Chilean School Research Articles

Scientific Skills Present in Chilean School Textbooks from First to Fourth Grade in Natural Sciences

Objective: This research focused on identifying and classifying the scientific skills present in Chilean school textbooks of Natural Sciences from the first to the fourth year of Basic Education. Theoretical Framework: We sought to determine their presence, frequency, cognitive level and types of skills, comparing them with curricular documents and UNESCO declarations on the subject. Method: The study, descriptive in nature, employed the integrative method, using document analysis to compile quotations, patterns of behavior and categories. For quantitative aspects, descriptive statistics were used, analyzing by course and thematic units. Results and Discussion: It was found that the most promoted skills were observation and explanation, fundamental for scientific learning. Scientific skills were identified at all educational levels, varying in frequency. Third and fourth year showed a greater frequency and variety of higher cognitive level skills, although some, such as creating, evaluating, reflecting and imagining, did not have the expected frequency. The lower cognitive skills did not show significant differences between educational levels. The scientific skills present in the school texts coincide in general with those declared in the Curricular Bases and by UNESCO, both in type and educational level. Implications of the investigation: the investigation implies that the scientific skills that declare the Curriculum Bases and scientific literature are promoted, mostly, in school texts on Natural Sciences for basic education, verifying correspondence between the documents. Originality/Value: the study contributes to literature by contributing new knowledge to the state of affairs of the knowledge of Natural Sciences in basic education, as well as highlighting the need to promote more creativity and imagination in school texts. At the same time, the results will be an input for teachers to pay more attention to higher-level scientific processes.

Using teach ECE to observe the quality of online teaching during the pandemic: an exploratory study in a pre-school in Chile

ABSTRACT During COVID-19, many schools worldwide were closed. In this unprecedented context, some students accessed distance or remote education. Assessing the quality of in-person early childhood education has a long-dated challenge and doing the same within a preschool online setting is unprecedented. This study aimed to utilize the Teach ECE observation instrument developed by the World Bank in 2021 to explore the quality of synchronous online lessons across 8 preschool classrooms in a private school in Chile. The tool is designed to observe 28 quality teaching behaviors organized into four areas. The dataset encompassed 640 min of video recordings capturing synchronous online classes over a 5-month period. Findings revealed that 7 out of the 8 preschool teachers exhibited low or medium-low quality practices across all three areas examined in this study. Average scores per area indicate that Classroom Culture obtained the highest score, followed by guided learning, and finally by socio-emotional Skills.

Hacia una convivencia democrática: El desafío de repensar ciudadanamente la formación y gestión de dos escuelas chilenas

Purpose. This article analyzes and discusses the scope, in terms of citizenship learning, that stems from the definitions of ‘management’ provided by two public schools in Chile. Method. The research employed a quantitative methodology with a descriptive scope. The sampling was intentional, involving 73 students, 28 teachers, and 6 assistants. Data were collected through a survey and documentary analysis and were analyzed using SPSS software. Results. Schools primarily based their decisions on a bureaucratic and total quality management approach. Meanwhile, they declared a maximalist conception of citizenship education, but its pedagogical implementation was reduced to fragmented actions with limited participation and an emphasis on results. Conclusions. It is proposed to rethink and transform management processes at both micro and macro levels to facilitate the formation and experience of democratic citizenship in schools. Since these processes mutually influence each other, it is recommended to design proposals with the educational community rather than distancing from it.

EdTech companies and contemporary digital educational governance. Analyzing the expansion and role of the EdTech sector in the Chilean educational system

This article analyses the network of actors involved in the contemporary digitalization of the Chilean school system and the role of private EdTech corporations in this ecosystem. Using a framework based on new modes of education governance and contributions from the cultural political economy, three sources were triangulated: i) 22 semi structured interviews with key actors and policymakers, ii) a database of startups in the EdTech sector in Chile and iii) a systematization of the main digital education policies implemented in the country. The findings reveal a poorly coordinated network of actors, which has allowed the inorganic and heterogeneous growth of EdTech corporations, whose role encompasses not only the production of technology but also its articulation and management. To this form, EdTech companies play a central role not only as producers of technology, but also as articulators and administrators, illustrating a displacement of the State from some of its historic functions.

Collaboration and support between Chilean schools from an egonet mixed-method approach

Collaboration and support between Chilean schools from an egonet mixed-method approach

Adolescents in transition: experiences and appraisals of immigrant students in school education

ABSTRACT Compulsory secondary education is constituted as a stage of high risk or academic vulnerability for the immigrant population. This multiple case study examines difficulties and opportunities faced by seventeen immigrant schoolchildren in compulsory schooling education cycles as elucidated by the evaluative resources they employ as they construct a narrative discourse shaped by academic-professional transitions and expectations. Specifically, we focus on the semantic-discursive component of attitude, analysing its three levels of appraisal: affect, judgement, and appreciation. We conducted in-depth interviews with immigrants attending public high school in Chile and a collective participatory methodology, both of a biographical-narrative nature. The findings highlight the influence of various influential factors on student trajectories: the characteristics of the host country, the challenges posed by the pandemic, family support, racism, the role of teachers, and academic-professional aspirations. Regarding the obstacles, racist bullying is identified between the end of primary school and the beginning of secondary school, which coincides with the results of the literature reviewed. Regarding opportunities, the influential adult figure represented by parents and teachers is positioned as a decisive protective support in the development and progress of educational transitions. Similarly, the configuration of high academic-professional expectations functions as a predictor of educational success.

Emotional Regulation Challenges in Chilean Teachers: An Analysis of the Measurement Invariance of the DERS-E and the Influence of Gender and Age.

The study investigates the emotional dysregulation in teachers of the Chilean school system, focusing on gender and age similarities and differences. The sample included 1059 teachers from various regions of Chile, of whom 80.3% were female and 19.7% were male. Participants completed the Spanish version of the Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale (DERS-E). A confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to evaluate the structure of the theoretical model, along with the convergent, discriminant, and internal consistency of the instrument. Additionally, a measurement invariance analysis was performed to identify possible differences between demographic groups, which is crucial to ensure that comparisons between these groups are valid and unbiased. The results indicated that the theoretical model presents a good fit to the data and confirms the validity and reliability of the DERS-E. Scalar invariance was achieved among the analyzed groups. We found significant differences in emotional dysregulation between men and women, which also varied by teacher age. The importance of understanding the specific needs of teachers in terms of their emotional regulation is discussed and the urgency of implementing training programs that improve their emotional skills, fostering a positive and effective learning environment, is highlighted.

Psychometric Properties of the School Support Scale (SSS) for a Sample of Chilean Adolescents

This study assesses the psychometric properties of the School Support Scale (SSS), part of the CHKS’s Resilience Youth Development Module (RYDM; Furlong et al., 2009 ), among 231 sixth- and seventh-grade students in urban public schools in Chile. Results indicated satisfactory psychometric properties, replicating a unifactorial structure observed in prior research ( Hanson & Kim, 2007 ), where items related to caring relationships and high expectations loaded onto a single factor, school support. Significant correlations were found with measures of life satisfaction and school-related affect. These findings underscore the scale’s utility in evaluating student perceptions of school support and highlight avenues for future research to enhance its applicability across diverse educational contexts.

Difficulties among Teachers' Emotional Regulation: Analysis for the Development of Student Well-Being in Chilean Schools.

Emotional regulation, a process that involves detecting and evaluating physiological signals in response to stressful events, is a crucial aspect of preparing students for school and ensuring teachers' effectiveness, stress management, and job satisfaction. This research, which adopted a quantitative approach, used a non-experimental comparative and cross-sectional design with a non-probabilistic sample by convenience. The study involved the participation of n = 1321 teachers (n = 125 preschool education; n = 645 primary education; n = 417 secondary education; n = 134 higher education). The results revealed significant differences in the total scores of emotional regulation difficulty between teachers at the higher education level and primary and secondary school teachers, with the latter group showing higher levels of difficulty. The findings suggest that the impact of emotional regulation difficulties affects professional performance, highlighting the importance of interventions aimed at improving teachers' self-efficacy, resilience, and emotion regulation to reduce emotional exhaustion. From a practical point of view, our findings underline the importance of integrating emotional regulation training into pre-service teacher education and continuous teacher professional development programs. This could improve relational dynamics between students and teachers, fostering an environment conducive to teaching and learning processes.

Online environments, social networks and pornography: the role of teachers and managers in the provision of sex and sexuality education in Chilean schools

ABSTRACT Over the last decade, various provisions have been enshrined in law to encourage the implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Comprehensive sexuality Education in Chilean schools. However, it is unknown whether appropriate steps have been taken to advance the right to sex and sexuality education, incorporating the use of ICTs as part of existing plans. The objective of this study was to identify the role that schools and schooling might play in relation to online environments, social networks and pornography as they affect children and adolescents’ sex and sexuality education in Chile. The research took the form of a qualitative study in which 30 education professionals were interviewed to identify needs, challenges and opportunities for incorporating the use of social networks and pornography in sex and sexuality education plans. We found that teachers and school managers rarely intervene in students’ sexualised digital media consumption. While being aware of and concerned about the effects it might have, they broadly delegate responsibility to families. There is a need to create educational communities with a greater knowledge of how to spearhead innovative and participatory internal policies and practices to ensure students’ access to good quality sex and sexuality education in online environments.

Relationships between Resilience and Self-Efficacy in the Prosocial Behavior of Chilean Elementary School Teachers.

Teachers' actions go beyond instruction, as their personal traits influence their teaching methods, problem-solving skills, and the quality of their relationships with students. Among these attributes, their prosocial competencies stand out for contributing to school, community, and social coexistence. Furthermore, the connection they have to resilience and self-efficacy promotes increased effectiveness in meeting the demands of an ever-more challenging work environment. This research aimed to analyze the effect of the relationship between self-efficacy and resilience on the prosocial behavior of Chilean elementary school teachers. The sample consisted of 1426 teachers (77.2% women) working in public and subsidized Chilean schools. Structural equation modeling (SEM) explored the relationships between self-efficacy, resilience, and prosocial behavior. The findings indicate that self-efficacy and resilience directly and positively affect the prosocial behavior of elementary school teachers. It is suggested that resilience, self-efficacy, and prosociality among teachers are promoted due to their synergistic effects and, consequently, the benefits for school children, especially those from vulnerable social contexts.

Exploring Organizational Justice in Chilean School Districts: A Multiple Case Study

Exploring Organizational Justice in Chilean School Districts: A Multiple Case Study

Willingness to mitigate climate change: the role of knowledge, trust, and engagement

The recent IPCC report (IPCC, 2023) highlighted the need to increase the perception of risk and prompt climate action through education. The question is what contribution science and environmental education can make—if any—to this challenge. Psychological research has suggested that knowledge (topical and epistemological) and beliefs about self-efficacy are relevant starting points, but the evidence is scarce and inconsistent. We conducted a transversal correlational study to test the direct and indirect effects of system knowledge of climate change, personal engagement with science, and trust in climate science on the willingness to mitigate the effects of climate change. The participants were 386 students attending high schools in Chile. The results reveal that there is no direct effect of climate change system knowledge on the willingness to act. We did find indirect effects of system knowledge on the willingness to act, mediated by personal engagement with science and trust in climate science knowledge. The results also demonstrate a direct effect of personal engagement with science, and an indirect effect mediated by trust in science. The implications for science education are discussed.

Associations between contextual factors and school engagement: a longitudinal study of profiles

School engagement, encompassing affective, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions, is key to promoting school retention and preventing absenteeism. Previous research has shown that maintaining high engagement is crucial for a positive educational trajectory. This study investigates the individual contributions of contextual factors, including family, teacher, and peer support, on students who initially had a lower level of school engagement in one dimension and then advanced to a higher level in the same dimension over time. The study involved students enrolled in their first year of secondary education in public schools in Chile during 2021, with the same students being evaluated again the following year. We used means cluster analysis to identify a group of students who initially had low school engagement but showed high engagement by the second evaluation. This allowed us to identify profiles of school engagement longitudinally. Our results indicated that contextual factors had a stronger association with affective engagement, followed by cognitive and behavioral engagement, respectively. Among the contextual factors, family and teachers had a stronger impact compared to peers. These findings highlight the importance of adults, particularly family and teachers, in enhancing school engagement during secondary education.

Conceptual subordination in the oral retelling of Spanish-speaking children

Although retelling as a technique to assess narration has been widely used, the input modality seems to impact in different ways on the elicited text, generating a debate about the biases that may appear. To contribute to this discussion, the objective of this study is to describe the development of conceptual subordination and its forms of coding in the oral stories of Spanish-speaking children as well as its relationship with the source text. The stories of 28 five-year-old Chilean school children collected through a retelling task were studied. The analysis consisted of firstly assessing the production of conceptual subordination through the identification of asymmetric links between states of affairs. Then, the encoding forms that instantiated these links were classified. Finally, indices were constructed and applied to compare the children’s texts with the source text. During the comparative analysis with the input, three qualitative categories emerged: similar production, reformulation and new link. The results showed that the participants’ stories present significantly less production of conceptual subordination link than the source text. However, the children were able to create new links that were not presented in the story and reformulated others, as evidence of an interpretive process that goes beyond the mere reproduction of the input in these types of tasks. Regarding the encoding forms, the results were very similar between the source text and the children’s text without significant differences. Both in source texts and children’s texts, the prototypical forms of Spanish dominated, allowing us to conclude a possible input bias.

Emotional regulation in the classroom: detection of multiple cases from systematic observation.

Emotional education is learned by living with others. This study analyzes how different actors participate in the classroom, influencing students' emotional regulation. Using a mixed methods approach [structured in macro-stages QUAL-QUAN-QUAL], 9 classes in three Chilean schools with children aged 10 to 12 are systematically observed. The audio-recorded sessions are transcribed (qualitative data) for coding from the observation instrument, and then, once the data quality is verified, they are analyzed quantitatively (quantitizing). A lag sequential analysis is performed to detect regularities and existing sequences, and a polar coordinate analysis is performed to observe the relationships among the categories in each class. Once the results of the analyses have been obtained, similarities are sought to detect the presence of multiple cases based on the two analysis techniques. The multiple cases detected are presented, detailing how interactions between teachers and students contribute to the emotional regulation and climate in the daily life of the classroom. The interpretation of the results makes it possible to revisit the qualitative aspect of the mixed methods and to discuss the need to problematize the role of teachers in students' development and autonomy.

High-quality teachers in low-quality schools: understanding the variation in teaching quality in low-achieving Chilean schools

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of schools and provide inputs to better inform both research and public policies. To address this aim, 258 low-achieving Chilean primary schools and their 1,266 teachers were analysed. On the basis of a multilevel latent class analysis, we found four profiles of teaching practices. The proportion of teachers in the high-quality teacher category is unexpectedly high (38.37%), followed by the low-quality (25.61%), content-oriented (18.91%), and climate-oriented (17.12%) categories. Finally, several school-level variables were tested to explore the link between school practices and teaching quality categories. The results show that the quality of the school’s teaching practices related to their support for behavioural issues is associated with the probability of teachers belonging to the low-quality or climate-oriented categories. These findings can be valuable for policymaking, as they call for the development of strategies that strengthen teachers’ capacities within schools.

The Effect of Digital Reading on Edpuzzle to Improve Reading for Specific Information

This action research study focused on determining the contribution of digital reading through the Edpuzzle platform to improve reading comprehension in 21 fifth-grade students from a municipal elementary school in Chile. It was carried out over seven sessions during which reading comprehension activities in Edpuzzle were used to identify specific information. Data were collected through statistics provided by Edpuzzle, a Likert scale, and two focus groups. Although the results did not reveal significant progress in the evaluated skill, most participants expressed a positive perception of their performance during the interventions. Therefore, these findings may be relevant for those seeking to use online platforms like Edpuzzle to improve students' reading comprehension, as despite the lack of evident improvements, participants enjoyed the activities and experienced a sense of achievement.

Understanding statistical graphs of students attending multigrade rural schools in Chile

This study aims to analyze the graphical comprehension of 5<sup>th</sup> and 6<sup>th</sup> grade students in multigrade rural primary education in Chile. The theoretical framework considers levels of reading and semiotic levels in statistical graphs. A qualitative methodology of descriptive level is followed, using content analysis method for the responses given to a questionnaire by 22 students from five multigrade rural schools. The results show that, overall, students do not encounter difficulties in answering questions at level 1 reading (literal reading), but difficulties gradually increase as the reading level increases. Regarding semiotic levels, difficulties arise in constructing graphs using data distribution (semiotic level 3) and completing a graph with two data distributions (semiotic level 4).

Exploring English Language Teacher Identity Construction in Disadvantaged Chilean Schools through Textbook Usage

Exploring English Language Teacher Identity Construction in Disadvantaged Chilean Schools through Textbook Usage