Efficacy of a Contextualized Measurement of Life Satisfaction: A Pilot Study on the Assessment of Progress in Eating Disorder Therapy.

Eating disorders strongly affect psychological distress and its perception. However, most of the existing instruments for assessing life satisfaction rely on a point-estimation method that is biased due to the circumstantial conditions around the time of assessment. The main goal of this study was to apply a different kind of instrument-the Life Satisfaction Chart-that situates the current state of life satisfaction in the context of personal history and describes the life stages through a graph. The assessment was applied to a sample of 29 adolescent women (average age of 17.88) who were enrolled in a clinical program to treat their eating disorders. The results showed that their estimation of their current life satisfaction was almost identical to the estimation provided by a therapist for those who were in therapy phases 1, 2, and 3 (of four), while patients' point-estimation satisfaction showed statistically significant differences when compared with the situated estimations. In therapy phase 4, significant discrepancies were observed between the therapist's perception and the patients' perception, because the therapist focused only on eating disorder recovery, whilst the patients evaluated their lives under almost-normal conditions, taking into account further dimensions. The Life Satisfaction Chart is a new approach to life-satisfaction measurement that showed promising measurement and therapeutical properties.

Assessment of Implicit Interests through an Unobtrusive Computer Task. Their Relations with Career Decision, Anxiety, and Personality Traits.

Adolescence is a period where youngsters still do not know much about themselves. That makes some decisions, like those concerning vocational elections, a complicated issue that has important consequences for their life. The main goal of this piece of research is to measure implicit interests using a situated, unobtrusive computer tool (PrUnAs: Preferences Unobtrusive Assessment) as well as its connection with anxiety and personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion, self-efficacy, optimism, consciousness, and openness. SAMPLE: 304 16-year-old adolescents enrolled in the last course of compulsory education. INSTRUMENTS: Computer programs were used to measure implicit interests, career preferences, and to self-descript personality traits; finally, the paper-and-pencil test Stai was applied to measure anxiety. RESULTS: Concordance between implicit interests and explicit choices was less than 50%. The software developed for assessing implicit interests not only proved to be an efficient tool to make them arise but also a good predictor of anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Implicit interests and explicit elections are not the same. The approach from implicit preferences is an important shift in the approximation to vocational guiding and to reduce youngsters' indecision level. Beyond vocational choice, this information may improve the short- and long-term quality of life and mental health.

Percepciones de profesores y alumnos de E.S.O. sobre la disciplina en el aula / Secondary education teachers' and students' perceptions about classroom discipline

La manera cómo perciben y representan los problemas de disciplina profesores y alumnos es una de las claves que explica lo que es en realidad y cómo se vive la disciplina en el aula. Nuestro estudio se propone analizar las discordancias entre las percepciones declaradas por profesores y alumnos sobre cuáles son y cómo se tratan los conflictos de disciplina en el aula. Con este propósito se han recogido datos de una muestra de 1.389 estudiantes y sus 170 docentes de E.S.O. sobre sus respectivas percepciones acerca del tema. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto diferencias significativas, aunque moderadas, en la percepción de comportamientos castigados. Pero dichas diferencias se acentúan al considerar el tipo de intervención realizada por los profesores (AU)

The way discipline problems are perceived and represented by teachers and students is, probably, one of the main cues to explain what classroom discipline is and how it is felt by them. This study focuses on the discrepancies in the perceptions of both teachers and students about which are the main behavioural problems in the classroom and how teachers cope with them. With that aim, data has been collected from a sample of 1,389 students and 170 teachers, from E.S.O. level (secondary obligatory education: ages 12 to 16). A questionnaire has been administrated to asses their perceptions about the topic. Results show significant differences, although of moderate intensity, in the behaviours that are perceived to be punished. But these differences become quite intense when considering the kind of response provided by teachers (AU)