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Moral pride has been found to be a positive component of moral life. Nevertheless, this emotion has been the object of little attention and hardly any studies focus on gender differences in this regard. Is this emotion more intense in girls than in boys? Five studies on "authentic" moral pride, with sample groups in different age ranges (two with children and the other three with adolescents) and using different measures (moral pride scales and vignettes), were carried out to answer this question. When significant (Study 5, with adolescents) or marginally significant (Study 2, with children, and Study 3, with adolescents) differences were observed, they were always in favor of girls, but were fairly small. In the discussion, these results are interpreted in light of the feeling rules about pride in general and a series of guidelines are suggested for children's education. more...

The debate on the unidimensionality versus multidimensionality of students' ratings of teaching performance, and the relationship of this dilemma to summative and formative uses of these instruments is reviewed, with special attention to the implications of their development and application in the Spanish university system. A comprehensive theoretical framework, stressing the relation between effective teaching theory and the expected construct of teaching performance in students' view, is advanced. The structure of teaching competencies is analysed by means of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and similarity structure analysis (SSA) in two ratings forms, of 13 and 34 items. The forms were applied to large student samples from two Spanish universities, rating the performance of individual teachers. CFA and SSA show a common latent structure in the two samples, and support the conceptual distinction between aspects of teaching competence. The results suggest that the structure of the students' ratings can be interpreted as multidimensional as much as unidimensional. The reason for this apparent paradox is that some specific dimensions are more central ( versus peripheral) in the construct of teaching skills. This structure is consistent with the conceptual framework, and would explain the ambiguity between unidimensional and multidimensional solutions of CFA outcomes. The implications of these results for the orientation of future research on the dimensionality of students' ratings and for their application in formative and summative evaluation of teaching are discussed. more...

During the 1990s, Spain experienced a phenomenon that is slightly unusual in educational systems: the coexistence of two secondary education models and one single tertiary education model. The overall purpose of this article has been to study the possible differences in the academic performance of students in university education in terms of the model followed in secondary education. We carried out a comparative monitoring of various cohorts of students in the Universities of Barcelona, Oviedo, the Basque Country, Salamanca and Zaragoza (Spain). These institutions are located in regions of differing size and nature, and are representative of the Spanish university system as a whole. In all, we analysed the academic performance of nearly 150,000 university students. The main conclusion we reached is that there are no differences in student academic performance at university in terms of the secondary education system followed. more...

Background: Has been described the loss of smell and taste as onset symptoms in SARS-CoV-2. The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence in Spain., Methods: Prospective study of COVID-19 confirmed patients through RT-PCR in Spain. Patients completed olfactory and gustatory questionnaires., Results: A total of 1043 patients with mild COVID-19 disease. The mean age was 39±12 years. 826 patients (79.2%) described smell disorder, 662 (63.4%) as a total loss and 164 (15.7%) partial. 718 patients (68.8%) noticed some grade of taste dysfunction. There was a significant association between both disorders (p<.001). The olfactory dysfunction was the first symptom in 17.1%. The sQOD-NS scores were significantly lower in patients with a total loss compare to normosmic or hyposmic individuals (p=.001). Female were significantly more affected by olfactory and gustatory dysfunctions (p<.001). The early olfactory recover in 462 clinically cured patients was 315 (68.2%), during the first 4 weeks., Conclusion: The sudden onset smell and/or taste dysfunction should be considered highly suspicious for COVID-19 infection., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.) more...