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

The literature has shown a direct relationship between the psychological sense of belonging with psychological well-being and academic involvement in physical communities. However, new technologies have favored the formation of communities in cyberspace, with scarce research at the university level addressing their impact. For this reason, an ex post facto study has been designed with the aim of knowing the relationship between the psychological sense of belonging to virtual communities with psychological well-being, with academic involvement, academic satisfaction, and the perception of justice of the academic outcomes. In addition, the possible influence of the gender factor was considered. 1,035 undergraduate students from Spanish universities responded to the Scale of Psychological Sense of Community in Virtual Groups (SCGV), to the Scale of Psychological Well-being (EBP) and to an ad hoc instrument designed to measure academic involvement, academic satisfaction and perception of justice of the academic outcomes. The results revealed that the successful virtual sense of belonging is related to greater subjective, economic and academic well-being, while increasing academic participation, academic satisfaction and the perception of justice of the academic outcomes. Moreover, the influence of the gender factor was also found, as it revealed greater academic well-being in women and differences in academic participation between men and women. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of the benefits for the students of integration and participation in virtual academic communities for the well-being, academic involvement, academic satisfaction and perception of justice of the academic outcomes.

Increased attention has been paid to the way Higher Education institutions contribute to the development of graduates’ employability. Such issue is particularly relevant in the light of the current uncertainty experienced in the labour market, particularly among younger people, that was recently exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. Building on the career resources framework, which integrates a set of resources that are expected to predict career success, including human capital resources, social capital, psychological resources and career identity resources, this study aims to explore the development of student’s career resources over their graduation courses and students’ perceptions about the contribution of their higher education degree for career success. For this purpose, a mixed-method explanatory sequential design was conducted. The career resources questionnaire was applied to 339 Spanish higher education students from a public university, and then 18 interviews were conducted. The results obtained allow us to conclude that career resources are generally malleable and developed throughout higher education studies. It is also possible to identify dimensions where students present more fragilities, namely those related to the exploration of knowledge related to future professional opportunities in their surrounding environment, and to establish some relation between individual characteristics and educational experiences and the development of career resources. Thus, this research adds knowledge to the identification of specific career resources that need more attention in higher education programs. Implications from this study are discussed, taking its potential to higher education institutions in interventions, in terms of curriculum, pedagogical and/or career counselling actions.

Previous studies on the assessment methods and instruments used in higher education have revealed that the final exam has been widely used as the main source of assessment. Advances in knowledge of assessment processes have shown the need to have a greater breadth and diversity of methods and instruments that allow the collection of thorough and valid information on which to base judgments about the level of learning in students. Within the framework of the FLOASS Project, this study has been carried out in order to explore the perception that teachers have of their assessment practice. A mixed methodology has been used, through an exploratory sequential design, which has allowed to gather the perception of 416 professors from six universities belonging to different autonomous communities, who completed the RAPEVA questionnaire – Self-report of the teaching staff on their practice in the learning outcomes assessment. Among the most widely used methods, participation, problem solving tests, performance tests, digital objects or multimedia presentations and projects and rubrics or evaluative arguments are highlighted among the assessment instruments. The greatest differences were found depending on the university, the field of knowledge or the degree of security and satisfaction with the assessment system. In the case of gender or experience, differences are small or non-existent. Future lines of research that enable a better understanding of assessment practice in higher education are provided.

International reports show more positive academic and drop-out results in the neighbor Portugal than in Spain, but comparisons should be considered carefully. Data which reflect students’ own perceptions on pedagogical and psychological variables significant for learning are needed. The goal of this study was to compare two similar groups of students in Portugal and Spain in relation to their academic self-efficacy, self-regulated learning, and cooperative learning. An ex post facto research design was followed. A total of 1619 students (816 Portuguese, 795 Spanish) enrolled in 27 different schools in Spain and Portugal participated. Ages varied between 12 and 17 years. The only condition to participate was having experienced cooperative learning in the last six months. The multivariant lineal general model showed significant differences based on country, sex and age. Portuguese students scored significantly higher in interpersonal skills, group processing and positive interdependence, while Spanish students scored higher in individual accountability, academic self-efficacy and self-regulated learning prior, during and after. Women scored significantly higher in all the variables except academic self-efficacy, where there were no differences. Regarding age, as it increases the scores decrease in promotive interaction, academic self-efficacy and self-regulated learning prior, during and after. Finally, the generalized linear model showed that group processing and the three dimensions of self-regulated learning predicted academic self-efficacy. In conclusion, Portuguese students perceived that cooperative learning was more intensely promoted in their classes. The Spanish students showed stronger academic self-efficacy and self-regulated learning, which contradicts the worst results obtained in the latest PISA reports. These students could suffer the “Dunning-Kruger” effect and not be aware of the knowledge they lack.

Early school dropout is an important social issue which must be dealt with due to its negative impact on both social and personal development and owing to the high economic cost involved.  Fighting dropout is one of the European sustainable development indicators and a challenge for many schools. We present the results of the project “Students at risk”. The research has been developed in Andalusia (Spain). This community has one of the highest dropout rates (21.6% on average) compared to European data (around a 10% on average). Risk factors focusing on attitudes and behaviours and their relation with family characteristics have been analysed using quantitative methods and tools. Two scales were applied which was completed on a sample of 1426 students: the first one measures students’ perceptions about socio family characteristics; the other one focuses on the students’ perception about their own attitudes and behaviours in class. Both scales were designed following Fortin’s et al. (2006) and Lessard’s et al. (2008) research. Main results show the relevance of the family structure and values upon students’ behaviours and attitudes.  Nevertheless, family involvement is not such a strong predictor of these behaviours and mood, as we expected. Results highlight the importance of socio- family characteristics and their influence upon student’s attitudes and behaviours; furthermore, Education’s relevance in family contexts is perceived as a strong factor contributing to engagement and success.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education was forced to review its assessment processes. Competency achievement and academic honesty should be ensured in online assessments. In the Master of Educational Technology and Digital Competences of a Spanish University, the open-book examination model was implemented to respond to the new situation considering the characteristics of authentic assessment (adapted to students, intellectually challenging, related to practice, coherent with the didactic methodology, makes plagiarism difficult).  We wanted to analyze the relevance of this change in evaluation. The main objective is to analyze the differences between traditional face-to-face exams from before the pandemic and open-book exams with and without proctoring according to the perception of teachers and students. The research is of an empirical nature and quantitative approach and is based on the responses of 66 teachers and 301 students to a questionnaire with sufficient validity (chi-2/Gl: 2.453, RMSEA: .069, CFI: .99 and TLI: .99), and an Omega reliability coefficient of .882. Comparisons were made between model A: traditional face-to-face examination, model B: open-book examination with proctoring, model C: open book examination without proctoring. The results show that for teachers and students open-book exams with or without proctoring had no significant differences and are more in line with an authentic assessment than face-to-face exams. It is concluded that open-book exams with or without proctoring are suitable for authentic online assessment in higher education. It is recommended to contrast the results in other online university courses and to encourage authentic assessment in higher education institutions.

This article analyses the ways in which traditional media (press, radio, and television) portray the educational use of smartphones in secondary education. The aim of this study is to find out how the traditional media reflect the educational use of mobile phones in secondary education. For the analysis, the media outlets leaders in the audience ratings in Spain where reviewed, as well as the ones that are leaders in the four autonomous regions that are included in the project (C. Madrid, C. Valenciana, Catalonia, and Castilla-La Mancha). A qualitative study of nearly 300 press, radio, and television news items from the last 10 years was carried out, utilizing an emergent labelling process aided by triangulation, which facilitated its refinement and the emergence of categories. The qualitative analysis was complemented by counting and graphing the quantitative data. The results obtained show a large number of news items that use the abuse of mobile phone usage by young people as a pretext to argue the need to forbid or regulate their educational use. Also, important voices are underrepresented in the discourse, such as those from families, young people, and experts in educational technology. Among the conclusions obtained, it is palpable that traditional media generate a state of opinion in which the use of these devices for educational purposes cannot be separated from their general use in daily life. The dissemination of good practices is thus overshadowed by the number of negative traits associated to mobile phone use, resulting in a discouraging narrative that prevents the spread of educational experiences with mobile phones in schools.

This article describes the Didascalia Virtual-Classroom system, an immersive virtual reality environment (IVRE) that allows teachers to experience and reflect on conflict management in the secondary school classroom. In the context of a master's degree at a Spanish university, 162 preservice teachers (67.3% female, age average = 27.3) participated in a Responsible Research and Innovation experience to assess IVRE usefulness in fostering learning about conflict management in preservice teacher education, while reflecting about their perceived self-efficacy on this teaching competence. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews and focus groups and subsequently analysed using statistical tests and content analysis. Our results confirm that preservice teachers perceive limitations in their self-efficacy for classroom management. On the other hand, the thematic analysis of the focus groups allowed us to identify opportunities and advantages offered by this tool to foster the learning of conflict management competence. Overall, participants perceived that the Didascalia-VC environment could be very useful in initial training and highlighted the immersive power and realistic content as the main advantageous features. In addition, all participants recognized that the experiences provided by this IVRE can foster reflective and critical learning about effective classroom management. At the end of the article, some ideas for further research and improvement of the development of this tool are suggested, as well as its pedagogic potentials for use in the master's degree for secondary school teachers currently being carried out in Spanish universities.

The implementation of the 2001 Organic Law on Universities and its subsequent reform in 2007 led to a transformation in the employment model for teaching staff at Spanish public universities. Among the main changes were the introduction of temporary positions for access to the teaching career (Teaching Assistants and Assistant Professors), the creation of the position of Associate Professor as a non-civil servant stabilisation route, the creation of new precarious positions such as interim substitute teachers and the creation of a national accreditation system to apply for positions. Two decades after its implementation, the aim of this paper is to analyse the consequences that the last major university reform has had on the employment model for teaching staff in Spanish public universities. To this end, a two-step analysis is hereby proposed by the authors. First, to put the recent changes into context, we reviewed the legislation that has articulated the different employment models for teaching staff up to the present day. Second, using the University Personnel Statistics (EPU), we analyse the process of implementation of the current system in the period 2004-2020. The results show how precariousness, far from being a new phenomenon, has been a constant in Spanish universities. However, the latest reform has led to an advance in the processes of de-functionalisation and more precarious contractual figures, although this process varies substantially between the different universities in the country.

COVID-19 pandemic led Spanish population to a mandatory lockdown between March and May 2020. This meant closing schools and moving the rest of the 2019-2020 academic year to an online format. This work analyzes how the educational process developed during lockdown and estimates the impact that the interaction between online education and parents’ teleworking situation had on students' critical thinking skills. To do this, we collected data at the beginning and at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year on critical thinking from students at the third year of secondary education from 15 educational institutions in the Region of Madrid. Firstly, we concluded that public schools faced more difficulties than private government-dependent schools for continuing with the teaching-learning process. In order to follow online classes, 70% of the students in private government-dependent schools had a desktop or laptop compared to 40% of the students in public schools. Moreover, meanwhile 73% of the students in private publicly funded schools devoted more than 4 hours to classes and online tasks, this figure slightly exceeded 50% for students in public schools. Secondly, in general, the different work situations of parents did not have significant effects on students' critical thinking. However, we did find that, for students with academic results below the average at the beginning of the school year, the fact that the mother teleworked during school closing had a positive and significant impact on their academic results. This suggests that teleworking allowed mothers to provide greater support and supervision to their children.