Constructs and measures of student adjustment, retention and academic success in Higher Education
MARÍA DEL MAR GARCÍA SEÑORÁN
COORDINATOR
SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS
- María del Mar García Señorán
- Sonia Alfonso Gil
- João Viseu
- Leandro Silva Almeida
Short CV
She has taught first and second cycle subjects in several degrees, in the Degree in Primary Education, in four Official Master’s Degrees, in Doctorate Programmes and in Specialisation Courses. She has coordinated the Degree in Primary Education, Doctoral Programmes of the Department of Developmental Psychology and Communication at UVigo and the Master’s Degree in Learning Difficulties and Cognitive Processes from 2009 to the present. She has been Secretary of the Department of Developmental Psychology and Communication (2000-2003), Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Educational Sciences (2010-2014) and Dean from 2014 to 2020.
Her current research focuses on Cognitive-Motivational Processes involved in school learning. In this context, she has participated in several research projects, being the principal investigator in two of them.
She has published articles indexed in national and international journals with high recognition in the area of Psychology and Education. She is author/co-author of 42 books/book chapters, some of them used in different subjects in the area. She has participated in Scientific Committees of International Congresses and has presented more than 60 contributions in national and international scientific conferences and congresses.
She is a reviewer for several international journals. She is currently the coordinator of the research group Developmental and Educational Psychology (HI9) (GiPEDUvi) at UVigo.
Symposium abstract
Higher education presents a significant challenge for many students, who are frequently ill-prepared and unable to cope successfully. In this context of higher academic development, a number of factors have been identified as having a significant impact on students’ performance in their degree subjects. These include career plans, expectations, social adaptation, agency, and the ability to persevere in the face of challenges. It is therefore acknowledged that the combination of personal and contextual factors plays a role in promoting academic success and persistence. Consequently, it is essential for higher education institutions to invest in resources that enable them to understand and support students who are experiencing difficulties during the transition to and development of their degree programmes. This symposium presents an analysis of the various measures and relationships between the constructs that have the greatest implications for university permanence and success. In particular, the first study examines the predictive relationship between academic expectations and performance among Spanish first-year university students. Subsequently, a second paper focuses on the adaptation and statistical analysis of the Questionário de Integração Social no Ensino Superior (Diniz, 2017) within the context of Spanish universities. Thirdly, the preliminary studies for the adaptation of an agentivity scale used in the Brazilian university context to the Portuguese context are presented. The fourth paper presents the reliability and validity data of the Escala de Avaliação da Garra: Versão Internacional em Língua Portuguesa (EAGrIt-LP) (Noronha & Almeida, 2021). In summary, the main focus of this symposium is the presentation of various constructs and their measurement instruments, making it possible to design future interventions for the promotion of adaptation and academic success in Higher Education.