Abstract

Certain people are at risk for using alcohol or other drugs excessively and for developing problems with their use. Their susceptibility might arise from a variety of factors, including their genetic make-up, brain chemistry, family background, personality and other psychological variables, and environmental and sociocultural variables. Moreover, after substance use has become established, there are additional cognitive-motivational variables (e.g., substance-related attentional bias) that contribute to enacting behaviors consistent with the persons motivation to acquire and use the substance. People who are at such risk are likely to choose to use addictive substances even though doing so entails negative consequences. In the sense of complete freedom from being determined by causal factors, we believe that there is no such thing as free will, but defined as ability to make choices from among multiple options, even though the choices are ultimately governed by natural processes, addicted individuals are free to choose. Although they might appear unable to exercise this kind of free will in decisions about their substance use, addictive behaviors are ultimately always goal-directed and voluntary. Such goal pursuits manifest considerable flexibility. Even some severely addicted individuals can cease their use when the value of continuing the use abruptly declines or when the subjective cost of continuing the use is too great with respect to the incentives in other areas of their lives. Formal treatment strategies (e.g., contingency management, Systematic Motivational Counseling, cognitive training) can also be used to facilitate this reversal.

Abstract

The present article is about the presence of the tv in the society, in general, and its potential as an important agent, such as the family and the school, on the children’s and young people’s development and education. Nowadays we live in a complex world of images with sound, the most of them transmitted by the tv, the cinema and the internet. The infantile universe is full of those images. This way we structured this article in four parts, refering some of the contents related with this subject. The first part describes the presence of the television in the children's daylife and their relationship with the magic box, even the identification that they make with its favourites characters, in order to understand the space that the TV occupies in their lives. The second part presents the different messages transmitted by the television. It is important to analyze the main risks and advantages of television, that is to say, in spite of some programs show bad values, foment the excessive consumption, expose the children to an atmosphere of violence and pornography, also entertains, accompanies, educates, informs, favours the access to the culture and allows to unite the family around a program. At last the third part, this one outlines the necessity to put the tele as a curricular resource in the school, to teaches the students how to analyze, how to criticize and to think about the texts and the news of the world today. The television, considered a powerful tool, is decisive in the communication, such in the formation of values and ideas as in the culture transmission. The function of the school is not to remain far from this factor, but to try to meditate, to understand and to decide its impact, in a better way, on the development of the children and youngs. As conclusion we can add that we’ve tried to aim some strategies that educators and parents will be able to work, united to the children and the youngs, so they could have a new look of the Tv’s world and that they could know how to make their own selection and how to have a critical attitude before the watched product.

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relationship between motivation and time estimates spent on internet based tasks, and its eventual incidence in informational and dialogical activities. The sample consisted of 120 students from 7 schools (“liceos”) in Chile, whose average age was 15. The participants had to carry out two different tasks on the Internet: first, a vertical communication activity (Google search); second, a horizontal communication activity (messaging). In each task, the perceived elapsed time and the level of interest were evaluated. When comparing the vertical and the horizontal communication activities, the results show a significantly higher interest and significantly lower estimated time in the horizontal communication task (chatting). From these results, a projection of the informational and educational uses of the internet can be made.

Abstract

 In many cases, users of online applications and services consciously and willingly hand over personal data to obtain a better service or a price reduction. This action assumes –nominally – that they behaved rationally, estimating and comparing benefits and costs (the potential use of their data and to whom it might be given). People have different perceptions about the benefits that result from handing over personal data. This article investigates the factors that influence this differing perception and concludes that those who are addicted to the internet, whose confidence has not been damaged in the past, with less knowledge, and who are more active on the internet are prone to perceive a greater benefit.

Abstract

In many cases, users of online applications and services consciously and willingly hand over personal data to obtain a better service or a price reduction. This action assumes –nominally – that they behaved rationally, estimating and comparing benefits and costs (the potential use of their data and to whom it might be given). People have different perceptions about the benefits that result from handing over personal data. This article investigates the factors that influence this differing perception and concludes that those who are addicted to the internet, whose confidence has not been damaged in the past, with less knowledge, and who are more active on the internet are prone to perceive a greater benefit.

Abstract

In this work we aim to gain a better understanding of the nature of plagiarism in Higher Education. We analyse a set of different activities in an online university-level course, aiming to understand which tasks lead more naturally to plagiarism. This analysis concludes that the activities that have a lower rate of plagiarism are activities that encourage involvement, originality and creativity. Subsequently, we reformulate the task that presented the highest rate of plagiarism, taking into account the conclusions of the previous analysis and trying to maintain their relative effort and educational impact. We then compare the newly designed activities with their original counterparts to measure whether there is a significant reduction in plagiarism. The results are clear and show a significant drop in the percentages of plagiarism. In addition, we performed an additional validation to ensure that both groups were, in fact comparable. We found that both groups displayed similar plagiarism attitudes in other exercises that were not reformulated. This study shows that it is possible to reduce the incidence of plagiarism by designing activities in such a way that prompts students to propose their own ideas using information available on the Internet as a vehicle for their solutions rather than as solutions in themselves.

Abstract

Los cursos MOOC se han entendido como la última evolución del aprendizaje en red, y desde su nacimiento en 2008 se han puesto en práctica en un buen número de universidades. A pesar del éxito social de estas propuestas, tanto el diseño del aprendizaje como la eficacia de sus resultados han sido puestos en duda. Actualmente la mayoría de las publicaciones se centran más en discutir su potencial para ofrecer educación de calidad en todo el mundo a gran escala que en la medición rigurosa de los resultados de aprendizaje. El presente trabajo muestra los resultados de una investigación centrada en el diseño pedagógico de un curso MOOC cooperativo y su influencia en la motivación y en los resultados académicos obtenidos. El diseño se ha validado a través de un estudio Delphi y la variable «motivación» se ha controlado a través de un instrumento estandarizado (Instructional Materials Motivation Survey, IMMS). El rendimiento académico se ha evaluado a través de evidencias de aprendizaje. Se defiende que el diseño, definido por una utilización intensiva de redes sociales y realización de actividades por parte de los estudiantes en sus Entornos Personales de Aprendizaje, influye en el rendimiento, y es la satisfacción con la percepción del diseño la variable que media en dicha relación. Los resultados académicos obtenidos y la motivación de los estudiantes avalan la utilización de cursos MOOC cooperativos en estudios universitarios.