-efficacy while mastery experience was the highest for the negative self-efficacy. Social persuasion was the least influential source regardless of their differences.Discussion and Conclusion. The implications are that teachers and administrators could use the results of this study to develop the strategies to implant positive self-efficacy that results greatly in students’ learning process, and to lead their students with those individual differences to be autonomous learners. 

Introduction. This study aims to explore the effect of students’ adoption of approach goals; both mastery and performance approach goals and performance avoidance goals on their motivational beliefs and coping strategy use in science classes from multiple goals perspective. Students’ motivational beliefs were examined in terms of self-efficacy and task-value beliefs while their coping strategy use was examined in terms of positive, projective, and denial coping and non-coping.Method. The sample of this study consist 317 seventh grade students. Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire was used to assess students’ self-efficacy and task value. Besides, Achievement Goal Questionnaire and Academic Coping Inventory were used in the present study to assess students’ motivational beliefs and coping strategies.Results. The cluster analysis suggested four clusters of achievement goals: mastery-oriented goals (high mastery approach, low performance approach and avoidance goals), performanceoriented goals (high performance approach and avoidance, moderate mastery approach goals), approach oriented goals (high mastery and high performance approach, and less performance avoidance goals) and high multiple oriented goals (high mastery, high performance approach and high performance avoidance goals).Discussion and Conclusion. According to the results, students with approach oriented goals and high multiple oriented goals are more likely to possess adaptive motivational beliefs and use positive coping strategies.

2017 Reviewers

Introduction. Procrastination is a very interesting topic because even if procrastinators could anticipate the negative consequences, they still intentionally do necessary tasks with delay. This may be because some procrastinators receive positive outcomes referred to active procrastinator, but some are not called passive procrastinator. Verifying the motivational belief moderates these two different types of procrastination; therefore, this study evaluates consistency of two different configurations. Model 1 is based on achievement goal theory integrated factors between academic self-efficacy and achievement goal (achievement goals1.->academic self-efficacy->academic achievement). Model 3 is based on social cognitive theory of motivation separated factors between achievement goal and academic self-efficacy (academic self-efficacy, achievement goals1.->academic achievement) across the three groups of procrastinators (non-procrastinators, active-procrastinators, and passive procrastinators). Moreover, this study investigated the different patterns of structural relations (including both direct and indirect relationship) between the achievement goals, academic self-efficacy and academic achievement. Method. The sample consisted of 988 Thai undergraduate students with an average age of 20 (SD = 0.99) ranging from 18 to 27 years. Structure equation model was employed to test the path model and Multi-group path analyses were used to verify differences in the path coefficients across the three types of procrastinators. Results. The finding confirmed that with Model 1there were a higher number of significant relationships that integrated achievement goals and academic self-efficacy pertaining to academic achievement than with the Model 3 which separated achievement goal and academic self-efficacy relative to academic achievement, as well as across the three types of procrastinators. Discussion and Conclusion. There was a substantial result of the importance of integration between academic self-efficacy and achievement goals for passive procrastinators showing in Model 1 that academic self-efficacy mediated relationships between achievement goals and academic achievement for the passive procrastinators but not the active-procrastinator or non-procrastinator groups. The implications of the findings across the three groups of procrastination are discussed.

Introduction. The focus of our research converges on the analysis of attitudes and the prediction of the behavior of university students towards the inclusion of students with disabilities in university. The evaluation of attitudes and the prediction of behavior are complex, but it is fundamental because of the decisive impact they have on the participation of students with disabilities in the socio-educational field. Therefore, for this purpose a scale based on the theoretical framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model has been developed and validated; one of the models that provides a more complete methodological vision to explain and predict behavior.Methodology. The sample consisted of 1044 participants, of whom 623 were students from Spanish universities and 421 from Argentine universities, collected with the instrument designed according to the TPB. The validity and reliability of this instrument were estimated through the Confirmatory Factor Analysis, a procedure framed within SEM (Structural Equation Modeling).Results. The results obtained in terms of the reliability and validity of the instrument confirms the adequacy of the goodness-of-fit, internal consistency, discriminant validity and criterion validity. On the other hand, it´s observed that, in general terms, the responses of students without disabilities toward the inclusion of students with disabilities in higher education are positive.Discussion and conclusions. Although there are researches carried out in university field that analyze the attitudes towards people with disabilities, there are few that apply the model of Theory of Planned Behavior with sufficient evidence of reliability and validity. In this sense, we present a psychometrically validated scale which objective is to evaluate the attitudes and the intention of university student to the inclusion of students with disabilities in university. In this way, we can develop interventions to improve the inclusion of students with disabilities in university.

Introduction. There are different family’s factors that influence in the transformation of the potential of the students with high capacities, the studies have found that the occupation of the parents, the time they dedicated to the children, the upbringing practices and the expectations are aspects that intervene in the development of the capacities. The objective of the work was to recognize the variables that characterize the parents of the students with high capacities of the primary education of the marginal urban zone.Method. The work was done in three primary schools located to the orient of Mexico City. 28 children with high capacity, theirs parents and 24 teachers participated. There were applied to the students, test to evaluate their intelligence, creativity, compromise with the homework and the academic concept. The teachers answered a list of nominations and the parents answered a checklist to recognize the characteristics of the family.Results. It was observed that there are a 4% of the students with high capacities that lives in the vulnerable zones. With the Spearman Rho correlation, it was observed that regardless of the socioeconomic level of their parents, they try to provide them additional activities to their children to favor their capacities. Mothers' schooling helps them look for additional, low-cost alternatives. Likewise, the time that the mothers dedicate to do the homework affects in a negative way the children’s academic self-concept.Discussion and Conclusion. It was achieved the recognition of some family variables that favors the potential of the students with high capacities. It necessary to continue with this type of investigations to recognize which are the parent’s characteristics and provide them the additional support to achieve favors an optimum children development.

Introduction Writing is a tool for constructing and modifying knowledge. However, it is not easy to evaluate spontaneous writing tasks. In the present study, we selected and analysed a series of quality indicators to assess spontaneous or productive writing, examining the level of difficulty of the indicators and the relationship between the application of metacognitive strategies when writing and the quality of spontaneous writing products.Method Participants consisted of 480 Spanish students in their 5th and 6th years of primary education and 1st and 2nd years compulsory secondary education (40% females and 60% males). Several tests were administered: a PROESC subtest, EVAPROMES and story writing. In addition, we collected the marks obtained in the previous year for the subject of Spanish language.Results Spontaneous writing product quality was related to academic achievement in Spanish language, and metacognition, as measured by EVAPROMES, was the underlying variable that explained differences in the difficulty of the quality indicators.Discussion and conclusions The differences observed in an analysis of indicators by educational level (primary vs compulsory secondary education) appeared to be due to the methodology employed by teachers in class and the standards required. Implementing spontaneous writing tasks that involve the application of metacognitive strategies (metawriting) would exert a positive impact on students’ academic performance.