Madalena Alarcão

Parent education interventions: Results from a national study in Portugal

Parenting education programmes are becoming widespread practices and are being recognized by the scientific community as promising interventions for preventing child maltreatment. However, a diversity of programme objectives and implementation conditions can be related to different outcomes in parental competencies and child adjustment. In this paper we present data concerning the effects of different parent education interventions developed in Portugal. Five hundred one participants participating in 56 interventions were evaluated using a pre- and post-test design. Analyses were designed to determine the participant and programme characteristics that were associated with intervention outcomes, as indicated by univariate and covariate test results and respective effect sizes. After controlling for pre-test results, significant and positive intervention effects were found for parental stress, effective parenting attitudes (i.e., empathic responding, use of punitive discipline, and endorsement of parental roles), perception of the informal social support network and child behavioural and emotional difficulties. These positive outcomes are associated with some parental characteristics (educational level and child protection referrals) as well as with a number of programme characteristics (e.g., length of programme, existence of a manual, transportation, specific training in the programme). Discussion is focused on the positive effects of interventions and the role of the identified moderating factors as well as their implications for the development of parent education programmes.

Posição na fratria e personalidade

This study addresses the presence or absence of siblings influence on the personality. The position occupied in the family provides diversified experiences - consequently, some aspects of the personality are also different and individual. This sample includes 1142 university students: 874 females and 268 males. The statistical analysis indicated the existence of personality differences among the subjects that occupy the main sibling positions: the only, the oldest, the youngest and the middle. These were the facets of detachment: straightforwardness, altruism and compliance (in the domain of Agreeableness), dutifulness and deliberation (in the domain of Conscientiousness) and angry hostility (in the domain of Neuroticism). The results were discussed through Adler, Toman and Sulloways siblings theories.

Imprevisibilidade familiar e suas implicações no desenvolvimento individual e familiar

La imprevisibilidad familiar es definida como una falta de consistencia en los patrones del comportamiento familiar y de los sistemas de regulacion familiar, permitiendo aprender la forma como la familia y el sub-sistema familiar, ejerce su funcion y su poder ejecutivo. Es asociada una mayor imprevisibilidad familiar con perturbaciones del desarrollo familiar e individual. Presentamos la validacion de la Family Unpredietability Seale (FUS), de Lisa Ross e Elizabeth Hill, para Portugal, discutiendose su valor para discriminar familias, previamente identificadas como estando perturbadas en el ejercicio de sus funciones familiares. Tambien destacamos la relacion entre nivel educativo y variacion del grado de imprevisibilidad familiar, siendo que padres con menor nivel educativo presentan niveles mas elevados de imprevisibilidad.The family unpredictability is defined as a lack of consistency in standards of familiar behaviour and the familiar regulation systems. It is interesting for the understanding of how the family, and particularly the parental subsystem exerts its roles and executive power. Higher family unpredictability has been associated with higher disturbances of the familiar and individual development. This paper presents the validation of a Family Unpredictability Scale (FUS) described by Lisa Ross and Elizabeth Hill, for Portugal. It also evaluates the scale abilities to discriminate families with diverse perturbation levels in psychosocial functions. The lower educational level of parents was associated with higher levels of unpredictability.

Transforming Risks into Opportunities in Child Protection Cases: A Case Study with a Multisystemic, In-Home, Strength-Based Model

Multisystemic, strength-based, in-home, collaborative family-centered programs have been advocated as an efficacious means to help multichallenged families living in poverty. The Integrated Family Assessment and Intervention Model (IFAIM) was developed in Portugal to assist the child protection system in conducting child protection assessments and in supporting multichallenged families with at-risk children and youth to overcome the risks and guarantee the childs safety. This article describes a single case study evaluating the process and outcome of the implementation of IFAIM with a multichallenged family referred by a child protection agency. The results support IFAIMs efficacy in promoting clinical significant changes in family and parental functioning through supporting the family with a focus on its strengths and key family resilience processes.

Avaliação da motivação intrínseca na aprendizagem: validação de duas escalas para crianças e adolescentes

O objetivo do presente trabalho e proceder a adaptacao e validacao de duas escalas breves de avaliacao da motivacao na aprendizagem: a Escala de Escolha Percebida na Aprendizagem e a Escala de Competencia Percebida na Aprendizagem. O estudo abrangeu 510 participantes, com idades compreendidas entre os 9 e os 16 anos. Apos a analise exploratoria de dados, o trabalho envolveu a avaliacao da consistencia interna, sucedida de uma analise fatorial exploratoria de ambas as escalas. Foram estudadas, tambem, a sua validade convergente, bem como a sua estabilidade temporal. Foi ainda realizada uma analise diferencial dos resultados quanto as variaveis genero e ano de escolaridade. Os instrumentos revelam valores moderados a elevados no nivel da consistencia interna e estruturas unidimensionais a semelhanca das versoes originais em lingua inglesa. Confirmam-se, tambem, varias das hipoteses colocadas quanto a sua validade convergente. Estudos adicionais relativamente a estabilidade temporal desses instrumentos parecem ser pertinentes.

Satisfação de necessidades psicológicas básicas em crianças e adolescentes: adaptação e validação da ESNPBR

The aim of this study was to adapt and validate the Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction Scale (BPNS) for Portuguese children and adolescents. It involved 510 participants aged between 9 and 16 years old. The results show moderate to high levels of internal consistency and a good adjustment of factorial solution models with two and three factors in accordance with the correspondent theoretical framework. However, the factorial model with two factors is the one that presents better fit. The results also support hypotheses regarding convergent validity between the factors found and other related variables. In sum, the current version of the questionnaire seems to be an appropriate general measure of basic psychological needs in relationships.

A eficácia da mentoria escolar na promoção do desenvolvimento socioemocional e instrumental de jovens

The present article is a survey of the literature on the effectiveness of school mentoring programs in promoting the socioemotional and instrumental development of youngsters. It starts with a comparison between the most significant empirical investigations on the subject. From such analysis it is possible to observe that the results attributed to mentoring programs are contradictory and tend to be of reduced magnitude. Various methodological weaknesses seem to affect the results obtained in the majority of the works analyzed, amongst which the reduced size of samples and the lack of experimental control of the inherent variability of the subjects. Alongside these methodological limitations, the literature survey carried out here also allowed to identify important variations in the structure of the school mentoring programs, and an uneven weighing of the parameters defining good practices. All these factors seem to make it difficult to obtain solid results about the effectiveness of the kind of school intervention. The recommendations made here for future investigations on this theme include conducting more studies with inferential power about well-structured programs, a greater care in the definition of investigation plans, and the consideration of the teacher as a figure capable of accumulating the function of mentor, contrary to what happens in programs developed in Anglo-Saxon countries.

Psychometric Proprieties and Construct Validity of the Brother-Sister Questionnaire in a Sample of Portuguese Adolescents

The Brother-Sister Questionnaire (BSQ; Graham-Bermann and Cutler 1994) is an instrument designed to measure qualities of sibling relationships. Aim: In the present study the main objective was to examine the psychometric properties and validity construct of BSQ - Portuguese version. Data were collected among 197 adolescents. The Cronbach’s alpha of the four domains ranged from .58 to .84. The psychometric characteristics of BSQ Portuguese version were found to be adequate. The results confirm the multi-dimensional model composed of four factors proposed by the authors of this instrument, as well as their suitability to assess quality of Portuguese sibling relationships. The BSQ offers a reliable and valid measure to be used within Portuguese population.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Schools: Validation of a Questionnaire

The present study examines the psychometric properties (including factorial validity) of an organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) scale in a school context. A total of 321 middle and high school teachers from 59 schools in urban and rural areas of central Portugal completed the OCB scale at their schools. The confirmatory factor analysis validated a hierarchical model with four latent factors on the first level (altruism, conscientiousness, civic participation and courtesy) and a second order factor (OCB). The revised model fit with the data, χ 2 /gl = 1.97; CFI = .962; GFI = .952, RMSEA = .05. The proposed scale (comportamentos de cidadania organizacional em escolas- Revista CCOE-R)- is a valid instrument to assess teachers perceptions of OCB in their schools, allowing investigation at the organizational level of analysis.

Beyond the family life cycle: Understanding family development in the twenty-first century through complexity theories

Perspectives on family development have been organized, mainly, around the idea of the family life cycle. However, a family life cycle approach is probably too simplistic and norm-oriented to understand family development, particularly in face of the diversity of family forms and challenges in the twenty-first century. In this article, we discuss how family science can borrow inspiration from concepts and methods of complexity sciences in order to (re)conceptualize family development as the time unfolding of a complex self-organizing system, in the direction of increasing differentiation and integration. We highlight some strategies to inspect developmental coordination dynamics at the level of the whole family, as a complex system. We hope this reflection opens a new space of debate and new avenues for theoretical development and research in the field of family science.