Isabel Cuevas

Lectura, escritura y adquisición de conocimientos en Educación Secundaria y Educación Universitaria

Resumen Este artículo presenta resultados de una investigación que identifica y caracteriza las tareas de lectura y escritura que se proponen y realizan para aprender. Se utilizó un diseño cuasiexperimental “ex post facto”, con tres variables independientes: rol (profesor, alumno), nivel educativo (primero y segundo ciclo de ESO, Bachillerato y Universidad) y dominio de conocimiento (social, natural). Las variables dependientes fueron la frecuencia de las tareas y sus características. Las respuestas de 214 profesores y 646 alumnos a cuestionarios fueron sometidas a diversos análisis estadísticos. Los resultados muestran que las tareas favorecedoras del aprendizaje constructivo son escasas, y en general, un panorama más tradicional de lo esperable.

The After School Routines of Literature-Devoted Urban Children

Abstract This paper discusses the out of school routines of a group of ‘literature-devoted’ children of the city of Madrid (Spain). The children and families were recruited for the study at a library, a childrens bookstore and a puppet show in a park. Participants provided information on their weekly routines through several procedures: surveys, photographs of their daily lives, interviews based on the photographs and interviews with parents. We develop a spatially based model that allows us to identify four styles of activity in childrens out of school lives: homebound children, non-scheduled children, outdoor and scheduled children, and fully scheduled children. Our results suggest that there is significant diversity in the ways in which childrens after-school time is organized, even within a middle-class and socially homogeneous sample as the one in this study. Also, the range of activities our participants engage in seems to contradict current portraits of Western urban childrens lives as constrained.

High school boys’ and girls’ writing conceptions and writing self-efficacy beliefs: what is their role in writing performance?

This study investigated the conceptions about writing and writing self-efficacy beliefs held by high school students in relation to the students’ gender as well as their associations with writing achievement. The results show that female students have more sophisticated writing conceptions than their male counterparts but no gender differences were found in writing self-efficacy beliefs. In addition, results reveal that writing self-efficacy beliefs and gender play an important role in predicting writing performance and that writing performance is moderated by students’ writing conceptions. Educational implications and further research are discussed.

Writing a Synthesis from Multiple Sources as a Learning Activity

This chapter focuses on how hybrid tasks can be better used within education to promote learning. It begins with an examination of the epistemic potential of synthesis and hybrid tasks in general. Writing a synthesis from multiple sources is a hybrid task with a high potential for fostering learning. The chapter deals with the complex processes involved in writing syntheses from multiple texts. It analyses the differences in the ways students write syntheses and the difficulties they have with such tasks at different educational levels, and presents some of the studies carried out on the processes involved in making syntheses and on the resulting products. Some of the methodological tools employed in analysing these processes are also examined. The chapter ends by describing several interventions to improve learning. These interventions help students at different educational levels to produce syntheses from multiple texts. Keywords: epistemic potential; hybrid tasks; learning; methodological tools; writing syntheses

Development and Validation of the ADAS Scale and Prediction of Attitudes Toward Affective-Sexual Diversity Among Spanish Secondary Students

ABSTRACT Violence against non-heterosexual adolescents in educational contexts remains a worrying reality, but no adequate attitudes toward affective-sexual diversity (AtASD) measure exists for Spanish adolescent students. We developed a 27-item scale including cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects, which was completed by 696 secondary school students from the Madrid area. Factor analyses suggested a unidimensional model, Cronbach’s alpha indicated excellent scale scores reliability, and item calibration under the item response theory framework showed that the scale is especially informative for homophobic attitudes. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that variables traditionally related to AtASD (gender, age, religion, nationality, perceived parental/peer attitudes, direct contact with LGB people) also were so in our sample. Moreover, interest in sexuality topics and perceived center’s efforts to provide AtASD education were related to better AtASD. Our scale was reliable and valid, and it may also prove useful in efforts to detect those students with homophobic attitudes and to guide interventions.

Improving written argumentative synthesis by teaching the integration of conflicting information from multiple sources

ABSTRACT The goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of 2 different types of intervention aimed at improving written argumentative synthesis by integrating conflicting information from different sources. Both interventions combined the use of a guide with collaborative practice, but one of them also included explicit strategy instruction. Only students who received additional explicit instruction showed an improved ability to integrate conflicting information and increased the number of arguments they selected from the sources.

Chapter 2.02.10: Writing Summaries and Syntheses to Learn in Secondary and Higher Education

This chapter investigates how students use reading and writing as tools for learning in Secondary and Higher Education. Some research supports the hypothesis that when reading and writing are used together, in hybrid tasks, they become more powerful learning tools than when employed separately. This chapter analyses the relationships between personal variables (prior knowledge, reading and writing competence) and contextual variables (different types of hybrid tasks, summary and synthesis), on the one hand, and the processes performed by the participants and the products they created, on the other. The best products (summaries and syntheses) were associated with a pattern of procedures in which the students made more recursive and flexible use of reading and writing. The students at the higher levels of the educational system used more complex and appropriate procedures than the students at the lower levels, whose procedures were simpler and more direct. Keywords: higher education; secondary education; writing competence