Background There is little research on differences in Emotional Intelligence (EI) ability at different stages of adult development. The few published studies tend not to use older adult samples. Previous studies on EI ability and age have shown contradictory results. Our main objective was to evaluate results in EI ability across different stages of adult development, taking into account gender, depressive symptoms, and educational level. Methods We interviewed 166 participants (108 women), 66 of whom were aged 18–30 years, 53 aged 31–60 years, and 40 aged 61–76 years. All were either working or enrolled in colleges at the time of the study. The assessment tools used were the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), a test that assesses performance-based EI, and the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale, a tool to evaluate depressive symptoms. Results Young people, women, and participants with a higher educational level achieved higher scores on the MSCEIT. Additionally, depressive symptomatology was only partially associated with the MSCEIT (i.e., with the using emotions branch). However, a subsequent joint analysis of the independent effects of variables age, gender, educational level, and depressive symptomatology and their interactions on MSCEIT total suggests that only educational level and depressive symptomatology were associated with EI ability, with the direct relationship between age and gender with MSCEIT disappearing. Additionally, our study indicated an interaction effect between age and depressive symptoms, showing that participants in age cohorts 18–30 and 31–60 and without depressive symptoms have a higher EI ability. Discussion Our study suggests that the direct effects of age and gender on EI ability across adult development, using a wide age range, can change or disappear when effects of educational level and depressive symptomatology, and their interactions, are controlled for. Our results also suggest that EI ability is a protective factor against depression in some age cohorts. This novel aspect of our study does not appear in the previous literature. However, prospective studies are needed to verify these findings and examine whether other psychological variables could determine the relations between age, gender and EI ability across adult development.

Resumen: La alfabetización visual es esencial para la formación docente en ciencias, especialmente en anatomía humana, cuya enseñanza y aprendizaje están apoyados en el uso de gráficos y requiere la adquisición de una visión espacial del cuerpo humano. Sin embargo, ha sido poco estudiada en maestros de Primaria y no existen investigaciones que evalúen la efectividad de métodos que permitan mejorarla. El presente trabajo, llevado a cabo con 194 maestros en su último año de formación, además de hacer un diagnóstico inicial de su nivel de alfabetización visual en anatomía humana, contrasta el impacto de la visualización frente a la realización de maquetas para mejorarla. Para ello se realizó un pretest y un postest consistentes en la representación de una sección transversal humana. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto una limitada alfabetización visual inicial vinculada a la producción de este tipo de secciones, y evidencian un mayor aprendizaje asociado a la realización de maquetas. Palabras clave: Didáctica de la biología; Alfabetización visual; Formación docente; Representaciones anatómicas; Modelos anatómicos. Comparison between the creation of models and visualization to enhance visual literacy in human anatomy in preservice teachers.

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In this paper we have studied the student's and the teacher's misconceptions and attitudes about severa1 animals. The results show that students and teachers use a reasoning that divides the animals into categories and often in double classes: bad animalsJgood animals, strong animalsJweak animals, carnivores/herbivores, and others. We analyze the influence of fables and children tales on these misconceptions, the epistemological component of these ideas and the possible real obstacle. The implications in order to overcome the obstacle are discussed and the strategies wich may be more effective are suggested.