International Journal of Educational Psychology

Moral Values as Mediators in the Relationship between Prosocial Behaviour and Social Responsibility among University Students

2023-11-10T08:51:36+01:00

Universities must confront social challenges and prepare their students to be future socially responsible professionals. This research considers social responsibility in depth and examines how it can be promoted among university students. Specifically, it analyses whether prosocial behaviour and moral values are predictor variables, and to study whether moral values are a mediator variable between prosocial behaviour and university student social responsibility. Non-probabilistic convenience sampling was used in a Spanish university (N = 193; 115 females; M_age= 19). Three scales were applied: the University Student Social Responsibility scale, the Prosocial Tendencies Measures scale and the Importance of Personal and Professional Values scale. The results of the regression models showed that prosocial behaviour and moral values both contributed significantly to the model (F_(2,196) = 41.979; p < .001), predicting 30.2% of university student social responsibility. In the mediation model, total effects between the variables were observed, as was an indirect effect of prosocial behaviour on social responsibility mediated by moral values (β = .07; t = 3.80; p < .001). This suggests that university programmes that seek to help the community and enable people to discover values will more effectively be able to develop social responsibility.

Identity Formation of Pre-Service Teachers. Relations with Training and Attitudes toward Cultural Diversity

2024-01-05T12:51:30+01:00

The university years represents a pivotal period in the student's life, influencing decision-making and impacting their identity. The new experiences encountered during this phase may give rise to a certain identity crisis, allowing for a reconsideration of previously adopted commitments, and potentially influencing the development of future educators, with a special issue such as cultural diversity among others. This study aims to identify the identity status of prospective education teachers and analyse attitudes towards cultural diversity among students. The research design is quantitative, ex-post-facto, descriptive, and inferential. The incidental sample comprises a total of 378 students from the degrees in Early Childhood Education and Primary Education at the University of Córdoba (Spain). Of the total sample, being 74.03% female, with an average age of 20.64 (SD = 2.95). The results reflected that students in a mature status are those who exhibit higher scores in attitudes towards cultural diversity. In this context, the initial teacher training should consider identity as a factor to be taken into account for promoting positive attitudes towards cultural diversity, specifically emphasizing the development of responsible decision-making in the curriculum of Education degrees.

The Gender Gap in Mathematical Competence and School Effectiveness in the Basque Country (Spain)

2024-04-16T18:17:44+02:00

National and international assessments consistently report gender differences in mathematics, with boys scoring higher than girls. This study aims to explore whether the gender gap has been overcome in mathematical competence; as well as to check what similarities and differences there are according to the school effectiveness, educational stage, and the Diagnostic Assessment (DA) editions in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (ACBC). The study follows a descriptive design with a quantitative methodology, analysing census data on the mathematical competence of 4th grade primary and 2nd grade secondary students during the most recent editions of the DA. The results confirm that mathematics achievement is determined by both the gender gap and school effectiveness. Even so, some positive trends can be observed in the latest editions of the DA and, above all, in the secondary education stage to close the gender gap. The study highlights the need to develop mechanisms for measuring equality in schools in a systematic manner, and reviews some of the strategies and action plans currently being implemented to foster gender equality in the classroom.

An Analysis of Student Satisfaction and its Relationship with Academic and Social Factors in University Dropout

2024-04-01T19:40:41+02:00

Over the last 50 years, Higher Education has experienced significant development, which has been associated with challenges that have yet to be solved. In this sense, university dropout is a global phenomenon that worries universities all over the world. Many research studies describe the possible causes of this phenomenon, but the most interesting are those that, due to their predictive potential, have the possibility of preventing it. The aim of this article is to study how important students perceive the different reasons for dropout in relation to the idea of abandoning the degree. For this purpose, the Spanish version of the Questionnaire of Motives for Higher Education Dropout (QMA_es; Almeida et al., 2019) was applied to a sample of 927 first- and second-year university students. These data have been processed using educational data mining (EDM) techniques, obtaining a decision tree that correctly classifies the sample in 81.1%. The results show that variables related to student satisfaction (satisfaction with academic choice, satisfaction with performance, and satisfaction with the financial situation) and to the academic and social environments play a predominant role in the approach to dropout, above other institutional, financial, and wellbeing variables.