Students who are able to maintain attention present a better performance in school activities. In the school setting, mindfulness has shown to be a relevant technique for the improvement of the students' attention. This work describes the integration of a computational agent into an intelligent tutoring system that is responsible for guiding a mindfulness practice that is adapted to the students' mood and previous experience in meditation. We have conducted an experiment with a duration of 7 weeks, counting with 41 students from the 7th grade. The results of this experiment, obtained through the application of an attention scale, showed that the practice of mindfulness in a guided and personalized way improves students' attention. However, possibly due to the duration of the experiment, we haven't found statistically significant evidence of a positive impact on students' learning.

ResumoEsta pesquisa teve como objetivo construir uma escala contextual de depressão em idosos baseando-se na importância das intervenções primárias em saúde. Concebeu-se uma versão inicial do instrumento com vinte e sete itens para depressão geriátrica, que foram preenchidos pelo público idoso. A amostra foi constituída por 95 idosos, com idade entre 60 e 83 anos, sendo 22 homens e 73 mulheres. O instrumento construído foi aplicado junto à Escala de Depressão Geriátrica de Yesavage e a Overall Life Satisfaction. Após análises de Curva ROC, quinze itens foram considerados satisfatórios a partir da correlação com o construto de depressão geriátrica e validade discriminante, aferida entre a população com e sem sintomas depressivos. Esses itens passaram pela análise fatorial exploratória, encontrando-se uma solução com quatro fatores e 54% de variância explicada. O instrumento final apresentou Alpha de Cronbach no valor de 0,77. Devido a algumas limitações técnicas, sugere-se a continuação do estudo. Palavras chave: depressão, idosos, escala. Studies for construction and psychometric properties of the contextual scale of depression in elderly AbstractThis research aimed to build a contextual scale of depression in the elderly, accordingly with the importance of primary interventions in healthcare. A version of the instrument was developed with twenty seven risk factors for geriatric depression that were met by the elderly population. The study sample consisted of 95 elderly subjects, 22 men and 73 women, from 60 to 83 years old. The developed instrument was applied amongst the Yesavage's Geriatric Depression Scale and Overall Life Satisfaction. After statistical analysis, fifteen items were considered satisfactory accordingly with the correlation with the construct of geriatric depression and discriminant validity, measured amongst the population with and without depressive symptoms. These items went through an exploratory factorial analysis, and a solution was found within four factors and 54% explained variance. The final instrument presented Cronbach's Alpha in the value of 0,77. Due to some technical limitations, the development of the study is suggested.

In most Intelligent Tutoring Systems, the help messages (hints) are not very clear for students as they are only presented textually and have little connection with the task elements. This can lead to students' undesired behaviors, like gaming the system, associated with low performance. In this paper, the authors aim at evaluating if the gestures of an animated pedagogical agent to explain hints related to equation solving improves the students' understanding of these help messages. With this goal, they developed an animated pedagogical agent that uses gestures coupled with messages to explain hints in an algebra tutor. The authors performed a qualitative pilot study with four students to verify the impact of using gestures by the animated pedagogical agent on the comprehension of the hints, using two different versions of the system. The difference between these versions was the availability of gestures by the agent. The results showed that students understood the hints provided by the agent more correctly when they were coupled with agent's gesture. Furthermore, they also preferred using the tutor version with gestures.

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Abstract. Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) are powerful computing tools for supporting learning, since they offer customized assistance. However, in most ITSs, the text hints presented by the tutor when student is stuck are not very clear, because they have little connection with the system's visual elements. In this paper, we evaluate if the use of gestures by an APA for explaining hints about equation solving improves the student's understanding of the related abstract concepts. The results of a qualitative evaluation with 4 students demonstrated that students understand more correctly the hints and preferred to use the tutor version with the agent that employs gestures.Resumo. Sistemas Tutores Inteligentes (STIs) são poderosas ferramentas de apoioà aprendizagem, pois oferecem ensino personalizado. Entretanto, na maioria dos STIs, as dicas textuais não são muito claras para os aprendizes, pois estão pouco conectadas com os elementos visuais. Nesse artigo, foi verificado se o uso de gestos de um Agente Pedagógico Animado (APA) para explicar dicas relacionadasà resolução de equações em um STI melhora a compreensão dos estudantes dos conceitos abstratos envolvidos. Os resultados de uma avaliação qualitativa com 4 alunos mostraram que os alunos compreenderam melhor as dicas e preferiram usar a versão do tutor em que o agente emprega gestos. IntroduçãoUma das principais características dos Sistemas Tutores Inteligentes (STIs)é fornecer assistência personalizada aos aprendizes, de acordo com as informações inferidas sobre seu conhecimento e perfil e guardadas no modelo de aluno. Essa assistência se dá basicamente pela correção dos passos de um exercício e também pelo fornecimento de dicas quando o aluno não souber como prosseguir na resolução.Existem questões de design muito importantes na implementação desse mecanismo de dicas. Deve-se determinar se as dicas serão exibidas quando solicitadas ou quando o STI detectar adivinhações; estabelecer em que tipo de passo deverá aparecer e como as dicas poderão maximizar a experiência e permitir ao aluno resolver o problema [Vanlehn 2006]. Dessa forma, para desenvolver um mecanismo de feedback, não são necessários apenas conhecimentos técnicos sobre tratamento de mensagens. A forma como as informações são apresentadas, o conteúdo a ser passado, e o momento em que cada mensagemé exibida devem ser cuidadosamente estudados.

Introduction Depression in aging may lead to loss of autonomy and worsening of comorbidities. Understanding how positive attributes contribute to healthier and happier aging has been one of the purposes of Positive Psychology. However, the literature still lacks studies that evaluate how depression in the elderly is related to constructs considered positive. Objective The present study aimed comparing scores of constructs of spiritual well-being, social support, self-esteem, life satisfaction, affection, optimism, and hope in the elderly with minimal, mild, moderate, and severe depression and healthy controls in order to investigate possible indirect and mediated relationships between positive constructs and depression. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted with elderly, 62 of whom were diagnosed with different severity of Major Depression (DSM-V) (minimum, mild, moderate, and severe according to the Beck Depression Inventory — BDI) and 66 healthy controls matched by age, sex and schooling. The instruments used were adapted and validated versions of the Spirituality Self-Rating Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Medical Outcomes Social Scale of Support, the Life Satisfaction Scale, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, the Revised Life Orientation Test, and the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale. After comparing the means of scores between groups, an analysis of normalized partial association networks was performed to investigate the direct and mediated relationships between depression and other evaluated constructs. Results Scores of spiritual well-being, social support, self-esteem, life satisfaction, positive affect, optimism, negative affects, and hope differed significantly between the control group and the degrees of depression (p < 0.001). The analysis of normalized partial association networks has shown that the relations of depression with the constructs of life satisfaction, self-esteem, and social support are mediated, while the constructs of dispositional hope, positive affect, spiritual well-being, and optimism are indirectly related to depression. The social class was also positively related to depression. Conclusion Depression in different degrees is associated with a reduction in the scores of instruments that evaluate positive attributes. The constructs directly associated with depression are spiritual well-being, optimism, positive affect, and dispositional hope. The others had mediated relationship. These results may contribute to the planning of future interventions for the prevention of depression among the elderly.

In most Intelligent Tutoring Systems, the help messages (hints) are not very clear for students as they are only presented textually and have little connection with the task elements. This can lead to students' undesired behaviors, like gaming the system, associated with low performance. In this paper, the authors aim at evaluating if the gestures of an animated pedagogical agent to explain hints related to equation solving improves the students' understanding of these help messages. With this goal, they developed an animated pedagogical agent that uses gestures coupled with messages to explain hints in an algebra tutor. The authors performed a qualitative pilot study with four students to verify the impact of using gestures by the animated pedagogical agent on the comprehension of the hints, using two different versions of the system. The difference between these versions was the availability of gestures by the agent. The results showed that students understood the hints provided by the agent more correctly when they were coupled with agent's gesture. Furthermore, they also preferred using the tutor version with gestures.

Background Despite the availability of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in many countries, people living with HIV still experience difficulties with treatment. We propose a new smartphone mobile application to assist in adherence to ART. This study aimed to describe this new mobile application’s development (content construction and usability), feasibility testing (recruitment, retention rates [attendance], satisfaction) and primary perceived benefits. Methods Two consecutive studies were conducted. First, people living with HIV, health care workers and experts in information technology provided feedback to improve the content and usability of the app. After changes in the app were implemented according to the feedback, a second study was performed to assess the feasibility and perceived benefits. Effects on self-reported adherence and perceived well-being were also assessed. Results Scores of participants (N = 11) showed differences in adherence (effect size .43) and well-being (effect size .45) after using the app. However, the differences did not reach statistical significance. Observing scores individually, six out of 11 participants improved their overall adherence scores, and seven out of 11 participants improved their perceived well-being scores. Recruitment was 95%, and attendance at sessions was 62.5%. In general, the participants were satisfied with the intervention and viewed the app as an informative tool. Conclusion The results are promising and allow us to recommend further studies with the app.