Explore the vast range of titles available.

The value of grade retention as a pedagogic resource remains a subject of debate because of its costs and benefits. In fact, it has been repeatedly argued that grade retention has substantial psychosocial effects. Student engagement with school is one of the dimensions that is expected to be more affected by grade retention. This article aimed to contribute to this debate by examining the relationship between grade retention and various dimensions of student engagement with school. With that purpose in mind, we analyzed data from a sample at one point in time (cross-sectional) and over three points in time (longitudinal), and expanded their meaning for Inclusive Education and for Person-centered schools. The cross-sectional sample comprised 739 students aged 14 to 19 years (M = 16.47, SD = 0.59), while the longitudinal sample included 238 students aged 11 to 15 years (M = 13.29, SD = 0.54 at the first assessment). Student engagement with school was measured using the Multifactorial Measure of Student Engagement. The results indicated that grade retention was negatively associated with overall student engagement. This negative association was particularly evident in the cases of study behaviors and perceived family support for learning. Moreover, students with a history of retention exhibited a significantly steeper decline in engagement over time compared to their non-retained peers. These findings underscore the importance of developing inclusive educational practices. Strategies that foster student engagement are especially relevant for retained students. Schools need to assume their responsibility in promoting positive academic trajectories for all their students, which may require schools shifting from a materialistic-oriented paradigm to a person-centered school paradigm.

The main goal of this investigation was to determine the influence of the family contextual variables on children's basic learning skills. Basic abilities tests for children's academic learning were administered to a sample of 447 children aged three, four, and five years in preschool education. The parents completed the questionnaire, which collected data about the structural variables of the family context: family structure, educational level, occupational activity, cultural resources available in the home, and monthly family income. Univariate analyses of variance were performed. The parents' educational level and some of the variables of cultural resources, such as access to the Internet, influence the basic abilities of the participants. This study indicates that structural variables condition family resources of a dynamic nature, and these are significant variables for academic achievement.

Instructors' teaching styles in higher education are an issue of major importance because these interactions affect students' self-perceptions, involvement, and achievement. This study aimed to test a theoretical model of relations between perceived teaching styles (autonomy support, structure, and control) and competences, self-efficacy, and commitment in pre-service teachers; to assess the invariance of the model in two samples; and to analyze the mediated relations between these variables. Measures were collected from 842 Spanish pre-service teachers. As main research implications, teaching styles predicted acquired competences, competences predicted teaching self-efficacy, and self-efficacy predicted commitment to the profession. This model was equivalent in two samples of childhood and primary education pre-service teachers. Competences and self-efficacy mediated the relationships between variables. As practical implications, this study clearly shows the need for different interventions to enhance adequate instructors' teaching styles and to foster among novice pre-service teachers the acquisition of professional competences, initial self-efficacy, and a good level of commitment to their profession. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

Background Choosing a major involves the interplay of personal characteristics and contextual variables, two key elements of academic selection. The relationships between major choice (MC) and academic expectations (AEs) can highlight the processes evolved in the transition to higher education. We examined, across genders, the relationships between factors influencing MC and AEs among students pursuing social sciences (SocSci) and STEM careers. Methods With a sample of first-year Spanish ( n  = 750) and Portuguese ( n  = 594) university students ( Mdn  = 18 years), we tested a model with two factors of a scale of determinants of career choice, named Perceived Personal Characteristics Influences (PPCIs) and Perceived Mediating Agent Influences (PMAIs), as predictors of five from an AEs questionnaire. The model invariance testing across gender and fields of study followed the examination of its factorial structure counterpart invariance across countries, fields of study, and gender. Results Factor means tests revealed negligible differences between women and men regarding PPCIs and PMAIs in STEM, while in SoSci, women displayed higher PPCIs than men. In STEM, they had lower expectations for training benefits to employability. In addition, women expressed higher expectations for political participation and citizenship than men, with a discrepancy that was higher in SoSci than in STEM. The regression model showed similar slopes between genders in both fields of study, with PPCIs being better predictors of AEs than PMAIs in SoSci, but not in STEM. PPCIs predicted better Training for Employment in STEM than in SoSci, and also Political Engagement and Citizenship in SoSci than in STEM. Conclusions Results showed that women value personal characteristics more than men in SoSci, and their STEM choice is driven, possibly, by individual characteristics that foster greater self-determination and self-concept, non-differentiating them from men. Gender indifferentiation on PMAIs contradicts the belief that women attribute more relevance to others in their vocational choices. According to gender stereotypes, women have greater political and civic engagement, especially in SoSci, while men have higher AEs for job training. Contrary to previous results, no gender differences in career choices and educational expectations were found among STEM students. Furthermore, in STEM, PPCIs were weaker predictors of political engagement and citizenship, possibly due to the stereotypical portrayal of professional activities in this field.

The Irish context informs the process of composition of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Joyce's use of historical allusions is an essential literary device when recontextualising the novel in its original cultural dynamics. Varied in form and elusive to the eye, allusions function as textual signs that introduce multiple layers of contextual meaning, unveiling the main characters' contradictions and the workings of coercive ideologies. Joycean allusions thus act as metonymic portmanteau signs; they become the true \"portals\" of discovery of a less apparent portrait: that of Ireland as a British colony. Key Words. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Historical Allusions, Ireland, Ideologies, Creative Process. El contexto irlandes es determinante a la hora de entender la composicion de A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man y el uso de las alusiones historicas por parte de Joyce es un recurso literario esencial si se quiere recontextualizar la novela en su dinamica cultural original. Las alusiones historicas son variadas y escapan a simple vista, funcionando como signos textuales que introducen multiples capas de significado contextual, desvelando las contradicciones de los personajes principales y la forma en la que actuan las ideologias coercitivas. Las alusiones joyceanas actuan por tanto como complejos signos metonimicos; se convierten en autenticos \"portales\" de descubrimiento de un retrato no tan aparente, el de Irlanda como colonia britanica. Palabras clave. James Joyce, Retrato del artista adolescente, alusiones historicas, Irlanda, ideologias, proceso creativo.

We examined the relationships among gender, planning, and academic expectations through the testing of two alternative models with latent variables tested with LISREL 8.80: one model considered planning as a mediator of the relationship between gender and academic expectations, and the other model considered academic expectations as mediators of the relationship between gender and planning. Participants were 662 first-year higher-education students from two academic years, predominantly female (60%) and mainly with majors in the juridical-social field (66.2%). The Inventario sobre Estrategias Metacognitivas ( IEM ; Inventory of Metacognitive Strategies) and the Academic Perceptions Questionnaire (APQ) were applied at the beginning of the first semester to assess planning and academic expectations, respectively. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the IEM ’s structure after examining its psychometric properties with the sample from the first academic year ( N = 338). The test of the alternative mediation models with the full sample indicates that the best model was that with planning as a mediator. In this model, gender directly predicted only two APQ academic expectations, but with the mediation of planning, gender predicted all seven academic expectations. Women showed higher levels of academic expectations and planning than did men. The results are discussed at both the theoretical and practical levels.

ObjectivesTo evaluate the external validity of the FINDRISC, DESIR and ADA risk scores for the prediction of diabetes in a Spanish population aged >45 years and to test the possible improvement of FINDRISC by adding a new variable of high risk of depression when Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) questionnaire score ≥10 (FINDRISC-MOOD).DesignProspective population-based cohort study.Setting10 primary healthcare centres in the north of the city of Madrid (Spain).ParticipantsA total of 1242 participants without a history of diabetes and with 2-hour oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) plasma glucose <200 mg/dL (<11.1 mmol/L) were followed up for 7.3 years (median) using their electronic health records (EHRs) and telephone contact.Primary and secondary outcome measuresDiabetes risk scores (FINDRISC, DESIR, ADA), PHQ-9 questionnaire and 2-hour-OGTT were measured at baseline. Incident diabetes was defined as treatment for diabetes, fasting plasma glucose ≥126 mg/dL (≥7.0 mmol/L), new EHR diagnosis or self-reported diagnosis. External validation was performed according to optimal cut-off, sensitivity, specificity and Youden Index. Comparison between diabetes risk scores, including FINDRISC-MOOD (original FINDRISC score plus five points if PHQ-9 ≥10), was measured by area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC).ResultsDuring follow-up, 104 (8.4%; 95% CI, 6.8 to 9.9) participants developed diabetes and 185 had a PHQ-9 score ≥10. The AUROC values were 0.70 (95% CI, 0.67 to 0.72) for FINDRISC-MOOD and 0.68 (95% CI, 0.65 to 0.71) for the original FINDRISC. The AUROCs for DESIR and ADA were 0.66 (95% CI, 0.63 to 0.68) and 0.66 (95% CI, 0.63 to 0.69), respectively. There were no significant differences in AUROC between FINDRISC-MOOD and the other scores.ConclusionsThe results of FINDRISC-MOOD were like those of the other risk scores and do not allow it to be recommended for clinical use.

Various investigations have revealed that the promotion of cognitive and metacognitive strategies can improve reading comprehension and that when readers receive this type of instruction, they can use monitoring processes and regulation strategies adequately. The goal of this work is to analyze the effects of strategic and metacognitive instruction on reading comprehension processes and strategies, using the \"Aprender a Comprender\" [Learning to Understand] program. Instruction was carried out in the classroom by two teachers during six months. Ninety-four students participated, 49 from 5th grade and 45 from 6th grade. A pretest-intervention-posttest-follow-up design was used with a comparison group by grade. The analysis of variance shows an impact of the intervention and its differential maintenance in each grade. The 5th-grade intervention group scored higher than the comparison group in the reading comprehension test, both at posttest and at follow-up. The 6th-grade intervention group scored higher than the comparison group in the Planning scale, both at posttest and at follow-up. Textual strategy instruction favors reading comprehension and the progressive development of planning, which is necessary for supervision and regulation, and its effects are maintained over time.

The goal of the present study is to analyze the influence of training in initiation to learning reading. Participants in the study were 144 preschool children from four public schools of Galicia, from a rural area of the Region of Paradanta. Out of the total sample, 72 were assigned to the experimental groups and 72 to the control groups. The design was pretest-posttest with randomized participants. Reading skills were measured with the Visual Recognition and Grapheme-Phoneme Conversion Test (TECOL).The data was analyzed with repeated measures analysis of variance. Training significantly increased the reading skill scores of the experimental groups, compared to the control groups. The program has shown a triple interaction between Measure Training × Level School. This means that there was significant variation in mean scores of reading skills as a result of training and according to the different school levels. It is concluded that the basic reading skill to develop in early childhood education is the identification and naming of letters.