María Soledad Rodríguez González

Processing Speed, Inhibitory Control, and Working Memory: Three Important Factors to Account for Age-Related Cognitive Decline

Processing speed, inhibitory control and working memory have been identified as the main possible culprits of age-related cognitive decline. This article describes a study of their interrelationships and dependence on age, including exploration of whether any of them mediates between age and the others. We carried out a LISREL analysis of the performance of 79 participants of low educational level aged 40–91 years in six cognitive tasks. In the best mediational model the effects of age on inhibitory control and working memory are largely mediated by its effect on processing speed. However, in the best-fitting model age has only direct effects on processing speed, working memory, and inhibitory control.

Apoyo social en universitarios españoles de primer año: propiedades psicométricas del Social Support Questionnaire-Short Form y el Social Provisions Scale

Resumen El apoyo social percibido es un constructo multifacetico conceptualizado como la valoracion cognitiva de que existe una relacion de confianza con los otros, con los que se puede contar en caso de necesidad. El objetivo de este trabajo es examinar las propiedades psicometricas de las escalas de apoyo social percibido Social Support Questionnaire-Short Form (SSQ6) y Social Provisions Scale (SPS) en una muestra de 855 universitarios, 575 mujeres y 280 hombres, matriculados en primer ano de grado de 16 titulaciones de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (Espana). El SSQ6 mide las dimensiones de disponibilidad y satisfaccion del apoyo percibido, mientras que el SPS evalua sus funciones. Los analisis factoriales realizados confirman el modelo de dos dimensiones del SSQ6 y la estructura de seis factores del SPS. La consistencia interna de ambas escalas es satisfactoria, al igual que las evidencias de validez obtenidas de las correlaciones entre las dos escalas y sus respectivas subescalas. Los resultados revelan que las versiones espanolas del SSQ6 y el SPS son medidas fiables y validas para la evaluacion del apoyo social percibido en poblacion universitaria.

Predictors of students’ adjustment during transition to university in spain

BACKGROUND Adjustment to university is a major life transition that not all emerging adults manage successfully. The Student University Adjustment Questionnaire is the instrument most commonly used to evaluate this multidimensional construct. Research in Spain on the predisposing factors for successful adjustment to university in emerging adults is scarce relative to the large number of studies carried out in North America. The objective of the present study was to analyze the association between students’ gender, family background, pre-university achievement and adjustment to university. METHOD Participants were 300 Spanish first-year students (198 women and 102 men) of mean age 18.02 years. RESULTS Pre-university achievement was the only significant predictor of academic, social and institutional adjustment. Gender directly affected personal-emotional adjustment and indirectly affected academic adjustment mediated by entry grade. CONCLUSIONS Students’ entry characteristics predict adjustment to university in the first year. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications.