Spanish-speaking University Students Research Articles

Diachronic research on the time of internet use for academic tasks by Spanish-speaking university students in the pre-COVID era

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the digitalization of education to be accelerated to continue the teaching–learning processes in confined populations. The irruption of this fact caused the evolution that had previously been occurring in the integration of digital technologies, and in general information and communication technologies (ICT), in education to be distorted, as their use multiplied exponentially in a few months. However, it is interesting to know how integrating these media and tools in the educational world evolved without having mediated an anomalous event such as the pandemic. This article studies the time university students in Spanish-speaking countries spent using the Internet for educational tasks in the pre-COVID era to determine whether this use was homogeneous in this common geographical and cultural space. Knowledge of these behaviors is valuable for analyzing their relationship with the then-current processes of ICT integration in higher education. It can serve as a basis for comparative studies of these trends and what happened during and after the pandemic. Among them is determining whether specific ICT integration strategies were not pedagogically adequate due to the situation’s urgency. The analysis of this study was descriptive and inferential statistics, based on the survey method with the application of data mining using software R. It was carried out over seven years (2012–2018) and applied to a sample of 2482 students from seven countries. The findings obtained have allowed us to determine that the use of the Internet by Spanish-speaking university students, in general, increased significantly over time in the pre-COVID era, in parallel to a more significant presence in educational processes, with conditioning factors in each country depending on its economy and political and social situation.

The Silhouettes Fatigue Scale: further validation in Spanish-speaking university students and adults with chronic pain

Purpose The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Silhouettes Fatigue Scale (SFS) when used to assess fatigue in undergraduates and middle-aged adults with chronic pain. Materials and methods A total of 426 undergraduates and 207 middle-aged individuals with chronic pain participated in this study. Participants were asked to respond to a survey including the SFS as well as another validated measure of fatigue, questionnaires about pain catastrophizing and pain interference, and questions about pain (i.e., location, duration, and intensity). Convergent, discriminant, criterion and known-groups validity were evaluated. Results Convergent validity was supported by a strong association between the two scales measuring fatigue. Discriminant validity was supported by stronger associations between the two fatigue scales scores compared to those between the SFS and pain catastrophizing scores. Criterion validity was supported by moderate associations between the SFS and measures of pain intensity and pain interference. Finally, known-groups validity was supported by significant differences in the SFS scores between students without chronic pain, students with chronic pain, and middle-aged individuals with chronic pain. Conclusions The findings support the validity of the SFS scores when used to assess fatigue in undergraduates and middle-aged adults with chronic pain.

Psychometric evidence of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II): an item response theory analysis in university students from Chile

BackgroundExperiential avoidance (EA) is a psychological mechanism associated with several mental health disorders and is regarded as a relevant target by third-generation cognitive behavioral therapies. It has been mainly assessed through self-report questionnaires, and the AAQ-II is the most used tool. Its psychometric evidence has been mostly tested through the classical test theory (CTT) and very scarcely assessed through Item Response Theory (IRT).MethodsWe used the Graded Response Model to examine its psychometric properties in Spanish-speaking university students (n = 1503; women = 995 (66.2%), mean age = 19.29, SD = 2.45). We tested whether the empirical data fit the model’s predictions and estimated the dispersion of persons and items along the experiential avoidance continuum. Moreover, we examined category probability curves to identify the response probability of each answer. Likewise, an item-person map was made where the measurement of persons and items, both on the same scale and along the experiential avoidance continuum, could be observed jointly. Finally, we tested the gender invariance of the scale.ResultsWe found that the values of the individuals and the items were in the established range to be considered an adequate measure of EA. Additionally, we observed high discrimination indices for all items. The current version with seven answer options could not be optimal and should be tested in future studies. Finally, we found evidence of differential functioning by gender in one of the seven items of the instrument.ConclusionsOur results indicate that the AAQ-II is a suitable tool for measuring EA and accurately classifying and differentiating EA levels in university students.

Normative data and standardization of an international protocol for the evaluation of metacognition in Spanish-speaking university students: A cross-cultural analysis

Normative data and standardization of an international protocol for the evaluation of metacognition in Spanish-speaking university students: A cross-cultural analysis

Development of a Scale to Measure Healthy Behaviors in Spanish-Speaking University Students.

Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are a public health problem that affect the quality of life and well-being of people, especially the youth, who have been identified as a high-risk population. Physical inactivity is a key risk factor for NCDs, and an unhealthy diet is a significant driver of NCDs. On the other hand, physical exercise and healthy habits are effective methods of prevention. Although there are scales that measure different behaviors related to NCDs, most of them have been developed in another language (e.g., English) or only focus on one aspect of NCDs. The present study aimed to develop a scale to assess healthy behaviors (i.e., healthy eating and physical exercise) in Spanish-speaking university students, using an instrumental design, with a sample of 369 Chilean university students between 18 and 25 years of age. The results presented show evidence of validity through an exploratory structural equation model (ESEM), reliability estimation through McDonald's omega and Cronbach's alpha, evidence of invariance by sex, and evidence of validity in relation to other variables with an SEM model. It is concluded that the Healthy Behavior Scale, consisting of nine items to measure healthy eating and physical exercise, is a brief instrument with evidence of reliability and validity (CFI = 0.998; TLI = 0.995; and RMSEA = 0.063) for application in a Spanish-speaking university population, offering potential applications in research instruments, screening studies, and the development of new studies for other contexts.

Enneagram typologies and healthy personality to psychosocial stress: A network approach.

Enneagram typologies may impact psychological well-being and stressful situations in college students. However, the literature is still limited in the study of dynamic personality models such as the Enneagram in Spanish-speaking university students, and a better understanding is needed. To analyze network associations and centrality measures of Enneagram personality typologies in Peruvian university students. A total of 859 Peruvian university students responded to two instruments assessing: The Pangrazzi's Enneagram personality types and healthy personality to psychosocial stress. All instruments showed good psychometric values (validity and consistency). A regularized cross-sectional network structure was estimated with Gaussian graphical model and the graphical LASSO. Enneagram types 4, 5, and 6 presented the highest and positive associations in the network structure. Type 6 emerged as the node with the highest predictability. The healthy personality and type 7 acted as bridges between the communities, with types 6, 7, and 8 being the most central nodes. The findings suggest that Enneagram type 7 with healthy personality to psychosocial stress plays an important role in the development of the causal activation of the network model. The network shows causal associations between psychosocial stress and types 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Impact of service-learning interventions on civic values in the COVID-19 era

The COVID-19 outbreak has brought about challenges to all fields, civic values included. The service-learning (SL) disciplines can offer a useful tool in this scenario, where human rights are most vulnerable. Given the need to face current challenges in university education, this study aimed to propose a pre–post analysis of an SL intervention for the Spanish University population during the COVID-19 outbreak. Ninety-two Spanish undergraduate psychology students participated in the study. The Values and Civic Attitudes (VAL-U) scale was employed for the pre–post assessment. The analyses were developed through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 22 and Amos 18.0 modules. The results have shown an effect on civic values after an intervention. Therefore, the VAL-U scale might be considered a valuable tool for assessing resilience in Spanish-speaking university students’ SL in the post-COVID-19 era. Keywords: Attitude, civic, COVID-19, pre–post, service-learning, values;

VAL-U: Psychometric properties of a Values and Civic Attitudes Scale for University Students\u2019 Service-Learning

The service-learning disciplines can offer a unique opportunity for civic development in university students, as there is a large body of research that links it to values and civic attitudes including a vast number of ecological issues and citizen variables. Moreover, one should bear in mind that these students are future generations that will face many pressing social and environmental issues. Given the need to develop instruments to measure the impact of a service-learning methodology in university students’ values as well as civic attitudes, VAL-U is proposed. As the university can be considered a learning step prior to the professional field, the main objective of this study was to analyse the internal consistency and factor structure of the proposed VAL-U scale in the Spanish population. The scale confirmed acceptable psychometric properties. Furthermore, the results have shown high reliability and optimal goodness of fit. Promising results are offered to employ VAL-U as a valuable tool for assessing Values and Civic Attitudes Scale for Spanish-speaking University Students’ Service-Learning.

From Applied Research to Participatory Action, Part II: Y Ahora, ¿que? Community Dialogues and Rediscovering Our Communities

Abstract In this article, we relay our collaboration as part of a community-based, participatory action project involving Spanish-speaking community leaders, an anthropologist, and university students in San José, California. Building from earlier collaborations to support community-based leadership, we employed focus group methods in a collaborative project to facilitate community dialogues to identify salient issues for community and leader attention. By recognizing community members as agents (rather than targets) of change and interventions, we wanted to respect and reinforce local adaptive and creative capacities. We therefore endeavored to support participants as they activated their social networks and organizational ties to initiate dialogues and build actionable agendas.

Mindfulness and Empathy: Mediating Factors and Gender Differences in a Spanish Sample.

Numerous research studies link mindfulness training to improved empathy. However, few studies focus on the mediating factors of empathy. This work has three objectives: (a) to analyze the possible mediation of mindfulness as a feature in this relation, (b) to analyze the mindfulness factors that mediate in the increase of empathy and (c) to analyze the moderating role of gender. The sample was composed of 246 Spanish-speaking university students (M = 24.08 years, SD = 8.43). The instruments used were the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) and the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ). For data analysis, the indirect effect was calculated using 10000 bootstrap samples for the bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals (BCI). The improvement of empathy is mediated by the changes in mindfulness trait (B = 0.233, p < 0.001), disappearing in the presence of this mediator, the direct effect of mindfulness practice on empathy (B = 0.161, p = 0.394). We did not find a differential functioning of this mediation according to gender. Observing and describing are the FFMQ factors that mediate significantly between mindfulness practice and empathy.

Efficacy of a self-applied online program to promote resilience and coping skills in university students in four Spanish-speaking countries: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundThere is evidence of a high prevalence of depression and anxiety in university students. Therefore, college time is a key period where prevention of mental disorders through interventions that promote resilience and mental health can be relevant. Currently, there are interventions available, but these are insufficient for those who need them. Online interventions are tools that can facilitate global accessibility and are easy for young people to use. CORE (Cultivating Our Resilience) is a self-administered online program, based on Ryff’s psychological well-being model, to promote resilience and coping skills in university students at risk of developing symptoms of depression or anxiety. The objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention protocol in comparison with an active control condition targeting healthy lifestyle, and a waiting list control condition. The study will be conducted in four populations of Spanish-speaking university students (Spain, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico).MethodsThe study design is a randomized controlled trial (RCT). At least 324 university students will be randomly assigned to three conditions: 1) CORE, a 6-week training program to improve resilience; 2) HLP, a 6-week training to promote a healthy lifestyle; and 3) WL, waiting list control condition. The primary outcome measure will be the Connor-Davidson resilience scale. Additionally, measures of anxiety, depression, quality of life and socio-demographic variables (age, sex, incomes, marital status, among others) will be collected. Participants will be evaluated at pre-treatment, after each module, 6 weeks after allocation, and at 3-month follow-up. Intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses will be performed.DiscussionThe results of this study will contribute to research on Internet-administered interventions and the implementation of a protocol that includes a series of components designed to improve resilience and coping skills, increase psychological well-being, and prevent depression and anxiety disorders in Spanish-speaking university students. In addition, avenues will be opened up for new research on the effectiveness of these interventions focused on the prevention and promotion of mental health in Spanish-speaking countries.Trial registrationRegistered at ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03903978 on April 2, 2019.

A new index of semantic short-term memory: Development and validation of the conceptual span task in Spanish.

Mounting evidence from both cognitive and neuropsychological research points to the importance of conceptual and lexical-semantic contributors to short-term memory performance. Nonetheless, a standardized and well-controlled measure to assess semantic short-term memory was only recently developed for English-speakers, and no parallel measure exists for Spanish-speakers. In the conceptual replication and extension reported here, we develop and validate a Spanish adaptation of the Conceptual Span task as a tool to measure the semantic component of short-term memory. Two versions of the task were validated, the Clustered and the Non-Clustered Conceptual Span task, both in separate samples of 64 and 105 Spanish-speaking university students. We found that both versions of the Conceptual Span task correlate well with another widely used standardized measure of working memory capacity, the Reading Span task. The two versions also correlated, as expected, with discrimination of linguistic congruency as assessed by a semantic anomaly judgment task. Clustered Conceptual Span remained a significant predictor of Reading Span when controlling for several additional cognitive variables, including fluid reasoning, text comprehension, verbal fluency, ideational fluency, and speed of processing. Our results present evidence that the Spanish adaptation of both versions of the Conceptual Span task can yield reliable estimates of the active maintenance of semantic representations in verbal working memory–an under-investigated ability that is involved in diverse domains such as episodic memory retrieval, language processing, and comprehension. Thus, the Conceptual Span task validated here can be employed to predict individual variation in semantic short-term memory capacity in a broad range of research domains.

Self-perceived employability in Spain

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to validate the self-perceived employability (SPE) scale (Rothwell et al., 2008) and explore its relationship with sociodemographic variables in Spain. The SPE is an employability scale designed to examine undergraduates’ expectations and self-perceptions of employability. The SPE includes internal and external dimensions of employability and has been satisfactorily tested in a variety of contexts.Design/methodology/approachThe sample comprised 1,502 Spanish undergraduate students from a broad range of subject areas. Confirmatory factor analyses and exploratory factor analyses were conducted. Finally, the Spanish-self-perceived employability (S-SPE) was studied in relation to a set of demographic variables.FindingsThe results revealed similar findings to those reported by Rothwell et al. (2008), namely, four factors labeled: the external labor market’s demand for people in my subject field, my confidence in my skills and abilities, the status and credibility of my field of study and my engagement with my studies and academic performance. The external and internal employability dimensions were obtained by forcing a two-factor solution. Men scored higher than women in the S-SPE; science students scored higher than arts and humanities undergraduates and students with higher perceived income levels scored higher than those with lower perceived income levels.Originality/valueThe S-SPE can be used with Spanish speaking university students (Spanish being the second most widely spoken language in the world) and allows cross-cultural comparisons of undergraduates’ SPE. The S-SPE may help guide the development of social policies and programs designed to enhance employability. It can be used with undergraduates as a diagnostic instrument in career counseling, and as a self-assessment instrument which will enable undergraduates to acquire a greater degree of self-knowledge in relation to their employability.

A Cross-Cultural Validation of the MUSIC® Model of Academic Motivation Inventory: Evidence from Chinese- and Spanish-Speaking University Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which Chinese and Spanish translations of the College Student version of the MUSIC® Model of Academic Motivation Inventory (MUSIC Inventory; Jones, 2012) demonstrate acceptable psychometric properties. We surveyed 300 students at a university in China and 201 students at a university in Colombia using versions of the MUSIC Inventory that were translated into Chinese and Spanish, respectively. To assess the psychometric properties of the inventory, we examined: (a) the internal consistency reliabilities for all of the scales, (b) the fit indices and factor loadings produced from confirmatory factor analysis, and (c) correlations between the MUSIC Inventory scales and behavioral and cognitive engagement. The results provide evidence that the Chinese and Spanish translations of the MUSIC Inventory demonstrate acceptable psychometric properties for use with undergraduate students. Therefore, instructors and researchers can use the translated inventories to assess students’ perceptions of the five MUSIC® Model of Motivation components.

Not just ‘small potatoes’: Knowledge of the idiomatic meanings of collocations

This study investigated learner knowledge of the figurative meanings of 30 collocations that can be both literal and figurative. One hundred and seven Chilean Spanish-speaking university students of English were asked to complete a meaning-recall collocation test in which the target items were embedded in non-defining sentences. Results showed limited collocation knowledge, with a mean score of 33% correct. The study also examined the effects of frequency, semantic transparency, year at university, and everyday engagement with the second language (L2) outside the classroom on this collocation knowledge. Mixed-effects modelling indicated that there was no relationship between frequency and semantic transparency and the knowledge of the figurative meanings. However, a positive relationship was found between this knowledge and year at university, time spent in an English-speaking country, and time spent reading.

Integration of a framework with a learning management system for detection, assessment and assistance of university students with reading difficulties

Rev.esc.adm.negLa dislexia es una dificultad de aprendizaje común en estudiantes universitarios de habla hispana, que requiere de una atención especial por parte de las instituciones de educación superior para apoyar a los individuos afectados durante su proceso de aprendizaje. En estudios previos, fueron desarrolladas herramientas para detectar, evaluar y asistir estudiantes universitarios con dificultades lectoras relacionadas con la dislexia. En este artículo se presenta la integración de estas herramientas con un sistema de gestión de aprendizaje (LMS por su sigla en inglés). Con el fin de probar la funcionalidad y usabilidad de la integración, se desarrollaron dos estudios de casos. El primer estudio se llevó a cabo con 20 estudiantes, mientras el segundo se hizo con 4 profesores. Los resultados mostraron que tanto estudiantes como profesores estuvieron satisfechos con la integración realizada en Moodle

BEDA: A Computerized Assessment Battery for Dyslexia in Adults

Abstract Dyslexia is a very common learning disability in Spanish-speaking university students and requires special attention by experts and teachers to intervene with and assist affected students during their learning process. However, appropriate tools that assess cognitive processes associated with dyslexia in adults do not exist in Spanish. In this context, a novel battery (BEDA) was built making use of web-based technology and based on multimodal communication to deliver assessment tasks using visual, auditory, and speech communication channels. BEDA has eight modules: six for assessing each cognitive process, one for analyzing results, and one for administration purposes. BEDA was tested by teachers and students at the University of Girona. The findings indicated that the teachers had a limited awareness of dyslexic students. However, they showed interest in using BEDA. The students were able to complete the battery in 40-50 minutes and their satisfaction was quite high in terms of usability.

CLIL bilingual Research Results at Spanish University Level Including Academic Content Work

This original empirical study looked into the results of one type of cross-disciplinary education begun in recent years in Spain. The latter country has a policy of bilingual or CLIL Content and Language Integrated Learning throughout its secondary schools (for example, Plan for Encouragement of Plural-lingualism: A linguistic policy for Andalusia: Andalusia Education Council, 2005). However, little research has been carried out on the efficacy of this system at secondary school, and much less on a follow up of these students at university level. The present study goes a long way into rectifying this as this research describes part of the results at university level found by a national r+d project (research and development) devised by, and awarded to, its current director the present author. The research project took data on the tracking and evaluation of students coming into higher education from bilingual secondary schools at the University of Granada. The participants in the initial phase of this research project were 31 Spanish-speaking university students of elective bilinguals. Within a pre-experimental design, over one academic year they completed one background questionnaire and four psychometric tests. Results are reported with Pearson correlations, and where necessary Kendall’s Tau Non-Parametric analysis for extra high confidence in the investigation. These revealed the areas where the participants’ independent subject variables were important. Coyle, Hood and Marsh (2010) came to the conclusion that research into bilingual CLIL Content and Language Integrated Learning, should also take data on the results of the academic content work as well as on linguistic outcomes in CLIL settings. Thus, I have collected information on both types in my empirical study reported in the second half of this article.

Analyzing the effect of context of second language learning: Domestic intensive and semi-intensive courses vs. study abroad in Europe

This study examines the second language (L2) written and oral performance of three groups of Spanish-speaking university students after being exposed to English in different contexts. One group of learners was spending some time abroad (Erasmus students in the UK), and two groups were following classroom instruction in two different types of intensive courses in Spain: “intensive” and “semi-intensive”. The learners’ L2 written and oral production were analyzed at different time points through different measures of fluency, syntactic and lexical complexity, and accuracy. The main objective of this study was to compare the performance of the students abroad with each of the two intensive programmes. According to the results of the statistical analyses, after an equivalent period of exposure to the L2 in the two contexts, the students abroad outperformed the learners in the “at home semi-intensive” programme in the post-test in some of the variables under study, namely fluency and lexical complexity. Nevertheless, the students’ written and oral performance after an intensive course at home and after the equivalent time abroad was similar.

Multiple-goal pursuit and its relation to cognitive, self-regulatory, and motivational strategies.

The topic of academic goals has provided very important information about students' motivation. Traditional research has described several mutually exclusive goals that elicit different motivational patterns. Nevertheless, goal-orientation research has reported the possibility that more than one goal may operate simultaneously. The purpose of this study was to characterise multiple-goal groups of students, who use various types of cognitive, self-regulatory, and motivational strategies. Participants were 595 Spanish-speaking university students at the University of A Coruña. In order to examine the relationships between goal orientations and strategies, a Pearson correlational analysis was performed. Then, a cluster analysis was performed to identify potential subgroups of students with more than one simultaneously operative goal. Finally, a one-way test was conducted to determine whether the multiple-goal clusters differed in any of the nine strategies. Only those students who reported high task orientation tended to exhibit more frequent use of cognitive and self-regulatory strategies. Nevertheless, this does not mean that learning processes are only optimised by task orientation. When multiple-goal adoption was considered, students who developed the most positive self-regulation were characterised by their focus on learning, but also by their desire to avoid being judged negatively by others. Students should not adopt only task goals, which are sometimes overvalued, but also other kinds of goals that allow them to manage their learning and make it more flexible in each situation. This aspect characterises self-regulated learning, which is defined not only by cognitive and behavioural regulation but also by motivational regulation.