The overall goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of two different types of intervention aimed at improving written argumentative synthesis by integrating conflicting information from different sources. The participants were 114 undergraduate psychology students. Although the aims of both modalities were the same, the intervention with each group was different. More specifically, both interventions combined the use of a graphical guide that included critical questions with collaborative practice in pairs, but one of them also included explicit instruction in which the processes involved in performing the task were modelled and explained. Before and after the interventions, the students in both intervention groups produced syntheses while working individually without the help of the guide. The degree of integration of conflicting information in the individual products, the number of arguments selected from the sources and the students' perceptions of the utility of the intervention were assessed. The results indicate that only students who received additional explicit instruction showed an improved ability to integrate conflicting information and increased the number of arguments they selected from the sources. Furthermore, it was found that students in that group tended to perceive the utility of the intervention more positively than those in the other group.

This study has the aim of evaluating the efficacy of an intervention programme in secondary education designed to improve the writing of argumentative syntheses from reading texts that present opposing views on an issue. The programme is based on teaching self-regulation strategies. In order to test its efficacy, it was compared to another intervention in which the same processes were taught but in a rather traditional fashion. In addition, we take into account the students' writing beliefs as a variable that could interact with the programme's effectiveness. Results show that both interventions were effective, except in the integration of arguments and counterarguments, where only students in the programme based on teaching self-regulation strategies improved. In addition, we found a differential impact of the programmes according to the writing beliefs.

Moral education and moral growth are very important topics, and have been so as much in the fields of moral psychology and moral education as in the policies of governments and international institutions over the past decades. These two topics are also central themes within the educational proposal of Philosophy for Children (P4C), as seen in theoretical reflection and in educational research. It is necessary to start from a more global approach to moral growth, focused on the development of capacities. Such abilities are to be understood as virtues or personality traits that enable us to achieve a full life, that is, to become good people. The transformation of classrooms into communities of philosophical inquiry, following the educational guidelines of P4C, can contribute to the achievement of this objective. Here we present the psychological and methodological underpinnings of an educational research project that we are applying to a small sample that includes two groups—experimental and control—in a typical classroom environment. We are administering tests at the beginning and the end of the application of a moral education model according to the basic principles of Philosophy for Children. The objective is to verify that our research design could be used to evaluate the contribution of this educational model to the students’ moral growth, understood as the consolidation of the students’ moral habits and competences.

El interés generado por la “educación positiva” ha crecido de forma exponencial en las últimas dos décadas. Presentado como un nuevo movimiento científico llamado a sustituir enfoques tradicionales o remediales en materia de intervención educativa, el argumento principal del movimiento es que la felicidad y la enseñanza de habilidades positivas son factores fundamentales para prevenir problemas de salud mental, mejorar el aprendizaje o promover el rendimiento escolar. En paralelo a este crecimiento, las críticas dirigidas a la educación positiva han sido también crecientes y numerosas, destacando no sólo aquellas procedentes de terceros, sino las procedentes desde el propio movimiento.  Todas estas críticas ponen en duda la solidez y la utilidad de la educación positiva. El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer una mirada panorámica e integradora de estas críticas con el fin de facilitar una mayor comprensión de los principales problemas y limitaciones del movimiento. Estos problemas se organizan en torno a dos bloques temáticos principales: científicos e ideológicos. Dentro de los déficits científicos, el trabajo destaca la ausencia de un marco teórico general y la falta de evidencia acumulada, las notables limitaciones conceptuales y metodológicas en torno a constructos principales y la moderada eficacia, así como la baja generalizabilidad de sus intervenciones clave.  Dentro del bloque ideológico, se abordan los principales sesgos y asunciones que subyacen el movimiento, tales como el marcado carácter individualista, descontextualizado y universalista del mismo. Para terminar, el artículo concluye con una breve reflexión en torno a la educación positiva y sus implicaciones en el ámbito de la educación.

Introduction. The aim of this study was to analyse the role of epistemological beliefs