University Of Chile Research Articles

Visual styles, hidden discourses

This article reports the findings of a study aimed at exploring the visual discourses at a Chilean education university. First, building on the classic ‘hidden curriculum’ and ‘school art style’ literature, it justifies the need to discuss how higher education institutions model the ways through which teachers-to-be comprehend and use visual resources. Second, the article presents the results of a critical visual methodology performed in the oldest education university in Chile. Through a visual discourse analysis of the experience of walking around the campus, it elaborates on the university’s visual styles comprising the themes, technologies and locations of artefacts. Third, it discusses the relationships between courtyard and hallway images loaded with critical motivations and classroom images portraying stereotyped and anachronistic views of childhood. The article concludes by urging to incorporate quality visual pedagogy orientations in teacher education.

Self‐regulation and procrastination in college students: A tale of motivation, strategy, and perseverance

AbstractProcrastination is a delay in an intended course of action and, thus, a self‐regulation failure hindering growth and well‐being. Contrarily, self‐regulation is a set of cognitive and metacognitive skills and strategies supporting goal‐directed behavior. There is ongoing discussion regarding the extent to which (and the ways in which) promoting self‐regulation may counteract procrastination. On the one hand, it is argued that procrastination is linked with stable personal dispositions; on the other hand, it is said that this problematic behavior is associated with contextual influences. To deepen the understanding of these relationships, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test a theory‐driven model integrating four self‐regulation factors (goal setting, decision making, persevering, and learning from mistakes) and two measures of procrastination (irrational and academic). We hypothesized that goal setting, decision making, and perseverance would sequentially mediate between learning from mistakes and procrastination outcomes, thus, suggesting that cognitive‐motivational (learning from mistakes, goal setting), strategic (decision making), and volitional (perseverance) factors may all be necessary for successful self‐regulation, which could potentially be promoted by contextual influences. Participants of the present study were 433 Chilean university students (304 women, 129 men, M = 20.74 years, SD = 2.86) who completed measures for procrastination and self‐regulation. Findings support the important roles of goal setting and perseverance for successful self‐regulation and suggest that goal setting may mediate the effects of learning from mistakes on perseverance and decision making; whereas perseverance may mediate the effects of goal setting and decision making on procrastination variations. These results suggest that the negative effects of motivational and strategic factors of self‐regulation on procrastination may depend at least partly on the abilities to improve goals and persevere. Taking into account these critical roles in dealing with procrastination, it seems appropriate to support college students' self‐regulation skills and strategies, raising awareness about the indispensability of adequate goal setting and persistence in following through with intended courses of action.

5-Nitrofuryl-Containing Thiosemicarbazone Gold(I) Compounds: Synthesis, Stability Studies, and Anticancer Activity.

Invited for this month's cover are the collaborating groups of Esteban Rodríguez-Arce from the University of Chile and María Contel from The City University of New York Brooklyn College. The cover picture shows "Supergold" a very powerful gender neutral warrior with superpowers who fights against cancer! The warrior's golden armor and sword represent the pharmacological power of the gold atom. Engraved on the shield, the gold-thiosemicarbazone molecules are the warrior's coat of arms. Supergold selectively destroys different cancer cells. More information can be found in the Research Article by Esteban Rodríguez-Arce, María Contel, and co-workers.

Student survey after ten years of continuous blended teaching of echocardiography

ObjectiveTo analyse the impact of 10 years of blended echocardiography teaching. Methods and resultsA questionnaire was emailed to all medical doctors who graduated from the blended learning diploma in echocardiography developed by the University of Chile and taught by a team from Chile and Spain. One hundred and forty of the 210 students who graduated from the program between 2011 and 2020 completed the questionnaire: 53.57% were anaesthesiologists, and 26.42% were intensivists. More than 85% of respondents indicated that the online teaching met their expectations, and 70.2% indicated that the hands-on practice fulfilled the stated objectives. In a retrospective analysis using self-reported data, graduates reported that their use of transthoracic and transoesophageal echocardiography has increased from 24.29% to 40.71% and from 13.57% to 27.86%, repectively, after the programme compared to before the programme. They used echocardiography mainly in the perioperative period (56.7%) and during intensive care (32.3%), while only 11% of respondents used it in emergency care units. Nearly all (92.4%) respondents reported that the skills learned was very useful in their professional practice. ConclusionsTen years after its launch, the blended learning diploma in echocardiography was well rated by graduate specialists, and is associated with a significant increase in the use of echocardiography in the perioperative period and during intensive care. The main challenges are to establish a longer period of practice and achieve greater implantation in emergency medicine.

Modulation of executive functioning by social stress: a behavioural study (Modulación del funcionamiento ejecutivo por estrés social: un estudio conductual)

ABSTRACT Executive Functions (EFs) correspond to a general construct of cognitive abilities aimed at optimizing problem-solving and regulating behaviour effectively and efficiently. The current consensus model of EFs comprises three components: working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. The present study sought to evaluate differences in task performance assessing EFs when subjects are confronted with a social stress paradigm related to the ‘white coat phenomenon’. It involved 40 Chilean university students, mean age 21.8 years, who were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: in the presence of social stress (treatment) or in the absence of social stress (control). The results showed a partial impact of the white coat phenomenon, with statistically significant differences at p ≤ .05, when comparing both conditions in relation to the tasks that evaluated inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility, with both tasks presenting a higher speed of response in the experimental condition of social stress, with the accuracy of the responses being unaffected.

Barriers perceived to assume promoting health conduct in university students

There are several studies on health behaviors, whose results show a predominance of unhealthy lifestyles, despite the fact that the population manages to identify the importance of them does not present them in their daily life; The question then arises of what are the barriers to not presenting healthy behaviors. The present study aims to identify perceived barriers to assume health promoting behavior in students of a Chilean University, according to the Nola Pender Health Promotion Model. Study of quantitative approach, of descriptive design, cross-sectional correlation, with sample of 320 students, selected by sampling of random probabilistic type. The data collection instrument is made up of: Scale of benefits and barriers of Exercise, Scale of barriers of healthy eating, Scale of perception of self-efficacy, Scale of self-esteem and a sociodemographic questionnaire. The data was processed with the SPSS-22 program to obtain descriptive and inferential statistics. As results, it was obtained that despite the educational level or belonging to a certain university career, the students showed poor or lower health promoting behaviors than expected; These low health-promoting behaviors are associated with perceived barriers in the nutritional field and physical activity. In addition, self-esteem and the perception of self-efficacy turned out to be predictors of the presence of barriers in health in an inverse manner, that is, to lower self-esteem or self-efficacy, greater presence of barriers to assume health-promoting behaviors.

Understanding the connection between pre-service teachers’ emotions and identity through metaphor: a qualitative study into six candidates from a Chilean university

ABSTRACT This qualitative study, based on semi-structured interviews, analyses the emotions of six (n = 6) pre-service teachers (PSTs) enrolled in a Chilean full-year education programme through metaphors they used to describe the process by which they became professionals. Findings suggest that pre-service teachers understand emotions as burdens, tools, and sources for self-knowledge. Metaphors also indicate that teacher training might be experienced as a shifting and hostile proof that challenges their self-conceptions, impelling personal adaptation and learning. Accordingly, this study shows that candidates employ metaphors to create professional knowledge, review past experiences, and develop identities. Lastly, it is also suggested that integrating metaphor-based work during the training might help PSTs to build narrative agency and gain valuable insight into their processes.

Preservice teacher professional identity: Influence of the teacher educator and the teacher education model

The objective of this study is to estimate the association between the following variables: teacher professional identity, the teacher education model adopted, the type of teacher educator, and academic progression of teacher education students. A purposive and convenience sampling process was used to recruit 662 preservice teachers attending teacher education programs at three Chilean universities. A sociodemographic survey and teacher professional identity scale were administered to these preservice students. Data were analysed using Spearman correlation, the Kruskal-Wallis test, and multiple linear regression. Results how different types of teacher educator profiles and teacher education models positively correlate with professional identity; furthermore, levels of professional identity were found to differ in connection with students’ level (year) within their teacher education program. It was also found that the profile of teacher trainers, who are also schoolteachers, and the critical-intellectual educational model are predictors of teacher professional identity. In the discussion, these results are analysed based on the literature.

Profiles of University Students Who Graduate on Time: A Cohort Study from the Chilean Context.

Graduating from higher education on time is an important topic, given its relation to students' academic success and the efficiency of the institutions. However, a low percentage of university students finish their studies on time, which poses a challenge that requires the identification of the factors that account for this phenomenon. This study aimed to identify and characterize profiles of students who graduate on time. The population is 514 university students (45% men, 55% women), with an average age of 19.5 years (SD= 1.9) studying business at a university in Chile who belong to four cohorts entering between 2011 and 2014. The results obtained from the Classification and Regression Tree (CART) technique demonstrate eight student profiles constructed considering different variables at the pre-university, transition-motivation, and university levels. As the primary outcome, the profile of the student who graduates on time is characterized by a good performance in the first year of university, enters university right after high school, and takes advantage of institutional support by participating in academic tutoring. These findings suggest that institutions can implement specific strategies from the beginning of the university journey to promote on-time graduation.

Development of Digital Competences in Students of a Public State-Owned Chilean University Considering the Safety Area

The present study was carried out in a Chilean public university with the purpose of describing digital competences in safety area and their relationship with contextual variables in first-year students of different programs. In this research study, we processed the competences of the safety area of the COMPDIG-PED test, which is based on the European reference framework for digital skills DIGCOMP. The instrument was applied to 4360 higher education students, attending undergraduate courses in 2021 and 2022. The results indicated a relationship between the context variables analyzed through the COMPDIG-PED test and the digital safety competences. This relationship is linked to higher scores in the female gender, in students with more years of experience in the use of digital technologies, in those who came from private paid or subsidized institutions, and in those who were trained in a humanist scientific education.

Characterization of teaching practices that facilitate or limit student participation from a gender perspective. A case study for the training of physical education and mathematics teachers in a regional university in Chile

The study addresses from a gender perspective, the scope of the practices that university teachers have implemented in Initial Teacher Education. The main objective was to know the teaching practices in the university and school classroom, which facilitated and/or limited the participation of students from the experience of those who have lived them as students of Secondary Education Pedagogy in Mathematics and Physical Education Pedagogy. This is a multiple case study, with a qualitative approach. The results show the presence of various teaching practices in which both the absence of a gender approach and the persistence of an acceptance of certain gender roles and stereotypes that continue to be transmitted in university and school classrooms are evident. Although future teachers of Mathematics and Physical Education are clearly aware of the characteristics of these practices and the discrimination associated with some of them, new challenges arise from this study to promote changes in initial teacher training which will allow young people to be agents of the social transformation required in terms of gender equity in education.

P14-064-23 Association Between Mediterranean Diet and Depressive Symptoms in Chilean University Students

P14-064-23 Association Between Mediterranean Diet and Depressive Symptoms in Chilean University Students

Chilean Universities and Universal Gratuity: Suggestions for a Model to Evaluate the Effects on Financial Vulnerability

Financial vulnerability can be understood as the risk of an organisation being unable to carry out routine its normal operations due to financial restrictions. Models to estimate financial vulnerability have mainly been developed for profit-making organisations, while few exist for non-profit organisations (NPOs). One example is higher education institutions, which have experienced important changes in Latin America through gratuity policies for student tuition. This study proposes a model to estimate the effects of gratuity on financial vulnerability, as previous studies have focused on the effects of enrolment. A binary logistic regression model is proposed, considering the following variables: debt, income concentration, operating margin, administration costs, and square metres of rooms per student. We applied this model to 54 universities between 2013 and 2019. The results showed that the model is relevant for the debt, size, and operating margin variables. Additionally, we observed that on average, all universities were negatively affected. This result is particularly true for state-owned universities because of certain management restrictions. A limitation of this study is the unavailability of other sources of non-financial information, such as each university’s business model and stock of strategic resources, which could improve our model, as this information is more related to control than to management.

Initial teacher training and the incorporation of TIC. a study in a Chilean university

Initial teacher training and the incorporation of TIC. a study in a Chilean university

Living with invisible medical disabilities: experiences and challenges of Chilean university students disclosed in medical consultations

ABSTRACT Purpose The objective of this qualitative study is to explore experiences and challenges of university students living with invisible disabilities. Methods Nine videotaped medical consultations with students, conducted at the health centre of a higher education institution in northern Chile, were analysed, drawing on the thematic analysis to organize the most salient themes. Results Three major themes were identified in the analysis, along with their subthemes: (1) experiencing overpowering symptoms, including variable, multiple, and severe symptoms; (2) facing medical, social, and academic barriers; (3) engaging in self-management behaviours, such as self-medication, self-treatment, changing therapies, and non-compliance. Conclusion As the healthcare system is mostly ineffective in diagnosing students with invisible disabilities as well as providing them with long-lasting help, the students often have to manage their conditions by themselves, without much success. It seems essential to promote the development of stronger links between health providers and universities to allow for early disability detection and awareness-raising programs within educational institutions. Further research should focus on strategies promoting effective support mechanisms to decrease barriers and increase the inclusion of these individuals.

The Value of Observing the Buyers’ Arrival Time in Dynamic Pricing

We consider a dynamic pricing problem in which a firm sells one item to a single buyer to maximize expected revenue. The firm commits to a price function over an infinite horizon. The buyer arrives at some random time with a private value for the item. He is more impatient than the seller and strategizes over the timing of the purchase in order to maximize his expected utility, which implies either buying immediately, waiting to benefit from a lower price, or not buying. We study the value of the seller’s ability to observe the buyer’s arrival time in terms of her expected revenue. When the seller can observe the buyer’s arrival, she can make the price function contingent on the buyer’s arrival time. On the contrary, when the seller can’t, her price function is fixed at time zero for the whole horizon. The value of observability (VO) is defined as the worst-case ratio between the expected revenue of the seller when she observes the buyer’s arrival and that when she does not. First, we show that, for the particular case in which the buyer’s valuation follows a monotone hazard rate distribution, the upper bound of VO is [Formula: see text]. Next, we show our main result: in a setting very general on valuation and arrival time distributions: VO is at most 4.911. To obtain this bound, we fully characterize the solution to the observable arrival problem and use this solution to construct a random and periodic price function for the unobservable case. Finally, we show by solving a particular example to optimality that VO has a lower bound of 1.136. This paper was accepted by Itai Ashlagi, revenue management and market analytics. Funding: This work was partially supported by the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Chile [Grants ACT210005 and FONDECYT 1220054], and by the Center for Mathematical Modeling at the University of Chile [Grant FB210005]. The work of D. Pizarro has benefited from the Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute, which is funded by the French “Investing for the Future – PIA3” program [Grant ANR-19-P3IA-0004]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4794 .

Life-style behavior upon admission to higher education in Chilean university students: A longitudinal observational study.

The main objective of this study was to analyze the change in physical activity, quality of diet, and weight upon admission to higher education and at one-year follow-up in Chilean university students. 376 Chilean university students were prospectively recruited. All participants were assessed at bas eline and one-year follow-up. Sociodemographics and other co-variables were described. Physical activity, healthy eating behavior, height, weight, and body mass index (BMI) were assessed using the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ), and quality of diet (with Healthy Eating Index), SECA 213 stadiometer and TANITA HD-351, respectively. At the one-year follow-up, high-intensity METs (Metabolic equivalents) decreased by 147.9 (95% CI: 79.5 to 216; p = 0.000), moderate-intensity METs decreased by 85.0 (95% CI: 52.2 to 117.7; p = 0.000), sedentary behavior increased by 45.0 min/week (95% CI: 54.6 to 35.4; p = 0.000), total METs decreased by 793.6 (95% CI: 613.0 to 974.1; p = 0.000), HEI decreased by 45.4 points (95% CI: 48.5 to 82.1; p = 0.000), weight increased by 5.9 kg (95% CI: 3.5 to 6.3; p = 0.002), and BMI increased by 2.8 kg/m2 (95% CI: 2.7 to 3.2; p = 0.000). The correlation between total METs and the HEI was r = 0.21 (p = 0.013). There are statistically significant differences at one-year follow-up in Chilean university students in decreased physical activity, impaired healthy eating behavior, and increased weight and BMI.

Preventing brain aging by the artificial enforcement of the unfolded protein response: future directions.

Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Cabral-Miranda F) Center for Geroscience, Brain Health and Metabolism, Santiago, Chile; Biomedical Neuroscience Institute, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile; Program of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile; Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, CA, USA (Hetz C) Correspondence to: Claudio Hetz, PhD, [email protected] or [email protected]. Received March 07, 2023 Received in revised form March 27, 2023 Accepted April 17, 2023 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Emotions of University Professors and Students in Times of Pandemic: An Analysis from the Perspective of Resilience in Chilean Higher Education

COVID-19 forced a change in the usual face-to-face teaching–learning process to remote modalities in a matter of weeks. An abrupt change, within the context of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, significantly increased the stress experienced by professors, students, and their families. Black screens were also a sign of anxiety in the face of new emergency didactic interaction. It has been documented that emotions influence learning; however, few studies have analyzed learning during a pandemic from a resilience approach. The perceptions of the teaching–learning process of 654 professors and 1540 students from 34 Chilean universities were analyzed. Emotions experienced in remote education during the pandemic were studied in relation to professor empathy, respect in the virtual classroom, student/professor technological resources, didactic strategies, student participation, group work, tutoring, perception of learning, assessment, and perception of demand. The results show a direct relationship between professor and student positive emotions and the quality of perceived pedagogical practice and interaction.

Factors influencing professionalism during dental training at the University of Chile: perception of students and patients

BackgroundThe University should be considered a favourable space and agent for the training and transmission of values and attitudes related to professionalism, such as responsibility, teamwork and ethical commitment. In addition, dentistry is a profession with a deep social sense that seeks to solve the oral health problems of the population to improve the quality of life. In this context, our aim was to explore the perception of students and patients about the contribution of the curriculum to the development of professionalism and to identify the factors that strengthen and weaken this perception.MethodsA qualitative approach was carried out through focus groups and semi-structured interviews with students from the 4th, 5th and 6th year of training and patients treated at the Dental Clinic of our Faculty.ResultsIn the opinion of patients and students, the factors that debilitate the training in professionalism are associated with weakened professional values/behaviours in the training, the lack of teacher training of the professors and factors of educational environment. On the contrary, factors strengthening the professionalism are mainly related to hallmark values/ professional behaviours trained in the institution and to the good evaluation by patients. The respondents also perceive the implementation of a new curriculum as a positive factor for the training in professionalism.ConclusionThe patients and students interviewed believe that the main strength for the training in professionalism in the institution is the development of adaptability for the future professionals to any social context, especially to a vulnerable one, the ability to solve the problems they face and the responsibility towards the patients and their treatment.