This paper proposes a way to be a University and to work as a University based on a new paradigm that responds to the demands of the 21st century society. After a brief overview of the traditional university models –as a way to illustrate, diachronically, the state of the situation of universities up to the currently prevailing model– a paradigm that is still in process is proposed: the transition from uni-versity to multi-diversity, through the integration of knowledge, development of critical thinking, and democratization of knowledge in order to reach common good

This essay contrasts the decolonization proposal of the being and of knowledge with the imaginary in the public university and in “the quality assurance policies”, its purposes, and relation to production methods. The author states that developing distrust towards all forms of colonization of knowledge represent a “quality improvement” in higher education. The main findings refer to the need of discussing the risks within the “improvement” and homogenization processes in higher education having, as a relevant and inherent aspect, an epistemological detachment task as a decolonization key from the public university in Costa Rica.

This review article explores an issue of vital importance to higher education institutions, that is, social responsibility. The social responsibility approach is back on the table of the environmental crisis and sustainable development debates. This review article explains how higher education institutions, particularly in México, should have a permanent highly relevant qualitative-quantitative development to contextualize the demands of society. It refers to the experience of the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon in implementing social responsibility.

Since the academic performance of higher education students is one of the most outstanding and far-reaching quality indicators of the academic activity, a quantitative research was conducted with a cohort of students from the University of Costa Rica, who were graduated or in the last years of their study program. A questionnaire was applied to these students in a personalized way. The study refers to the factors associated to academic performance from the socioeconomic perspective. The general objective was to analyze the factors associated to the academic performance of those students with the highest scholarship category because of their socio-economic situation, and students who did not request a scholarship because of the high/low demand of study programs at the University of Costa Rica. In this way, this research examines the problem of academic performance based on the socio-economic situation of students; this variable is very important for having an explanatory framework and providing input related to institutional policies in the area of public higher education. The study helped us to confirm that academic performance is a very complex multi-causal process that results from the interaction of multiple social, personal, academic-institutional factors, which may vary from one population to another. It also confirmed the existence of significant differences between linear variables: university satisfaction index, study habits index, index of university studies support, satisfaction rate about teachers, and socioeconomic situation; however, the study reported that there are no differences in the most important variables, including grade point average and admission score.

The research, on which this paper is based, is focused on learning evaluation. The topic selected was: “Operationalization of the University’s Pedagogic Model: An analysis of learning evaluation in four study programs of the Basic Education Division (DEB ) of the Center for Research and Teaching in Education (CIDE), at Universidad Nacional (UNA), Costa Rica”. This research includes an analysis of principles, strategies, and instruments used in the DEB to evaluate learning, with the purpose of contributing to generate evaluation methods that are more coherent with the Pedagogic Model. The information was collected through focal studies and questionnaires responded by teachers and students; the results reported a need of coordination throughout the entire University to fulfill UNA’s Pedagogic Model in terms of learning evaluation.

The purpose of this paper is to explain a) the historical, organizational, and legislative efforts that have contributed to the development of the Rehabilitation Counseling profession, b) how these efforts have contributed to the development of the professional identity of the rehabilitation counselors and c) how these events have contributed to the development of programs and the provision of quality services to people with special needs in Puerto Rico. Through oral history and literature review, it is possible to recognize the importance of the establishment of the federal legislation that promoted the first program of services to people with special needs in the United States and Puerto Rico. Those legislative mandates have also promoted the development of the Rehabilitation Counseling profession in the 20th Century and the development of professional organizations that have been determinant for the professionalization. This paper illustrates how at the end of 1960, in Puerto Rico, the creation of the Rehabilitation Counselors Association (Asociación de Consejeros en Rehabilitación, ACER by its Spanish acronym) was critical for the transformation of the profession and for the creation of the Puerto Rico’s Professional Society of Rehabilitation Counselors (Colegio Profesional de los Consejeros en Rehabilitación de Puerto Rico) at the beginning of the 21st Century. The study refers to the subsequent legislative efforts and the approval of new mandates as the amendment to the Puerto Rican Law of Mental Health made to include the Rehabilitation Counseling professionals among the professionals authorized to provide such services to people with mental health conditions in the country. After this theoretical historical review, it is concluded that although more marketing is required in terms of promoting the profession, this innovative profession has kept up-to-date over time, and that is a guarantee of the professional commitment to continue providing quality services to the persons with special needs.

This paper refers to the implementation of skills for life for an appropriate approach to men’s conflicts: a view from the new masculinities. The objective is to understand how the implementation of the skills for life approach can contribute to find alternatives that would promote prevention, as well as an appropriate approach to conflicts and conflict resolution by male population. It studies the main canons of masculinity, conflict resolution, and skills for life. It concludes calling attention to the implementation of skills for life in the strengthening of masculinities raising awareness of the importance of gender equality and equity as part of self-fulfillment.

Citizenship education is one of the most relevant topics in education. It comprises key aspects of the student’s personal and social behavior, and has significant points of convergence with other areas of the educational practice. Democracy is emphasized in this paper as an important feature of citizenship education, which requires special attention in terms of its socio-educational approach. Citizenship education may be studied from different scientific disciplines; in this case, the pedagogical approach is studied from the social perspective. The main objective of this paper is to discuss the theoretical basis on the subject matter of this project, through studies conducted in different contexts of the social sciences, underlining the importance of citizenship education today, regardless of the educational level in which it is taught. Analysis-synthesis and historicallogical methods were used to assess the background on the subject, obtaining results that could be developed in the educational institutions, in the future.

This article analyzes the pedagogical-didactic model for the teaching of Literature in Middle School in the Salvadoran Educational system. This is part of a larger work towards a PhD project. The main goal of this project is to characterize the historical process in the construction of this model through a critical analysis of canonization sources. The findings suggest that the teaching of Literature is performed based on a historicist, pro-European, male-based approach. Among the consequences of this type of education are progressive invisibility of women writers and the marginal status of the Salvadoran literature, despite the reformist discourse that postulates gender equality and strengthening of the national identity as central policies in the current educational project.

The main purpose of this project was to analyze how solidarity and empathy may be strengthened in 4-5-year old children through playful-creative workshops. The project was conducted in a private institution, in the province of Heredia, Costa Rica. This qualitative research was composed of three stages. First, a diagnostic stage helped us to identify the background of participants in relation to the values being studied; it included interviews and observation of participants. In the second stage, playful-creative workshops were put into practice to strength the values. The last stage was a comparative analysis of the information collected before and after carrying out the activities; it helped us to see if the children’s experience in relation to the values of empathy and solidarity was influenced by the workshops. One of the main conclusions is that by sharing and working with students through this methodology, children became more aware of the feelings of other people, and it improved their relations with other children.

The purpose of this research article is to generate awareness and self-analysis regarding the role played by adults with respect to violence in the media and the risk and protective factors associated with it, in order to propose a proactive approach that ensures children and adolescents a comprehensive development in environments that promote the right to peace. The research was descriptive and explanatory with a mixed approach (qualitative and quantitative). The study was conducted with 390 students (from 1st to 11th grades) in all provinces of Costa Rica, except Guanacaste. For data collection, two questionnaires with open and closed questions were designed and applied to the students. Based on the answers provided by the participants, the researchers prepared manuals of categories, tables, descriptions, and data analysis. This paper will contribute to find solutions and alternatives for those working directly or indirectly with children to be able to deal with violence in the media in a more assertive manner, giving children the opportunity of a good quality of life and a peaceful coexistence in the society.

This paper is based on the evaluation of the program Yo Aprendo y Emprendo [I learn and take action] conducted in Antofagasta, Chile. This program aims to contribute to the development of young students providing them with tools to embrace an entrepreneurial culture in their life and formation. An evaluation was conducted through Propensity Score Matching with a sample of 150 students from five secondary schools. In general, the evaluation suggests that the program has a positive effect on the scores obtained by the students in the creative imagination test and in the narrative creativity and graphical creativity subtests.

This work aimed to make a research and collect information related to the use of ICTs by teachers of language at the School of Literature and Language Sciences (ELCL) of the Universidad Nacional (Costa Rica) and how they incorporate technological tools into the curriculum of their classes. It also provides some ideas on methodological strategies that can be used in the classroom with the use of ICT. To achieve the main objectives of this work, a questionnaire was used to conduct the research from a descriptive point of view, field work, through a qualitative approach. The interpretive/ qualitative paradigm, also called phenomenological, naturalist, humanist or ethnographic, was used since it focuses on understanding and interpreting people`s reality, meanings and intention in order to build knowledge. The study takes place in a real context and a questionnaire was applied to 21 ELCL language teachers. The findings revealed that language teachers incorporate technological tools in a few activities in their classrooms; they do not take advantage of their applicability in all class activities. Besides, they really need more training to know, learn, and incorporate these tools in their curriculum, so they will develop an effective teaching and an active learning. This directed researchers to provide a list of recommendations about teaching techniques that will help language teachers improve their skills and incorporate these tools into their teaching strategies.

This paper summarizes the results of the research project El aprendizaje combinado (presencial y no presencial apoyado por el uso de internet) y su utilidad para el desarrollo de las habilidades de expresión escrita [The Use of Combined Learning (face-to-face and virtual) in Developing Written Expression Skills] conducted in 2011-2012 with the support of the Office of the Vice-President for Research of the Costa Rica Institute of Technology. This research-action study was focused on exploring and systematizing the contribution of combined learning activities (bimodal courses) to develop written expression skills. Didactic strategies were designed to use forums, wikis, blogs, bibliography managers, concept mapping software, as well as online spelling checkers and dictionaries as means to promote the use of written language in relevant contexts. The total study population included eighty-one students from the University of Costa Rica and the Costa Rica Institute of Technology, and thirteen faculty members (ten were higher education teachers, three were teachers of the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica working with students from the 7th to the 11th grades, and there was a teacher working in both contexts). The outcomes of the project were evaluated through the analysis of products selected, panel discussions with the participant teachers, interviews to the participant population, and the analysis of the researcher’s project journals. This study concludes that combined learning contributes to improving written expression skills, since it involves the development of skills and competencies to accomplish different tasks related to the access of knowledge on a specific topic to be developed in writing, text planning, text production,proofreading and dissemination of the final product.

This scientific paper is the result of the pedagogical intervention process carried out as part of teacher training in the study programs of the Basic Education Division at Universidad Nacional (Costa Rica). It aims at bringing into focus the tasks of the supervised professional practice process conducted in the study program of “Pedagogy with a specialization in the 1st to 6th grades of the Basic General Education”, from the perspective of the coordinators of this process. The coordination tasks that are essential for the development and successful completion of the professional practice process are analyzed and systematized in three main areas: coordination, induction, and conclusion of the pedagogical intervention tasks. The opinions of students and faculty members are considered in the evaluation. One of the main contributions of this paper is calling attention to the pedagogical intervention process, which involves not only the joint preparation of a course program, but also a number of coordination strategies among the persons in charge of the pedagogical intervention to complete the process and take advantage of the practice to think carefully on the educational reality. This study has been also an opportunity of analysis and teamwork focused on continuous feedback to students and to the process itself, giving a new shape to the professional practice, and strengthening university training where the pedagogical intervention process of the Basic Education Division is a permanent research platform.