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

The increasing rate of demands and urgent adaptations in the health, social and professional fields demand from individuals a response that, for some, may exceed their limits; the teaching profession is not the exception, since it is an activity of constant challenges and epistemological and cultural ruptures. The phenomenon of burnout or attrition at work is increasingly evident and has been studied in association with certain personal and contextual characteristics, however, there are not enough studies that link it with the vocation to teaching that can respond as a source of support to prevent it. The purpose of this work was to analyse the relationship between vocation and burnout syndrome in Mexican teachers, in addition to analysing the validity of the vocation to teaching scale. For this, a quantitative, descriptive, and cross-sectional study was carried out on 824 teachers of different educational levels. The results revealed a predictive and negative association between vocation and burnout, in addition to finding significant differences according to the different socio-occupational categories; likewise, the analysis of the vocation to teaching scale showed that it is a reliable and valid instrument to analyse their construct. It is concluded that there are critical factors that can trigger job burnout such as contractual uncertainty, the educational level at which teaching is exercised, professional training and experience in teaching; a comprehensive accompaniment to teachers is recommended that allows their professional and human development.

The digital gender gap, defined as the difference between men and women in the use and exploitation of digital technologies (DTs), translates into an unfavorable social and economic scenario for women. Responding to this reality means exploring the development of Digital Competence (DC) and the attitude towards the use of DTs, to offer training that truly reduces possible differences between genders. This article investigates gender differences, both in self-perceived DC, and in the attitude towards the use of DTs throughout secondary education in Spain. The research is quantitative, with a survey design. The sample is made up of 3249 boys and girls, students in the 2nd and 4th year of ESO and the 2nd year of upper secondary school. The Digitalis-ESO questionnaire measures self-perceived DC (α=.908), attitude (α=.914), and other demographic data. A descriptive analysis of frequencies, a comparative and correlational study, using chi-squared, t-tests and Pearson correlations, is performed. Boys report higher levels of DC perception and attitude than girls, with medium effect sizes. Furthermore, DC improves with the course for both genders, while attitude worsens significantly for girls. The detail of the DC items indicates that girls perceive themselves as more skilled in academic and communication-related activities, while boys believe they excel in technical activities. Finally, the analysis of attitude towards the use of DTs shows a strong incidence on the self-perception of DC, both for boys and girls. These results confirm the existence of a digital gap in favor of boys, thus training and support actions are necessary for girls, especially in technical aspects of DC, which also help them improve their attitude towards the use of DTs.      

Teaching digital competence is a challenge in the professional field of teachers. It also is an identified problem in the research to which answers can be given. Specifically, the evaluation of CDD is a key element for making decisions regarding teacher training and future lines of research. Taking this challenge as a focus, the objective of this article is to provide an updated overview of the tools used in the processes of evaluation of the digital competence of teachers. For that, an investigation has been done focusing on the type of research design, instruments and analysis used, as well as the results obtained after its application and its implications. The study carried out has been approached from a systematic review of the literature, following the guidelines set out in the PRISMA declaration, with a sample of 66 articles published between 2017 and February 2022 in journals indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus, in which the CDD was evaluated. The results obtained show medium and low levels of diagnosed CDD and offer evidence of the relevance of CDD evaluation in its improvement. Likewise, these show that the European framework DIGCOMPEDU and the Spanish framework proposed by INTEF are followed by researchers from all over the world. However, it is a common practice for researchers to develop their own instrument to assess DDC, with the self-assessment questionnaire used in most studies, while it is recommended to complement it with other qualitative tools to assess the actual level acquired. The conclusions show that researchers agree on two fundamental aspects: to increase teacher training in digital competence and to progress in research designs that allow us to verify how the CDD level improves through training proposals contextualized in the educational stage or type of teaching.

Passion and persistence are related constructs that have been perceived as key qualities for people to achieve their aims. While passion has been widely analyzed from a dualistic position, studies on persistence have rarely been focused on persistence regarding its quality. Thus, the aim of this study was twofold. Firstly, it aimed to analyze the relationships between flexible and rigid persistence, harmonious and obsessive passion, subjective vitality, and intention to stay in a sample of 201 university teachers from 20 universities. The secondary goal was to translate and assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Flexible and Rigid Persistence Scale. Overall, the findings supported the hypotheses tested. Regarding the first aim, we tested a structural equation model in which we hypothesized that harmonious passion would positively lead to flexible persistence and, to a lesser degree, to rigid persistence, and that obsessive passion would positively predict rigid persistence and negatively predict flexible persistence. In turn, both types of persistence would predict intention to continue teaching (activity outcome), but only flexible persistence would predict subjective vitality (life outcome). As expected, the structural equation model showed that harmonious passion for teaching predicted flexible persistence, while obsessive passion for teaching predicted rigid persistence and it was negatively related to flexible persistence. In turn, only flexible persistence predicted subjective vitality and intention to keep on teaching. Regarding the second goal of the study, results from exploratory structural equation modeling, reliability analysis, and multi-group exploratory structural equation modeling supported the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the scale in the educational context for university teachers. These results are partially consistent with those reported in the original version, and they lead to new research on the role of passion and persistence in education.

Despite the usefulness of the analysis of the perception of self-efficacy in the success and performance of teachers and students in the teaching-learning process proposed by the TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) model, there is little research focused on the beliefs and perceptions of future teachers. The present research has a double objective: on the one hand, it seeks to validate the psychometric properties of the TPACK-ES scale in the Spanish context; and on the other hand, to analyse the perceptions of self-efficacy in the model of Primary and Secondary Education teachers in initial training. A total of 303 university students with a mean age of 23.12 ± 3.21 years, enrolled in a university in the north of Spain, agreed to participate in this study. The results obtained confirm the heptafactorial structure of the model, its internal consistency, structural stability and adaptation to optimal fit indices. Likewise, statistically significant differences are identified in the TK and TPK dimensions, in structuring variables of the model and in the PK (pedagogical knowledge), PCK (pedagogical knowledge of content), TPK (pedagogical technological knowledge) and TPACK dimensions, depending on the level of teacher training and the gender of the future teacher. These results indicate the need to continue to analyse the contextual factors of the TPACK model in order to ensure its suitability and true effectiveness in initial teacher training.

The ongoing increase in the number of students with barriers to presence, participation and learning who attend universities around the world requires reflection on the policies, cultures and practices that promote or hinder it. This mixed research, predominantly qualitative, aims to analyses these three elements from the perspective of students in the Galician University System. It is developed in three stages: a first quantitative stage, in which data is collected through a questionnaire applied to 296 students of Early Childhood Education (n = 132), Primary (n = 100), Social (n = 35) and Speech Therapy (n = 30); a second qualitative stage, in which the responses of 174 students (130 students of Primary Education and 44 of Early Childhood Education) are analyzed in an online discussion forum; and a final qualitative stage, through semi-structured interviews and elaboration of mind maps with a group of six students. The results showed the cross-analysis of the qualitative discourse and the quantitative assessments of the students, which allowed the elaboration of a mind map that reflects the facilitators (space for support, help and attention; fellowship and socialization; pedagogical, psychological and emotional support from the teacher; respectfulness and maturity) and barriers to inclusion at university (overcrowded classrooms; lack of individualization and adaptation of teaching; multitasking profile of the teacher; poorly adapted facilities). In conclusion, the historical and social evolution of inclusion generates diverse narratives and expectations that require a joint action of listening and responding to questions to understand and accept diversity. It is not a matter of approaching inclusion through policies that are distant from educational cultures and practices. Including learners with major diversities in classrooms is a major step forward, but it should not be hidden that inclusion is a process that affects the whole of society.

The continued use of videoconferencing systems to carry out the teaching-learning process in higher education institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on university students' learning, causing digital fatigue. This fatigue mainly affects eyesight, emotional, motivational and social status. The aim of this study was to determine the degree of digital fatigue derived from prolonged exposure to videoconferencing systems among university students. For this purpose, a cross-sectional study design was applied based on the distribution of an online survey. A total of 613 university students aged 18-35 years (M = 21.54, SD = 3.85) participated in the study. The results obtained revealed that: 1) the degree of prevalence of digital fatigue among university students was medium-high; 2) socio-demographic variables linked to being female, studying in the Arts and Humanities, spending more time in front of an electronic device and connecting via a laptop were indicators of a higher rate of digital fatigue; 3) gender and high hours consumption were predictors of visual fatigue, social fatigue, motivational fatigue and emotional fatigue; 4) visual fatigue, motivational fatigue and emotional fatigue, together with the field of study knowledge, had a significant influence on overall fatigue. Finally, the future lines of research of this work are discussed, highlighting the richness of the data obtained to advance knowledge about digital fatigue and its influence on university learning.

The dissemination of Covid-19 imposed the confinement of a large part of the world's population. For this reason, face-to-face classes in Spain were interrupted and did not resume until September 2021. The situation forced schools to move both teaching and communication between teachers to a digital environment, which favoured greater use of social networks. This paper conducts an exploratory study of 30751 tweets extracted from eight educational hashtags (#eduhora, #claustrovirtual, #SerProfeMola, #otraeducaciónesposible, #claustrotuitero, #profesquemolan, #orgullodocente, and #soymaestro) used by the educational community of teachers in Spain. A semantic content analysis is carried out using a mixed methodology based on public data mining and sentiment analysis. The analysis of the data provided novel information about the needs, interests and concerns, as well as the emotional implications that teachers expressed on the social network Twitter during the transition to virtual teaching. The lock-in situation was associated with increased emotional content in the tweets analysed in the sample, irrespective of the positive, negative or neutral polarity of the tweets. The results also show that teachers in Spain use social networks both for professional development and emotional support and that this trend has increased after Covid-19. The use of Twitter is linked to continuous professional development in times of particular difficulty, also in Spain, as has been the case in other countries. The findings of the study show that the historical Twitter archive is a valid resource for the analysis of teachers' feelings in longitudinal research including the Covid-19 period.

In recent years, university institutions, together with the traditional interest in academic performance, are showing attention to the well-being of students. The concept of engagement tries to link both areas and suggests that there are motivational mechanisms common to well-being and performance. University adults choose to pursue high degree studies out of a desire for development that translates into a passion for learning. This passion has shown both positive and negative outcomes on well-being. Perfectionism has been shown to be a predictor of academic performance with different results in student health. For this reason, it is intended in the following work to analyze the relationship of perfectionism on the academic engagement and the mediating effect of passion for the studies, in 545 distance education university students, through a quasi-experimental design. Mediation analyzes are performed using the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method with SmartPLS software. Thus, self-oriented perfectionism has a significant relationship with academic engagement, both directly and through passion, especially harmonious passion. A different effect is observed with socialized perfectionism. The model presents an adequate predictive level (Q2= [.435 - .630]). Therefore, passion constitutes a mediating variable between students' perfectionist beliefs and academic engagement in the study sample (SRMR<.08; R2= 45% p<.005). Theoretical and practical implications are analyzed, such as the importance of implementing strategies that encourage students to play an active, challenging, and flexible role in their learning process.

For future teachers to be researchers of their teaching practice, and to improve it, it is important to enhance a strong relationship between teaching and research during their education. Based on this idea, a study was carried out with the aim of widening the debate about the teaching-research connection in higher education or, as it is called by some authors, the teaching-research nexus. The research study answers the following questions: What positions justify the importance of the teaching-research relationship in initial teacher education? What is the manner of this relationship in initial teacher education? What difficulties and possibilities are there for conducting teaching with research? Methodologically, email internet interview with three open-ended questions was used to collect the opinions of professors who provide initial teacher education. The interview protocol was submitted to critical validation using the “jury agreement” technique and was answered by 56 professors of 13 higher education institutions from the 24 that provide initial teacher education in Portugal. The professors were informed that the overall data and institution names to which they belong would be anonymized. The answers given were submitted to content analysis supported by Healey’s (2005) typology of the teaching-research nexus: research-led teaching; research-oriented teaching; research-tutored; research-based teaching. This analysis allows the conclusion that, when referring to the teaching-research relationship, the professors present concepts related to the four dimensions spelled out by Healey, although a research-oriented approach was favoured. Institutional and educational policy reasons were pointed out as the greatest difficulties in achieving teaching with research, even though also possibilities were identified to lead this change. This situation opens perspectives for initial teacher education to prepare future teachers to guide their curricular practices supported by research. To this end, it is important to invest in institutional cultures and in the working conditions of higher education professors.