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The aim of this study was to replicate and extend results of a previous trial that investigated the effectiveness of 2 peer-led eating disorders prevention interventions in reducing eating disorder risk factors in undergraduate women (C. B. Becker, L. M. Smith, & A. C. Ciao, 2006). To extend findings from the previous study by allowing for investigation of differential response, the authors randomly assigned a larger sample of both higher and lower risk sorority members (N ϭ 188; age M ϭ 18.64 years, range ϭ 18 -21; 20% minority) to either a cognitive dissonance (CD) or a media advocacy (MA) intervention under naturalistic conditions. Interventions were delivered by trained sorority peer leaders and consisted of two 2-hr group sessions. Participants completed questionnaires that assessed eating disorder risk factors at pretreatment, posttreatment, 7-week follow-up, and 8-month follow-up. Results indicate that both interventions reduced thin-ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, and bulimic pathology at 8 months, although higher and lower risk participants responded somewhat differently. Both CD and MA generally appeared effective for higher risk participants; only CD, however, appeared to benefit lower risk participants. Results further support the viability of using peer leaders in dissonance-based prevention.

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Background: Today, psychology benefits from widespread acknowledgement, being taken into account and used in a growing number of spheres of society. Nonetheless, not always does this profession follow such acknowledgment, which becomes a real employabilityproblem for psychologists who are looking for a job in Portugal. Moreover, in an ever more specialized and flexible world in what concerns professional identities and careers, the development of psychology as a profession demands the establishment of guidelinesand limits, besides an introspective attitude about the current psychological practice. Otherwise, psychology as a profession risks losing its identity, shrinking with the pressure that is imposed on it by its different specialties and areas of action.Goals: We characterized the perceptions of Portuguese psychologists about the exclusive goal of psychological intervention, the tasks that are exclusively performed by psychologists and, also, the tasks that are performed by psychologists but which may also be performedby other professionals who are not psychologists. This analysis aimed to reveal if psychologists share a common and clear standing on this matter.Methods: We used a three open-answer question questionnaire, which was specifically designed for this study. Data analysis was performed using thematic categorical content analysis.Results: Our results stress that psychologists lack agreement concerning the three questions under study, which created a significant number of subcategories. Furthermore, we found answers that are clearly incorrect regarding these three issues, as well as a lack ofresponse from a few participants.Discussion: We discuss the potential implications of the results for psychologists’ professional practice, as well as for the construction of a solid identity that may promote the general public’s trust in psychologists. Also, we reflect on the need to define a single andexclusive goal for psychological intervention, one that is able to integrate the diversity of interventions in the field of psychology.

Introductory programming courses entail students' high failure and dropout rates. In an effort to tackle this problem, we carried out a qualitative study aiming to shed some light on the programming phase that is most challenging for students, in order to elicit the specific difficulties they experience while learning to program. In doing so, distinctive cognitive abilities, differentiating subjects in terms of the way they handle programming tasks, were detected. Such aptitudes are represented in three groups of students: those who learn easily, those who never seem to fully grasp what programming requires despite true effort, and those who experience a sudden insight, making them leap from a point were they had difficulties to another where they overcome them. By interviewing teachers and students, abstraction and sequencing elaboration were found to be the two core skills for programming. These results impelled us to consider the mental models' approach, concluding that there are very specific cognitive functions that are more favorable to learn programming and that are fostered by more adequate schemas of representing reality. Some conclusions involving Problem-based learning as a fit teaching methodology to overcome students' difficulties are also presented.