María Teresa Sanz de Acedo Baquedano

Development and validation of a decision-making questionnaire

ABSTRACT The ‘Decision-Making Questionnaire’ (DMQ) was developed and validated in order to examine the factors that affect decision making. The investigation was carried out with two samples, one of 170 participants and the other of 425 of both sexes. Each sample was divided into three age ranges: young students (18–25 years), adults (26–60 years), and seniors (61–75 years). Psychometric analyses revealed satisfactory internal consistency and a first-order factor structure comprising 10 scales: Uncertainty, Time/money pressure, Information and goals, Consequences of the decision, Motivation, Self-regulation, Cognition, Emotion, Social pressure, and Work pressure. These scales in turn yielded a second-order factor structure of Task, Subject, and Context. The results highlight the ways in which youths, adults, and seniors are influenced by diverse factors when making decisions. They also suggest that men are more likely than women to seek and analyse information, whereas women place higher value on the available time and money. The article concludes that the DMQ examines the factors that have the most influence on professional decisions and it could guide adolescents in the vocational decision process.

Psychological Intervention in Thinking Skills with Primary Education Students

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of the instruction method ‘Thinking Actively in an Academic Context’ (TAAC) in the thinking skills of 6th grade students in primary education. The sample consisted of 58 subjects, aged between 11- and 13-years-of-age, 27 in the experimental group and 31 in the control group. A pre-test intervention—post-test design was employed, and the assessment instruments were administered before and after the intervention to measure variables related to thinking and academic achievement. The eight-phase instruction method was administered to all the didactic units of the syllabus-content of environmental knowledge, language and mathematics during one academic course. The stages of the method allow the conjoint teaching of thinking skills and the syllabus-content. The results of the analysis of variance suggest that the intervention produced a significant improvement in both thinking skills and academic achievement, and indicated also that the method produced different effects in reasoning as a function of gender.

Ideation2.0 project: web2.0 tools to support brainstorming networks and innovation teams

Ideation2.0 project aims at improving innovation processes with Web2.0 based tools. These tools we have developed enable the participation of many people in idea generation and evaluation sessions forming brainstorming networks. They also allow the formation of innovation development teams based on the affinity among the participants for their creativity and their interest in implementing the ideas.