No abstract

In a historical revision of the achievement goal construct, Elliot (2005) recognized that there is little consensus on whether the term “goal” in “achievement goal orientations” (GO) is best represented as an “aim”, as an overarching orientation encompassing several “aims”, or as a combination of aims and other processes -self-regulation, etc.-. Elliot pointed also that goal theory research provides evidence for different models of GO. As there were no consensus on these issues, we decided to get evidence about the nature and structure of GO, about the role of gender differences in the configuration of such structure, and about relations between GO, expectancies, volitional processes and achievement. A total of 382 university students from different faculties of two public universities of Madrid (Spain) that voluntarily accepted to fill in a questionnaire that assessed different goals, expectancies and self-regulatory processes participated in the study. Scales reliability, confirmatory factor analyses, multiple-group analyses, and correlation and regression analyses were carried out. Results support the trichotomous model of GO, the consideration of GO as a combination of aims and other psychological processes, showed some gender differences and favour the adoption of a multiple goal perspective for explaining students' motivation.

Children and adolescents who are congenitally and adventitiously blind were divided into four age groups and introduced to two different unfamiliar environments (small and large) in a maximum of four trials. Spatial representation was assessed through the subjects’ construction of models and estimates of distance. It was found that age is the most important factor, while learning seems to play a subordinate role in the development of spatial representation of blind people.

This study examined how readers who are blind perceive and retrieve written information and investigated the strategies they used to compensate for their limitations. It found that expert braille readers are not limited to the isolated identification of individual braille characters that are later integrated, but can integrate greater quantities of written information, which indicates that braille reading is a more dynamic and integrated process than has previously been thought.

Desde estos enfoques, los pocos estudios existentes en la literatura son meramente descriptivos, centrándose en el momento de aparición de los elementos motivacionales y su semejanza a los de los adultos. Este artículo, partiendo de algunas extrapolaciones teóricas de la perspectiva socio-histórica vygotskiana al ámbito de la motivación académica, presenta un estudio longitudinal mediante observación natural de niños Educación Infantil y Primaria, en el que se analiza la aparición y evolución del habla privada o egocéntrica con contenido motivacional. Los resultados muestran diferencias en la frecuencia de aparición de cada elemento motivacional en función de la edad, apareciendo, desde el inicio de la escolaridad, algunos elementos que configuran la motivación por el aprendizaje en sus primeras fases de desarrollo, mientras que los elementos más ligados a patrones de motivación por el lucimiento presentan una aparición más tardía en el desarrollo.