Situaciones y respuestas de ansiedad escolar más temidas en el alumnado chileno de educación secundaria

From the interactive-three-dimensional approach, school anxiety can be explained as a cognitive, psychophysiological or behavioral response, expressed in high pressure school situations such as school failure, school violence or academic and social evaluation. The purpose of this study was to analyze the most feared responses and school situations in a sample of Chilean Secondary Education students, according to gender. The sample was comprised of 4156 adolescents, 1950 boys and 2206 girls (46.9% and 53.1%, respectively) with ages between 13 and 18 years (M = 15.31, SD = 1.42). To evaluate the School Anxiety Inventory (IAES), which measures anxiety responses (cognitive, psychophysiological and behavioral), situations that generate anxiety (school failure and punishment, aggression, school and social evaluation) and a total score. The data were analyzed following a cross-sectional design and applying t tests to establish the differences and tests d to estimate the magnitude of said differences. The results indicate that girls present higher levels of school anxiety than boys in all the factors studied and in the total score, with higher scores in cognitive responses, especially in the item "I think I should have worked more", as well as also in situations related to school failure, mainly in the "if I repeat course" item. These results support those obtained in previous research and allow improving the understanding of situations that limit the normal academic, personal and social development of Chilean students.Desde el enfoque interactivo-tridimensional, la ansiedad escolar puede explicarse como una respuesta de tipo cognitiva, psicofisiológica o conductual, expresada ante situaciones escolares de gran presión como el fracaso escolar, la violencia escolar o la evaluación académica y social. El propósito de este estudio fue analizar las respuestas y situaciones escolares más temidas en una muestra de estudiantes chilenos de Educación Secundaria, en función del género. La muestra estuvo comprendida por 4156 adolescentes, 1950 chicos y 2206 chicas (46.9% y 53.1%, respectivamente) con edades entre los 13 y los 18 años (M = 15.31; DE = 1.42). Para evaluar se utilizó el Inventario de Ansiedad Escolar (IAES), que mide respuestas de ansiedad (cognitiva, psicofisiológica y conductual), situaciones que generan ansiedad (fracaso y castigo escolar, agresión, evaluación escolar y social) y una puntuación total. Los datos fueron analizados siguiendo un diseño de corte transversal y aplicando pruebas t para establecer las diferencias y pruebas d para estimar la magnitud de dichas diferencias. Los resultados indican que las chicas presentan mayores niveles de ansiedad escolar que los chicos en todos los factores estudiados y en la puntuación total, siendo superiores las puntuaciones en las respuestas cognitivas, especialmente en el ítem “creo que debería haber trabajado más”, así como también en las situaciones relacionadas con el fracaso escolar, principalmente, en el ítem “si repito curso”. Estos resultados apoyan los obtenidos en investigaciones previas y permiten mejorar la comprensión de las situaciones que limitan el normal desarrollo académico, personal y social del alumnado chileno

Motivational profiles as a combination of academic goals in higher education

The aim of the current study was to obtain information from students in higher education on different motivational profiles that resulted from the combination of three academic goals (i.e. learning goals (LG), performance-approach goals and performance-avoidance goals). Moreover, information related to the relevance of each goal within each motivational profile was explored to explain conditions closely related to the academic engagement. The sample consisted of 2556 students from five Spanish universities. Motivational profiles were obtained by using cluster analysis followed by a relevance analysis of each goal within each motivational profile. The results support the hypothesis concerning motivational profiles, and further suggest for motivational profiles with a predominance of LG to be more adaptive. According to our findings, high level of LG in one's motivational profile appear to be a powerful protective factor in maintaining high interest in academic work, as well as high control beliefs and self-efficacy.This work was supported by a grant awarded to the first author by the Conselleria de Economia e Industria (Xunta de Galicia) [Council of Economics and Industry of Galicia] (10 PXIB 106 293 PR) and a grant awarded to the second author by the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia de Espana [Science and Education Ministry of Spain] (EDU2010-16231).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents: Factorial invariance and latent mean differences across gender and age in Spanish adolescents

Little is known about the factorial invariance across gender and age for self-report measures of social anxiety in adolescence. This study examined the factorial invariance and latent mean differences of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) across gender and age groups in 1570 Spanish adolescents (54% girls), ranging in age from 14 to 17 years. Equality of factor structures was compared using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses. Measurement invariance for the correlated three-factor model of the SAS-A was found across gender and age samples. Analyses of latent mean differences revealed that girls exhibited higher means than boys on two SAS-A subscales, Fear of Negative Evaluation and Social Avoidance and Distress-New (SAD-New). In addition, on the SAD-New subscale, the structured means significantly diminished from 14-year olds to 16- and 17-year olds and from 15-year olds to 17-year olds. Findings are discussed in terms of the use of the SAS-A with Spanish adolescents