Prospective community study of family stress and anxiety in (pre)adolescents: the TRAILS study

For prevention of anxiety in children and adolescents, it is important to know whether family stress is a predictor of anxiety. We studied this in 1,875 adolescents from the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS) who were followed up for 2 years, from age 10–12 to 12–14 years. Adolescents reported anxiety and depression symptoms at both assessments, and parents reported family stress (family dysfunction and parenting stress) at the first assessment. Family dysfunction was not associated with future anxiety, whereas high parenting stress was. Furthermore, family dysfunction was more strongly associated with anxiety than with depression, whereas parenting stress was more strongly associated with depression. Level of parental psychopathology explained part of the association of family stress with anxiety. The associations were modest and the understanding of the origins of adolescents’ anxiety will require identifying other factors than family stress that account for more of the variance

Estratégias de aprendizagem e desempenho acadêmico: evidências de validade

O objetivo deste estudo foi verificar a validade fatorial de uma escala de estratégias de aprendizagem, bem como explorar sua validade concorrente em relação ao desempenho acadêmico de estudantes. Participaram 815 crianças do Ensino Fundamental de escolas públicas e privadas dos Estados de São Paulo e Minas Gerais. A Escala de Estratégias de Aprendizagem foi aplicada coletivamente. Para a operacionalização dos objetivos, recorreu-se à análise fatorial exploratória. Os alphas de Cronbach do instrumento e das três subescalas revelaram índices aceitáveis de consistência interna. A análise de variância apontou diferenças estatisticamente significativas entre o desempenho acadêmico e a pontuação na escala. Os dados foram discutidos em termos de suas possíveis implicações para a área de avaliação psicoeducacional

Adaptation of the Students' Motivation Towards Science Learning (SMTSL) questionnaire in the Greek language

The present study aimed at adapting in the Greek language the Students' Motivation Towards Science Learning (SMTSL) questionnaire developed by Tuan, Chin, and Shieh (INT J SCI EDUC 27(6): 639-654, 2005a) into a different cultural context, a different age group, that is, in university students and with a focus on physics learning. Three hundred and fifty Greek student teachers participated in the study. The original instrument consisted of 35 items allocated in six scales: self-efficacy, use of active learning strategies, science learning value, performance goals, achievement goals, and learning environment stimulation. The instrument's internal consistency was acceptable and comparable to previous studies' reports. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied on the data in order to test an a priori hypothesis regarding the SMTSL's factorial structure based on previous studies' findings. The results of the study showed that the six-factor conceptual model of students' motivation proposed by the SMTSL applies in this different cultural setting and in this group of university students with reference to physics learning. Along with the six distinct motivational constructs confirmed, students' motivational beliefs were also explained by a general motivational construct assumed to be at their basis. Suggestions for further improvement of the Greek version of the SMTSL are also discussed