Empatía,Role-taking y concepto de ser humano,como factores asociados a la conducta prosocial/altruista

Resumen

Se trata de un estudio realizado con 224 sujetos, de ambos sexos, entre 10 y 12 años, de tres ciudades distintas (Salamanca, Málaga y Donostia). En él se estudia el poder predictor de la empatía, la capacidad de ponerse en el punto de vista de los demás y el concepto de hombre sobre la conducta prosocial altruista. Los resultados demuestran un alto poder predictor de estos factores.     

Formal music education not only enhances musical skills, but also conceptions of teaching and learning: a study with woodwind students

This paper studies conceptions of woodwind students regarding learning and teaching music, within the framework of implicit theories. It analyzes whether there are differences related to participants’ instruction level, and whether it is possible to identify profiles according to their conceptions. Sixty-eight students from three different levels at 14 Spanish conservatories took part voluntarily in this study. A multiple-choice questionnaire was used, which comprised 16 dilemmas on different situations typical of learning and teaching music. Three answers were presented for each dilemma, corresponding to the three implicit theories identified in recent years: direct, interpretative, and constructive. For each dilemma, participants were requested to choose the option they most agreed with and the one they least agreed with. Data were analyzed using chi-square tests of independence, multiple correspondence analysis, and ascending hierarchical classification. From the results obtained we can state that as students’ age and level of instruction increase, so does the level of sophistication of their conceptions. Three conceptual profiles were identified: direct, direct-interpretative, and constructive, which are consistent with prior results on conceptions of teaching and learning in other domains. Implications for education are discussed.     

Transnationalism at the border: students’ experiences in border schools

To understand the development of educational research traditions, it is essential to scrutinize the internal dynamics of the theoretical and methodological developments within the community of scholars working in the area as well as the social needs that are served by such research. The adoption of qualitative approaches to the study of learning and instruction thus mirrors a complex pattern of changes in the role and use of education as a social resource in modern society. On the Scandinavian scene, the past decades have seen a rapid increase in interest in qualitative research and in philosophical positions such as hermeneutics and phenomenology that imply a qualitative approach to studying phenomena. It is argued that qualitative research is now well established, and that it is essential to further demonstrate its value to shed light on education as a social activity.     

How can students’ academic performance in statistics be improved? Testing the influence of social and temporal-self comparison feedback in a web-based training environment

The aim of this study was to examine how social or temporal-self comparison feedback, delivered in real-time in a web-based training environment, could influence the academic performance of students in a statistics examination. First-year psychology students were given the opportunity to train for a statistics examination during a semester by doing online exercises in a web-based training environment. Once connected, students received in real-time either social comparison feedback (their score was compared to the mean score of all first-year students) or temporal-self comparison feedback (their score was compared, week by week, with their own previous score). The fact that students were free to connect to the web-based training environment heightened self-regulation differences such as academic procrastination, which was considered as a moderating variable in this study. Because academic performance was measured, the students’ background in mathematics and statistics was also controlled. Irrespective of the students’ background, the results reveal a positive influence of social comparison feedback on statistics exam performance, but only among students who did not delay doing exercises in the web-based training environment. By contrast, temporal-self comparison feedback did not have any effect on performance. Some recommendations for optimizing the efficacy of web-based training environments can be proposed, taking into account both social comparison feedback and academic procrastination.