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

En este artículo se presentan los resultados de un estudio exploratorio de naturaleza cuantitativa sobre las motivaciones de estudiantes universitarios costarricenses para el aprendizaje de lenguas indígenas. La muestra total corresponde a ochenta y ocho estudiantes divididos en cuarenta y cuatro indígenas y cuarenta y cuatro no indígenas. La técnica de investigación es un cuestionario de respuestas cerradas para seis afirmaciones, donde cada encuestado marca ‘sí’ o ‘no’ según su percepción. El análisis se realiza con base en la clasificación de las motivaciones como integrativas e instrumentales: las primeras surgen de los intereses culturales, mientras que las segundas, se relacionan con las necesidades funcionales de aprender un segundo idioma. Dentro de los resultados, se identifica la motivación más predominante según la afiliación étnica de los estudiantes, ya sean indígenas o no indígenas.

The present study sought to ascertain the knowledge of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) majors of their career path possibilities and the job market for English graduates in Costa Rica. A total of 47 senior English students participated in this investigation. A questionnaire was administered to elicit the students’ knowledge of career paths and the job market for English graduates in Costa Rica and their familiarity with the orientation services provided by the University of Costa Rica. Main findings reveal inconsistencies in the knowledge of English majors of career paths and the job market in Costa Rica. Results also evince the undergraduates’ lack of familiarity with the services provided to help them improve their knowledge of those topics. Practical implications are discussed.

The aim of this study is to describe oral academic discourse on the basis of the analysis of educational videos in English. Educational videos can be defined as audiovisual material specially designed by an expert on a given disciplinary field, which is intended to teach a specific topic and which is published on the Internet. Four educational videos related to specific engineering topics were selected and analyzed. This study focuses on oral academic discourse and it includes not only the description of educational videos in terms of genre analysis, but also an analysis and discussion of the linguistic resources typically selected in this kind of oral production.

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education institutions to pivot their traditional face-to-face teaching to emergency remote teaching (ERT), causing a shift in delivery modalities. Recent studies have described ERT's existing experiences as an emerging transitioning methodological alternative to comply with the social distancing and safety guidelines stipulated globally. This research study merges data from two sources in a convergent parallel mixed method design. Thus, the study presents a systematization of the action plan undergone by the faculty authorities of Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica and a follow-up trace analysis of newcomer's experiences in the Bachelor major in English Teaching as a Foreign Language at the school of Literature and Language Sciences (ELCL, Spanish initials) during the first term of 2020. Results evince the students' experience in tech possibilities, electronic device ownership, and healthy, economic, social, or physical learning setting issues. Lastly, the researchers propose an empathetic design thinking further research study to determine where to integrate technology at the BA TEFL major.   Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face teaching, emergency remote teaching, newcomer students' experiences, higher education  

Abstract This article aims to compare and contrast the concepts of subjectivity represented in literature and constructed in borders: physical and imaginary geopolitical sites that have positioned identities in the margins throughout history. The comparative analysis examines the representation of marginal identities in literary texts, specifically those written by authors belonging to hyphenated cultures such as the Cuban-American Gustavo Pérez-Firmat (1994), “Bilingual Blues,” and Mexican-American Gloria Anzaldúa’s “La encrucijada,” among others, mentioned in the bibliography. The study shows that the portrayal of subjectivity and subalternity in literary texts contends with diverse discourses of power and hefty political structures that tend to repress and to delimit character’s development and conditions as human beings living in the United States.

This work is the product of a research carried out to obtain a master's degree at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente. The work regards a research on the autonomous development of communicative competences in the English language by students from school COBAES 60 “Profra. Jesusita Neda”, in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. The main purpose of the study was to know the way in which learners autonomously develop communicative skills in the Anglo-Saxon language, but also to know the emotional, material, and human resources elements that need to be involved. This research followed a qualitative approach under the method of phenomenology. The results revealed that aspects such as the student's interaction with the foreign language through activities of interest, the role of technological resources, and the role of the teacher in the learning process, play a crucial role in the development of the communication skills in the foreign language.

In this article, we carry out a study about one of the most disruptive topics in recent times: cryptocurrencies. Whether as a revolution in payment methods, because it is a speculative asset or because of the particularities of the technology on which it is supported, cryptocurrencies are generating a greater impact on our lives, especially in the world of finance. The main objective that we set ourselves is to delve into the knowledge of cryptocurrencies and the technology that supports them, in a way that allows us to have a clear idea of the consequences that their appearance has not only in the financial field, but also in the economy in general. If we make an approximation to these cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, we will be able to be aware of the advantages of their use, as well as the disadvantages of their existence, which will allow us to be aware of the role that this technology can play in the present, in the short term and long term, especially in the business field. After this analysis of the origins of Bitcoin and its evolution, we study its correlation with several assets and indices: Ethereum (second cryptocurrency with the highest value), gold (commodity considered as a refuge value), S&P500 (the most representative index of the US market) and the MSCI World Index (most representative global index), briefly explaining each of these assets, to finally analyze their correlation with Bitcoin from the year for which we have data for each one.

Information and Communications Technologies have contributed significantly to the economic and social development of today's society. The international scientific community is discussing their negative and positive effects and their relationship with the environment, and are looking for solutions in sustainable technologies and information systems. The present investigation proposes a procedure to determine the level of sustainability in the management of technologies and information systems using Compensatory Fuzzy Logic in an organization. The results of the application of the procedure allowed calculating and evaluating the level of sustainability in the management of information systems and technologies. After analyzing the results, the worst measured criteria evaluated were determined among those found: the installation of intelligent switches, the deployment of free cooling systems, and the implementation of intelligent technologies, the use of ecological technology and the management of strategies for Sustainable Information Technologies and Systems.

The sustained current account deficit in any country has an important implication for policy. If it continues, then it suggests that the regime ought to have no motivation to avoid or to diminish its international debt. In this paper, we test empirically the relationship among current account deficit and different macroeconomic variables by using panel Logit model. Therefore, we focus on the MENA countries during the years of 1980-2017. We built an econometric model to analyse the contribution of the real GDP, unemployment rate (UR), consumer price index (CPI), export growth rate (EGR), import growth rate (IGR), public expenditures (PE), and foreign trade rate (FTR) on current account deficit (CAD). We established that only the following exogenous variables: GDP, UR, PE and FTR have a positive and significant effect on the current account deficit. This outcome may support governments to identify the best time for investment and business strategies by observing the evolution of the performance of higher temporal hierarchy industries.

The present investigation addresses the financial results of the year 2017 of 1.900 companies of a capital city from Latin America, with which the financial indicators of capital structure and net profit margin are calculated. The central objective is to determine whether or not there is an inverse and significant correlation between the financial indicator of capital structure and the result of the financial indicator of net profit margin for companies, according to economic activity that they develop, through the calculation of the Pearson's correlation coefficient. A quantitative methodology, of an explanatory type, is applied that seeks to identify patterns in the analyzed financial results that give light of the existence of an optimal general capital structure (relationship between the liability and equity). As a general conclusion, with the analyzed data, it is evidenced that there is an inverse but not significant correlation between the indicators. It is proposed as a future research topic to delve into the same theme based on the size of the company, according to net sales recorded in a given period.