The teaching methodology known as thinking-based learning (TBL) is presented here in the scope of a chemical engineering class. This method has been tested experimentally for the past six years within a chemical engineering class which belongs to the chemistry bachelor’s degree in the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain). Specifically, TBL was implemented by teaching complex concepts through comprehensive real-life examples. The study has revealed a positive outcome on the students’ academic performance, as an increased number of them take the final exam (around 40% more) and pass the class (about 27% increase), when compared to previous courses in which a more traditional teaching method was carried out. In addition, mostly positive feedback was received from the students that took the classes regarding the TBL approach. More than 81% of them think that this methodology is suitable and effective for teaching most chemical engineering concepts and expressed satisfaction toward this approach versus a classic one. On the other hand, many students feel that this technique would reduce the absenteeism because they are enjoying themselves even while learning commonly considered overwhelming chemical engineering concepts. The most frequently used adjectives by the students when describing this technique are “pleasant” and “entertaining”. Furthermore, the experience has encouraged some students to collaborate in the development of this teaching approach for other classes.

La motivación y las emociones son aspectos clave en el ámbito escolar debido a su clara relación con el rendimiento académico, y los programas de intervención se proponen como un recurso adecuado para contribuir a su mejora y ajuste. Sin embargo, seleccionar el programa adecuado y con garantías de calidad no siempre es una tarea sencilla. Una manera de obtener cierta garantía es partir de aquellos programas de intervención que no solo han sido evaluados, sino de los que además se dispone de evidencias de que dicha evaluación se ha realizado de forma correcta. El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar los procesos y resultados de evaluación de diferentes programas de educación emocional y de motivación dirigidos a estudiantes de Secundaria y/o adolescentes a partir de los resultados de sus evaluaciones. Para ello, se realiza una aproximación teórica a la evaluación y metaevaluación de programas y se lleva a cabo una revisión de la literatura académica de la que se seleccionan y comparan evaluaciones de programas de educación emocional y motivación. Finalmente, se realiza una metaevaluación mediante la aplicación de estándares. Los resultados muestran que las evaluaciones se realizan, generalmente, de forma interna y sumativa, centrándose en los resultados de aplicación y no tanto en el proceso. Motivation is a key aspect in education due to its influence on academic performance, and intervention programs are a useful resource to contribute to its improvement. However, selecting the right programme with quality guarantees is not always a simple task. One way to have a certain guarantee is by choosing those programs that have not only been evaluated, but for which there is also evidence that the evaluation has been performed correctly The present work aims to analyse the evaluation processes and results of different motivational intervention programs addressed to Secondary students from the results of their evaluation results. In order to achieve this goal, a theoretical approach to program evaluation and meta-evaluation is made and a review of the academic literature from which evaluations of motivational intervention programs are selected and compared. Finally, a meta-evaluation is performed through the application of standards. The results show that evaluations are generally conducted internally and in a summative manner, focusing on the results of implementation rather than on the process.

Given the closure of schools due to the global confinement resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, family-school cooperation has become a priority in most educational stages, but especially in Early Childhood Education and Care. This research analysed how parents dealt with this new situation, as well as the way in which family-school cooperation was established. Two online questionnaires were developed by the researchers. Respondents included 1266 families with children between the ages of infancy and six years, as well as 1235 early childhood education teachers from all regions of Spain. Results show that family-school cooperation is associated with several family and school characteristics and that families have neither the tools to face this new situation, nor the time to educate their children at home. This, together with the fact that some households do not have Internet access, makes family-school cooperation a challenging matter, especially in times of pandemic.

La situación generada por el COVID-19 ha puesto de manifiesto que, en educación infantil, el modelo asistencial se ha quedado atrás frente al educativo. Con esta investigación se ha analizado, en la situación excepcional de confinamiento, tanto la manera de afrontar esta situación de cierre de las aulas desde los centros educativos como las respuestas proporcionadas por las familias, teniendo en cuenta la titularidad de los centros, el ciclo impartido (primer ciclo, segundo ciclo o ambos), el año de nacimiento de los menores o el número de hijos en los hogares. Para ello, se han elaborado ad hoc dos cuestionarios contestados durante los meses de abril y mayo por 1235 docentes de esta etapa de todas las Comunidades y Ciudades Autónomas de España y por 1266 familias de menores que cursan educación infantil. Los datos recogidos se han analizado mediante un examen exploratorio de las respuestas y el cálculo de los principales porcentajes asociados a las variables consideradas para, posteriormente, realizar un análisis inferencial de la información disponible, empleando la prueba H de Kruskal-Wallis para analizar los datos procedentes de las escalas Likert y la prueba Chi-cuadrado para el estudio de las variables categóricas. Los resultados muestran que existen diferencias estadísticamente significativas en el envío de tareas en función del ciclo y de la titularidad del centro, siendo los centros privados los que menos actividades han enviado. Asimismo, casi la mitad de las familias encuestadas señala que necesitan recibir más indicaciones, siendo aquellas cuyos hijos asisten a escuelas públicas las que más lo demandan. Es por esto por lo que se puede concluir que las máximas establecidas en la legislación vigente no se han cumplido en todos los casos.

Scientific literature has shown that teacher characteristics and skills are one of the main sources of variation in students’ academic performance. This potential that teachers have in improving the quality of the education system justifies the importance of identifying the teacher-related factors that are positively related to student learning. This study aims to contribute to this purpose by analysing the professional profile of a good secondary school teacher from the perspective of students, members of school management teams, and the teachers themselves. For this purpose, a qualitative research design was es- tablished based on an analysis of the views of the participants. Five focus groups were conducted with the participation of five members of school management teams, nine teachers and nine students.Through both the a priori and inductive coding of the content of these focus groups, the professional profile of a good teacher was identified. This profile was made up of three teaching skills and seven personal skills, specified in 79 actions. The integration of all the participants’ perspectives enabled the creation of a comprehensive proposal of an effective teacher by capturing the nuances provided by each individual perspective. Based on this, new research and actions can be designed that contribute to improving the quality of initial and in-service training for secondary school teachers.

The explanation of underachievement and the search for its associated factors have been of constant interest in educational research. In this regard, the number of variables that have been involved in its description and explanation has increased over the years, as has the number of studies at an international level on this topic. Although much research has focused on identifying the personal, family, and school aspects that exert the greatest influence on students’ low academic performance, the literature shows the need to study the differential effects of said variables according to the countries in which the studies are conducted. The objective of this article is therefore to analyse cross-national differences in the effect of personal, family, and school characteristics on students’ academic underachievement based on data derived from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018. Furthermore, it aims to identify the profile that characterises students with the lowest academic performance and to estimate the importance of the selected variables in explaining low achievement across countries. To reach these goals, the multivariate technique of decision trees through the binary CART (Classification and Regression Trees) algorithm was used, allowing the estimation of both a global model and nine specific models for each of the selected countries. The results show that, despite slight differences between the countries analysed, the variables that define the general profile of students with the lowest achievement and which have shown the strongest predictive capacity for low performance are mainly linked to the students themselves. These variables are followed in importance by family aspects, which present great differences between the territories that compose the sample. Finally, teacher and school variables have shown to have a low explanatory capacity in this study. It can therefore be concluded that, although personal characteristics continue to be those that best explain academic performance, a series of contextual variables, especially related to families, appear to influence academic achievement differentially and may even hide or cancel out certain personal characteristics.

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<p style="text-align: justify;">Academic failure and school dropout, or early school leaving, are two of the situations that most concern countries and educational institutions worldwide, because of their prevalence and also their economic and social implications. Despite this prominent role that academic failure and school dropout have in societies, there seems to be no consensus on the literature on their conceptualization, definition, and relationship. Moreover, it is frequent to observe how both concepts are confused or overlap in the scientific literature and how many authors avoid defining these constructs, using them indistinctly. Therefore, this work analyses whether educational research considers them as two different concepts or if they are used indistinctly. For this purpose, 2,051 keywords from 450 articles were subjected to a systematic review and classified into the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) thesaurus´ descriptors. The results reveal statistically significant differences in the descriptors according to the type of paper to which they correspond (academic failure or dropout). Thus, academic failure is associated with sociocultural, personal, and academic factors, while dropout is linked to employment and educational trajectories. These differences evidence that, although academic failure and school dropout refer to closely related educational problems, there are remarkable differences between them and between the treatment given to each of them in the scientific literature. Therefore, they should be considered as two different concepts. For all this, keyword analysis has proved to be a relevant element for the study of the structure of knowledge, allowing to clearly establish the differences between the two closely related concepts.</p>