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Purpose: The implementation and reporting of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is one of the emerging challenges for higher education institutions (HEIs), but the lack of well-defined reporting structures and topics for this sector makes it difficult to map and evaluate HEI performance in relation to 2030 Agenda. This study aims to assess the SDG performance and reporting by the 13 HEIs that integrate the Times Higher Education Impact Ranking (THE_IR), from the perspective of the five pillars of the 2030 Agenda in the Portuguese context, where research on this topic is quite scarce. Design/methodology/approach: Considering the THE_IR methodology, an SDG reporting assessment framework with 85 key topics has been developed to search for in the institutional reports of the 13 studied HEIs. For each topic, depending on the number of institutions that disclose it, a reporting index (RI) has been calculated, which was used to compare the level of reporting between the different SDGs and pillars. Findings: Concerning HEIs' SDG performance in the THE_IR, the People pillar was the one with the most HEIs ranked, followed by the Prosperity pillar. The Planet pillar was less highlighted. SDG reporting varied widely among Portuguese HEIs. The SDG RI presented a mean value of 43.1%. The Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that the RI for the Planet pillar (RI = 23.6%) was statistically and significantly lower than those for the People and Prosperity pillars (RI = 48.6% and 53.5%, respectively). The results thus demonstrated some conformity of the SDG reporting with Portuguese HEI performance in THE_IR. Aside from Goal 5, the SDGs 4 and 3 stood out in the first four positions of the HEIs in the THE_IR. Goals 3 and 4 were also the most disclosed in institutional reports. Originality/value: This study proposed and applied a new SDG reporting assessment framework for HEIs, contributing to better evaluation of the inclusion of important SDG-related topics in their institutional reports.

Animals are frequently utilized as a teaching-learning tool in multiple educational settings. It is, therefore, important to understand what students think about this topic, in particular medical and veterinary students as "life caregivers" and competent people for a dynamic and responsible social intervention. In this context, this research aims to characterize and disseminate a set of issues related to animal welfare/wellbeing in higher education in the North of Portugal, particularly as regards the teaching of students of the Integrated Master in Medicine (MIM) and Veterinary Medicine (MIMV). After ethical approval, a survey was delivered on paper to 180 undergraduate MIM (n = 100) and MIMV (n = 80) students. After collecting 139 questionnaires partially or fully completed, with varying response rates for each question, it was concluded that most of the students consider that animal experimentation is ethically acceptable when the benefits balance the harms and assuming that refinement of animal procedures is warranted; they also agree to the establishment, maintenance and performance of animal procedures solely for educational purposes as a way of ensuring optimal acquisition of theoretical knowledge, attitudes and behaviors and technical skills. Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of teachers to explore and implement pedagogical methodologies thar are equally effective but more humane and compassionate towards sentient living beings.

Admission procedures to elementary school in Music Conservatoires in Portugal consist in the assessment of aural aptitude. This investigation aims at assessing the power of aural aptitude at predicting future musical achievement as well as the assessment of two other variables for the same purpose: motivation and intentions of parental support. For that matter, our sample includes the cohort of the admitted candidates and their parents to the 2019 to 2020 academic year. We used a longitudinal approach that followed the musical achievement of the sample during the 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 academic years. Questionnaires were administered to both children and parents to collect information on motivation to learn a musical instrument and anticipation of parental support provision. Our results point that, after 2 years of music education, neither of the tested variables were able to predict the students' musical achievement. These results suggest that the model of admission procedures to Music Conservatoires based on aural aptitude must be rethought and that this line of investigation could be revisited later when our sample enters middle school to assess again the predicting power of motivation and parental support.

Designing learning solutions in digitally mediated contexts requires attention to the level of immersion, interactivity, personalization, and engagement promoted, to which the incorporation of active learning methods and gamified strategies can be strategic. However, more research is needed on how teachers use technology-enhanced active learning strategies and on the impact of game-design elements inclusion in learning environments. This study provides findings from the informed exploration stage of a project, consisting of the development and assessment of a digital platform to be used in Portuguese basic and secondary schools to support participation in extracurricular projects and promote its users' sense of belonging. A survey by questionnaire was publicly shared with Portuguese schoolteachers, in June 2022, to map the current technological reality in Portuguese schools and teachers' relationship with technologies. 215 valid responses were analysed with descriptive statistics and content analysis. The use of digital technologies was found not to have decreased after the emergency remote learning period. Teachers assumed that the most used platforms coincided with those institutionally supported and that combining the promotion of active learning methods and the formal recognition of learners' attitudes and skills in a digital solution was something innovative and required in Portuguese schools.

Empirical research has systematically demonstrated the predictive role of reading, linguistic and metacognitive skills on reading comprehension performance. The study of the directionality of these relations and their relative contribution in the more advanced grades of primary school is an important aim for reading research, with practical implications for educational contexts. These issues are of particular relevance in semitransparent orthographies such as European Portuguese, as there is empirical evidence that these relations change over time. The goal of this study was to examine the longitudinal relations between oral reading fluency, listening comprehension, vocabulary, reading strategy use and reading comprehension in Portuguese students across grades 4 to 6. For this purpose, reciprocal-causation models with cross-lagged paths were tested using Mplus. The sample included 110 students who completed at least two assessment time points. The results indicated that there is a reciprocal relation between listening comprehension and reading comprehension, as well as between vocabulary and reading comprehension, in every grade. Oral reading fluency was a significant predictor of reading comprehension across grades 4-6, but the opposite relation was not verified. Reading strategy use in grade 5 was predicted by reading comprehension in grade 4. The results are discussed considering previous studies and their potential impact on psychoeducational practice and research. Limitations of the study and guidelines for future research are pointed out.

Purpose: We intend to bring into debate what seems to be a paradoxical relation between the lack of youth civic and political participation, and the current disinvestment in the effective implementation of citizenship education policies. Design: A comparative framework between four European countries concerning youth civic and political participation, and citizenship education policies, including the involvement of NGOs in youth civic education. Findings: Data shows that young people's (apparent) participatory apathy may have other readings or other meanings. Young people seem to be increasingly looking for more dynamic and less traditional forms of participation, and there is a need for citizenship education policies to be more grounded in this reality. Implications: Overall, we might be facing a paradox where educational policies seem to be tailor-made for young people who do not actually relate to them.

The quality of parental support is recognized as a crucial factor in the early stages of a student's development, and particularly in instrumental music education. At the start of 2020, the outbreak of a global pandemic crisis posed new and unprecedented challenges to education, forcing families to stay at home to prevent contagion. This investigation was conducted during the period of a COVID pandemic lockdown in Portugal. We explored whether parental support, provided during the lockdown period, was associated with their child's achievement as reported by their instrumental music teacher. For this study, 39 parent-teacher dyads of first-grade students of an instrument music course were recruited from two public music conservatories. Parents supplied information on the frequency in which they provided student-support-related attitudes and actions in the home context. Simultaneously, teachers provided information about the student's achievement during the lockdown compared with the previous in-person performance period. Results indicate a strong relationship between parental support and musical achievement, with students who received higher levels of supportive parental involvement performing better than before the pandemic crisis. The findings are discussed in relation to the importance of parental involvement in a child's instrumental music education.

Due to COVID-19, many countries implemented emergency plans, such as lockdown and school closures. This new situation has significantly affected families, namely, the involvement required to support children's learning at home. The current study aimed to analyze Portuguese parents' perceptions of their home-based parental involvement in their children's learning during the lockdown and school closures in 2020 due to COVID-19. An online survey, using a closed-ended questionnaire, was employed. Variables included parents' sociodemographic and COVID-19 related characteristics; students' sociodemographic characteristics; distance learning context; parental involvement; and students' autonomy. Data were collected from a sample of 21,333 parents with children from elementary school to secondary education, and statistical data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 26. Findings revealed that Portuguese parents supported their children during the pandemic mainly through the monitoring of attention in classes and task realization. However, several variables appear to significantly determine parental involvement time, which is higher when students attend public schools, when they are less autonomous and younger, when parents' level of education is lower, when the child is a boy (except in secondary education where gender is not relevant), and when the online school time is higher. Findings highlight the need for a significant investment of time from parents, particularly of primary school children, making it difficult to cohere work or telework with school activities. Implications for policies, schools, families are discussed in order to promote children's learning and success.

Worry is a phenomenon that is present in multiple psychopathologies. Given the widely accepted transdiagnostic role that worry plays in psychopathology, reliable measures for this construct are pivotal for clinical practice. The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) is one of the most widely used and established measures of worry in both clinical and non-clinical populations and it is accepted as a highly reliable measure. The present study aimed to examine the factor structure and psychometric properties of the PSWQ for the Portuguese population. The total sample consisted of 428 participants, 256 from the community, and 172 from the clinical population. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a model of one factor with a method factor containing the negatively worded items.

The intention of this article is to contribute to the debate about whether the voting age should be lowered to the age of 16, by examining quantitative and qualitative data collected in a local participation project with young people in Portugal: questionnaires (N = 961), interviews (N = 3), and focus group discussions (N = 15). Considering the coexistence of both willingness and reluctance to get engaged in formal politics--as youngsters often feel ill-equipped politically--it is argued that adequate political education needs to be provided by schools to enable young people to be confident and knowledgeable voters. We propose that governments recognise the importance of this area in the school curriculum, in order to enable the young people's acquisition of knowledge and skills that can sustain their growth as competent voters. This is crucial in legitimising democratic representative systems.

In past years, translation education has shifted from a "transmissionist approach" to the unchallenged use of collaborative learning, with extensive recourse to teamwork and Project-based Learning. Students are encouraged to develop their translation and interpersonal skills in collaborative environments, focusing on translation as a process. Throughout this process, mistakes are valued as learning opportunities, and no translated text is seen as an authoritative version to which all others are unfavourably compared. This approach is somewhat at odds with an increasingly competitive job market, in which translators must be capable of autonomous and individual work, and translation is mainly viewed and evaluated as a final product. Although translation workflows involve a growing amount of group effort, translators still need to work alone and take responsibility for their own versions and translation choices. In order to prepare students to become professional translators, the annual Technical and Scientific Translation Award aims not only to give winners visibility before potential employers but also to work as an opportunity for young translation students and graduates to put their skills to the test. This paper focuses on the translation competences activated by the contest, as defined by the Competence Framework produced by the European Masters in Translation Network. It also discusses the potential of this initiative as a motivational tool for translation students and graduates, concluding that individual contests counterbalance the predominance of collaborative activities in the classroom and are therefore a relevant complement to academic training.

Teacher training programmes and physical education activities were strikingly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, this study attempted to uncover (i) the systems factors that influenced the teaching practice of 28 preservice teachers during school placement, and how different multi-system interacting influences impacted on (ii) predominant, or (iii) differentiated teaching practices. Data included individual and focus group interviews, field notes, post-observation sessions, and digital portfolios. Eleven system-related factors were identified: macrosystem (lockdown regulations); exosystem (experiential learning); mesosystem (mentoring); microsystem (technology); and individual attributes. Teaching practices were influenced by interacting classroom conditions, prior learner-centred training, mentoring and personal attributes.

Empirical research has shown that poor comprehenders use reading strategies less frequently than good comprehenders. Moreover, poor comprehenders tend to use simple strategies (e.g. slowing down reading when the text is hard to understand) instead of using more complex strategies (e.g. choosing between main and trivial information). The present study aimed to analyse the reading strategies used by poor (n = 37) and good comprehenders n = 141) in a sample of fifth grade Portuguese students. Results from multivariate analysis of covariance showed statistically significant differences in the use of reading strategies between the two subgroups of students, after controlling for the vocabulary. Specifically, good comprehenders reported to use significantly more strategies such as selecting relevant ideas, reviewing the text, evaluating comprehension after reading, forming pictures in mind and rereading parts of the text that are difficult to understand. Thus, the results suggested that good and poor comprehenders differed mainly in the use of more sophisticated cognitive and metacognitive strategies.

In this article we examine 4th and 5th grade Portuguese students' performance on problems of structuring 2D rectangular arrays of squares, which was analyzed and categorized into the five levels of sophistication described by Battista, Clements, Arnoff, Battista, and Borrow (1998). In general, the results suggest that students in the higher-grade exhibit higher levels of sophistication. Nevertheless, several students from both grades could not perceive the structure in rows and columns of such rectangular arrays; their spatial structuring of such arrays was still inadequate. The result for their learning may be even worse if we think that for students in these grades, many textbooks display rectangular arrays as the representation to teach area measurement.

The present research compared the knowledge of primary school children and pre-service primary teachers about various native mammals of the Iberian Peninsula (IP-Portugal and Spain) and the African Savannah. For this purpose, a questionnaire was administered to 420 children and 215 pre-service teachers from these countries asking for the identification of animals through photos and whether they had native status on the IP. The pre-service teachers performed better than the children. The Savannah animals were better identified than those of the IP. The results were similar in both countries, even though the Spanish performed a little better. Children from both countries had more difficulty identifying the native status of the animals, with a high percentage of them thinking that Savannah animals lived in the wild on the IP. This error was less frequent among the pre-service teachers but, even so, with a percentage for certain animals that can be considered of concern. This issue is absent in the training courses in both countries, a conclusion based on an analysis of the syllabuses. The importance of improving knowledge of native fauna though formal and informal learning is discussed as a way to promote a conservationist attitude with direct repercussions on the recognition of the importance of local or regional biodiversity.

This work evaluated the cross-sectional and longitudinal (i.e., over four months) impact of attachment to mother, father, and peers on three psychopathic traits (i.e., grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, and impulsive-irresponsible) using a community adolescent sample, and if that impact was differentiated by gender. Though there is evidence for the relevance of attachment on psychopathy, little was derived from adolescent samples or considered diverse attachment figures that play a role in adolescents' psychosocial development. A sample of 279 adolescents (aged 15 to 21 years; 58.4% female) was asked to self-report on their perceived quality of attachment to parents and peers and on psychopathic traits. Results show evidence for the cross-sectional and longitudinal impact of attachment on psychopathic traits: specifically, attachment to parents is linked with the grandiose-manipulative and impulsive-irresponsible psychopathic traits, whereas attachment to peers relates with the callous-unemotional trait. Predictive pathways were overall similar between boys and girls. These results sustain the importance of considering attachment when trying to understand and intervene in antisocial adolescent behavior, namely by adopting a more generalized perspective on who may play a protective role in relation to the development of each psychopathic trait.

Purpose: To investigate how EU related contents are represented in Portuguese upper secondary school textbooks of History and English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Design/methodology/approach: The study performs a textbook analysis on two History textbooks and three EFL textbooks to explore if and how EU related topics are addressed. The methodological approach was mainly qualitative, based on a content analysis of the textbooks, but also includes some quantitative data (e.g., number of paragraphs) to determine the importance given to European topics in each of the selected school subjects. Findings: EFL textbooks have a residual approach to EU topics that is mainly focused in students' mobility. History textbooks, while containing a significant amount of information about the EU, present it mainly in a nonconfrontational perspective and do not prioritize the development of students' critical thinking about the EU. Our data also points to a predominance of national level citizenship related content, with European citizenship being briefly and normatively presented to the students. Research limitations/implications: EFL is attended by almost 100% of students in the academic track of secondary education, but History is a curricular subject only available to 25-30% of the students; as such, our findings refer to a specific group. Practical implications: Textbooks should include more information about the actual problems and challenges of the EU to foster the development of students' critical thinking about the EU.

In the aftermath of catastrophes, art based participatory research has proven to be a useful tool for evoking emotions and knowledge in affected children, as well as for informing risk education and recovery psychology practices. Framed by disaster risk reduction and environmental philosophy, this article analyses a sample of drawings produced by schoolchildren aged 6-10 years old affected by the wildfires of October 2017 in the central inland region of Portugal, obtained using a 'draw and write' technique. The children's narratives expressed concerns for their own safety and that of others, as well as concern for ecological damage. Emotional distress was also reported. The verbal statements accompanying the drawings helped the children to express their narratives carefully, allowing them to become active participants in their own process of thinking about the phenomena. We argue that children's drawings constitute a valuable methodology to access children's experiences after a disaster, as their visual richness reaches more than humans worlds. We recommend training for professionals, age-appropriate levels of informational support and a children's disaster intervention model.

The final decolonization of Timor-Leste, in 2002, happened during an era characterized by intensification of globalization processes and, as a result, the reconstruction of the country involved diverse types of multilateral and bilateral cooperation. The cooperation projects of Portugal and Brazil took on the main role in the development of local language-in-education policies contributing, for example, to the construction of the legal framework for education, the national curriculum and the training of teachers. The first objective of this article is to present an analytic account of the trajectory of the Portuguese and the Brazilian cooperation initiatives in Timor-Leste in the field of teacher training. The second objective is to analyse the positionings of social actors who had an involvement in one specific project, in relation to the processes surrounding language policy implementation since Independence. The data to be analysed in detail in this article are from narratives emerging in interviews, conducted during fieldwork in Timor-Leste in 2012. The focus of my analysis is on the interviewees' lived experiences and the ways in which they indexed the multiple language ideologies circulating in this context. The interviewees' accounts brought to the fore different ways of accommodating tensions and achieving consent in the construction of language-in-education policies in post-colonial contexts such as this one, reminding the importance of looking, in close detail, at the constant negotiation and recasting of priorities even among social actors aligned in the same politically hegemonic field.

The Refugee Support Platform (PAR -- Plataforma de Apoio a Refugiados) was created in September 2015 through the establishment of a network of organisations and volunteers from the Portuguese civil society. PAR Families is a program that aims to provide support to refugee families in Portugal. PAR Families model implies that for each family of refugees arriving in the country there will be an institution directly responsible for the following dimensions: independent accommodation, food and clothing; support regarding access to healthcare services, education, labour market, Portuguese language classes and social and cultural integration. From the total of families (n = 73) hosted by PAR at the time data collection began (March 2018), members of 40 families were interviewed (35 women and 26 men). Through in-depth qualitative interviews the study gave voice to their perspectives as experiential experts of the PAR Families program, and with this gathering important feedback and recommendations our research aims to: (1) identify the good practices that should be maintained and reproduced with new refugee families that may be hosted by PAR; (2) recognise the aspects that appear as counter-productive to a successful integration and autonomisation of the refugee families in the six dimensions targeted by the PAR Program.

Society's progress and living standards depend on the exploitation of raw materials. For centuries, its exploitation had kept pace with humanity's demand. Lithium is a critical element, essential to the development of green technologies, to decarbonization process, and for our daily life. In Portugal, there are high-quality Lithium deposits, with the Barroso-Alvão region holding a significant one. In this region, the mining possibility raises communities' societal concerns. Although exploitation is a needed asset for geoscientists, communities present a contrary position. Then, what is the reason for this conflict? A questionnaire was conducted amongst inhabitants (N = 61) from two communities to determine their perceptions concerning the transparency of communication by the specialists, media, and exploitation companies. The results revealed insufficient clearness leading to the population's disapproval. Geoethical dilemmas were raised such as the need for reliable communication and the geoscientists' role in informed consent. Underlying to geosciences education and communication, citizens' engagement activities are required for the forming of accurate opinions about the demand for georesources.

The data produced by the scientific community impacts on academia, clinicians, and the general public; therefore, the scientific community and other regulatory bodies have been focussing on ethical codes of conduct. Despite the measures taken by several research councils, unethical research, publishing and/or reviewing behaviours still take place. This exploratory study considers some of the current unethical practices and the reasons behind them and explores the ways to discourage these within research and other professional disciplinary bodies. These interviews/discussions with PhD students, technicians, and academics/principal investigators (PIs) (N=110) were conducted mostly in European higher education institutions including UK, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Czech Republic and Netherlands. Through collegiate discussions, sharing experiences and by examining previously published/reported information, authors have identified several less reported behaviours. Some of these practices are mainly influenced either by the undue institutional expectations of research esteem or by changes in the journal review process. These malpractices can be divided in two categories relating to (a) methodological malpractices including data management, and (b) those that contravene publishing ethics. The former is mostly related to "committed bias", by which the author selectively uses the data to suit their own hypothesis, methodological malpractice relates to selection of outdated protocols that are not suited to the intended work. Although these are usually unintentional, incidences of intentional manipulations have been reported to authors of this study. For example, carrying out investigations without positive (or negative) controls; but including these from a previous study. Other methodological malpractices include unfair repetitions to gain statistical significance, or retrospective ethical approvals. In contrast, the publication related malpractices such as authorship malpractices, ethical clearance irregularities have also been reported. The findings also suggest a globalised approach with clear punitive measures for offenders is needed to tackle this problem.

There are examples of using stones of the cultural heritage for teaching purposes. Information systems have found several potential uses in the promotion and preservation of cultural heritage. In this paper is considered the conceptual framework of an information system concerning features of geological interest (FGI) in the built heritage (without any consideration in terms of its software implementation). This FGI concept is used here in a very wide sense to encompass characteristics of geological materials that can be recognized with the naked eye and analogies of geological processes in the built environment. Two perspectives are considered for information organization: occurrences of FGIs in the built heritage (more suitable for Earth Sciences teaching) and FGIs as components of built heritage elements (more suitable for humanities teaching). The main issue that arises from the ensuing discussion was found to be the findability of a given FGI, depending on its visual contrast and the characteristics of the built heritage element. It is argued that, in this way, geological concepts can contribute to the promotion and conservation of the built heritage.

Precarious jobs and unemployment have become common issues for many young adults due to the unfavourable labour market situation in Portugal. Against this background, lifelong learning (LLL) policies have been called in to play a role in creating economic growth and supporting the social inclusion of young adults in vulnerable educational and economic circumstances. These policies are defined at the national level; however, their implementation depends on the action of local actors who face specific challenges. This paper explores disparities in the definition and implementation of LLL policies targeting young adults in two Portuguese regions. Specifically, we analyse professional courses in Vale do Ave (North) and adult education and training courses in Alentejo Litoral (South). These regions were selected due to their dissimilar economic structure. This study adopted a qualitative approach through interviews with LLL experts and policy roundtables with local stakeholders and decision-makers in both regions. Data were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10. The study shows that the two regions have different cooperation networks between local stakeholders, and that these impact the opportunities to influence the regional skills formation system differently. Also, the study shows that LLL policies are not designed to address destandardised life courses.

Research has widely demonstrated the contribution of word reading, listening comprehension skills, and oral reading fluency to reading comprehension performance. However, the existence of reciprocal relations among these skills has been investigated less frequently. The authors examined the directionality of the relations among reading comprehension, listening comprehension, word reading, and oral reading fluency in Portuguese elementary school students from second to fourth grade by using a longitudinal cross-lagged design. The sample was composed of 261 students assessed at the end of grades 2, 3, and 4. The results indicated that there is a reciprocal relation between listening comprehension and reading comprehension in every grade and that oral reading fluency and reading comprehension have a reciprocal relation only in the initial years of schooling, similar to the observed relation between oral reading fluency and word reading. The results are discussed considering their potential impact and the limitations of the study.

We analysed effective and promising interventions, within the classroom and school microsystems, aiming to promote equality and belongingness for immigrant, Roma, and low-income children attending early childhood education and care (ECEC) and primary education in eight European countries. Over 500 interventions were identified, and 78 interventions were analysed. We found that while 79% of the interventions provided some type of language support, only 32% considered children's heritage language. Importantly, around 22% of the interventions targeted ECEC settings specifically, with most ECEC interventions implemented at the national level, taking place in the classroom and implemented by classroom teachers, and involving language support and family involvement activities. Language support seems to be widespread, recognising the foundational nature of language for learning, communication, and belongingness. However, comprehensive intercultural policies that explicitly support culture maintenance, communication, and positive contact may be valuable in guiding future developments. [This article was co-authored by the ISOTIS research team.]

The present study compared Portuguese and Spanish children in the 6th year of primary school in terms of their knowledge and live experience of animals from the Iberian Peninsula (IP) and the African savannah. A questionnaire was administered to 420 children from state schools, 215 from Portugal and 205 from Spain. The questionnaire included photos of eleven mammals from each region. The pupils had to identify them, to say if they had observed them live and where, and if they are native in the IP. The results showed a greater knowledge of both groups of the savannah species, also the ones most had seen live. However, the Spanish children had a better performance in the identification of the native mammals and which animals are native on IP, probably because these children are from a less urban zone, with more direct contact with some of the species presented. The school does not seem to play, in either group, an important role in the learning about native species. Boys from both countries performed better than girls on the issues under study. A high percentage of children from both countries think that several of the savannah species occur wild on the IP.

This article starts by a brief overview of the evolution of education in Information Science in Portugal. After, there is a description of the paradigm shift and the significant changes caused by the impact of social, economic, cultural and technological conditions of the information era as well as the emergence of Information Science as an academic field and a new education model in accordance to it. The current situation of IS in the academic context is analysed and some final reflections are exposed in a prospective view towards the next future.

The development of nations depends on energy consumption, which is generally based on fossil fuels. This dependency produces irreversible and dramatic effects on the environment, e.g. large greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn cause global warming and climate changes, responsible for the rise of the sea level, floods, and other extreme weather events. Transportation is one of the main uses of energy, and its excessive fossil fuel dependency is driving the search for alternative and sustainable sources of energy such as microalgae, from which biodiesel, among other useful compounds, can be obtained. The process includes harvesting and drying, two energy consuming steps, which are, therefore, expensive and unsustainable. The goal of this EPS@ISEP Spring 2013 project was to develop a solar microalgae dryer for the microalgae laboratory of ISEP. A multinational team of five students from distinct fields of study was responsible for designing and building the solar microalgae dryer prototype. The prototype includes a control system to ensure that the microalgae are not destroyed during the drying process. The solar microalgae dryer works as a distiller, extracting the excess water from the microalgae suspension. This paper details the design steps, the building technologies, the ethical and sustainable concerns and compares the prototype with existing solutions. The proposed sustainable microalgae drying process is competitive as far as energy usage is concerned. Finally, the project contributed to increase the deontological ethics, social compromise skills and sustainable development awareness of the students.

In a society increasingly mediated by technology, the medium has created unparalleled opportunities. As a result, it has refocused educators' attention on how technological literacy is both an essential learning outcome in all higher education programs, and the intermediary, the means to achieve the digital competences expected from employees. In the field of English for Specific Purposes, and at a time when technology is perceived to enable quick and effective access to a vast number of sources of information and knowledge, teaching a language confronts teachers and students with divergent views that converge into what we perceive to be interconnected paths. We critically reflect upon these interconnected paths in order to obtain further insights on how technology, namely Machine Translation and Computer-Aided Translation, is perceived by business communicators who are learning English in an ESP environment. Within the premises that translation is an act of intercultural communication, our case study addresses mirrored perceptions of the English language, the act of translation, and the use of technological tools. Our study draws on both perspectives and discusses how mirrored images of students and teachers converge through project-based approaches, rooted in practical, short visual tasks with a clear and immediately visible purpose.

Academic expectations play a significant role in the quality of student adaptation and academic success. Previous research suggests that expectations are a multidimensional construct, making it crucial to test the measures used for this important characteristic. Because assessment of student adaptation to higher education comprises a multitude of personal and contextual variables, including expectations, shortened versions of assessment instruments are critical. In this article, confirmatory factor analysis was used to obtain a short version of the Academic Perceptions Questionnaire--Expectations (APQ-E). Participants were 3,017 first-year Portuguese college students. The results support the use of a shorter version of 24 items, distributed over six dimensions, with good reliability and validity.

Background: Sport Education has a dual interest in promoting active student engagement in games and improvements in their game-play. However, very few studies have concurrently examined how learners' game-play development is influenced by cognitive, social, and situated constraints, especially over consecutive Sport Education seasons. Purpose: The purposes of this study were threefold: (i) to concurrently examine the evolution of students' game-play participation and performance; (ii) to examine the transfer of game-play configurations across three seasons of invasion games; and (iii) to investigate how students' game-play development was influenced by various situational constraints (e.g. nature of instruction, student engagement in instructional processes, and modifications imposed on the game forms). Participants and setting: The participants were 26 seventh-grade students (10 girls and 16 boys, mean age 12.3) from a middle school in northern Portugal. Students participated in three consecutive Sport Education seasons of basketball (19 × 45-minute lessons), handball (12 × 45-minute lessons), and football (16 × 45-minute lessons). Team membership remained the same throughout the three seasons. Two teams of five players (mean age 12.2), who played three-a-side games in every initial and final lesson of each season were sampled for game-play tracking across the three seasons. Methods: Digital video records were taken of 53 lessons. Pre-test to post-test quantitative measures were conducted on students' game involvement (sum of total game actions) and performance (decision-making, skill-execution, and efficacy). Descriptive narratives of play were created to capture the effects of contextual circumstances on participants' game-play behaviours and the evolution of their prototypical configurations of play. A field diary provided a chronological matrix of the principal instructional strategies and the instructional responsibility taken up by the teacher and students during the seasons. On-going student team interviews were conducted to gather learners' perceptions of how situational constraints influenced their game-play development. Findings: The narratives of play showed a noticeable evolution in the quality of players' game-play configurations over time. The progress in students' ability to play invasion games was influenced by an interdependent relationship between the nature of the instructional processes used, the level of cognitive and social engagement of students with the subject matter, and specific constraints imposed on the game forms (level of defensive pressure, the dimension of the field). Conclusions: Although most research in Sport Education has shown a positive trend of student game-play development, this study revealed that the evolution of game involvement and performance is neither linear nor concurrent. Both game-play development and the transfer of tactical solutions and decision-making processes across games within the same category were critically and differentially influenced by various situational constraints.

The aim of this study was to analyse the existence of differences in lexical development as a function of day care attendance and maternal education. Data were collected using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences. The reports of 2084 toddlers were analysed. The results for toddlers older than 24 months indicated that those from mothers with higher educational levels produced a higher number of words in all lexical categories than those from mothers with lower educational levels. When considering younger toddlers, a significant effect of maternal education was only found on the number of common nouns produced. Nevertheless, the size of these effects was small. Quantity of day care attendance had no effect on the number of words produced. No interaction effects between maternal education and day care attendance were found. These findings indicate that maternal education may be differently associated with the production of words from different lexical categories.

This article studies the conceptions of the interior of the Earth held by Portuguese elementary school children and senior citizens. Several studies were conducted regarding conceptions related to Earth sciences, such as rocks, minerals, earthquakes geological time, and Earth structure. Most of these studies involved students enrolled in compulsory education, some involved higher education students, several involved teachers, and only a few involved adults. The majority of the results showed that many misconceptions are held by people of all ages. Similar results were found in this study, as both children and senior citizens revealed several misconceptions. The research resorted to a questionnaire based on a drawing task so as to find out the way that children and senior citizens imagine the structure and composition of the interior of our planet. A comparison between children's and senior citizens' drawings was made, as well as a comparison between those drawings and the historical models of the internal structure of the Earth. We found that only a small number of children and even a smaller number of senior citizens recognize that the interior of the Earth is organized in concentric layers. They assume that soil and water are a common part of the internal composition of our planet. Similarities between the drawings and the historical models were identified, particularly similarities related to Gautier's model, which accepts the possibility of the existence of life in the interior of the planet as it happens on its surface.

Background and Purpose: To explore the perception of informal caregivers about the barriers, motivators, and facilitators toward the participation of care recipients with neurocognitive disorder (NCD) in a physical exercise program. Methods: This is an exploratory qualitative study, including 20 informal caregivers (67.5 ± 13.94 years old; age range: 37-86; 65% male) from the "Body & Brain" community intervention project. Semistructured interviews were performed by a trained researcher; data analysis followed Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis guidelines, under the socioecological framework. Results: Two main barriers, 3 motivators, and 5 facilitators to participation in a physical exercise program were perceived by caregivers, illustrating the relationship between the intraper-sonal, interpersonal, and community levels toward individuals' participation. Care recipients' reluctance to participate and physical environment constraints emerged as the main barriers to participation, whereas the health professionals' advice, the need for a stimulating activity, and the potential physical and mental health benefits emerged as motivators. Factors facilitating the involvement and maintenance in the program included care recipients' satisfaction and enjoyment, benefits on their general health, routine, and social connectedness; an overall positive evaluation of the physical exercise program's structure and organization was also highlighted. Conclusions: Exercise interventions targeting people with NCD should promote a welcoming environment that facilitates individuals' well-being and social interaction. Caregivers have a key role in promoting care recipients' motivation. Health professionals play an important role in recommending participation by raising awareness of potential benefits to recipients and caregivers. Future interventions should be conducted in appropriate community settings and implemented by a specialized professional in small groups. These findings provide insights into the factors that may increase the success rate of exercise interventions specifically designed for individuals with NCD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on examining the impact and legacy of the April 25th Revolution in Portugal, highlighting its significance in shaping the country's democratic trajectory over the past 50 years. Topics include the societal transformations brought about by the revolution, the evolution of democratic principles and rights, and the ongoing challenges and debates surrounding historical memory and societal progress since 1974.

While a considerable number of studies have focused on factors driving employees to voluntarily participate in training programs, much less is known on this topic with regard to the unemployed population, in particular the older unemployed, who often are in a vulnerable labor market position due to educational deficits and skills obsolescence. This study proposes and investigates a serial mediator model of older unemployed individuals' training intentions grounded in propositions from social cognitive theory and the theory of planned behavior as well as prior models of employee involvement in training. The results, based on cross-sectional questionnaire data from 176 unemployed Portuguese individuals aged 40+, suggest that age, education, and proactivity have an indirect effect on training intentions via learning self-efficacy and training-related outcome expectations. Age was also directly related to stronger training intentions. These results may be useful for interventions aiming to encourage older unemployed individuals' participation in training.

The brisky transformation of the internet and the rise of digital technologies have been causing a deep impact on the media and in the ways audiences access, consume and participate. Although in this era information is closer and more available to citizens, concerns have been raised regarding 1) the quality of the information disseminated by digital platforms, 2) the impacts it may have on democracies and 3) the urgency of promoting citizens' MIL competencies. Disseminating unverified content can pose threats towards the status of the Internet as a space for free and informative debate, and as a tool for social inclusion. Portugal is pointed out as the second European country where citizens are most concerned about authenticity and validity of information (Newman et al., 2020). However data also shows that mechanisms of disinformation are quite participated by them. In this way, it becomes relevant to understand how the various sectors of society have been promoting the empowerment of citizens, and their resilience and competence toward information disorder. Within the scope of the project Read Twice, the team carried out a mapping of initiatives focused on tackling disinformation. The aim was to identify good practices and outline Portugal's experience concerning this issue. After an initial listing of activities (N=20) promoted over the last 13 years, the team identified 3 Top Initiatives and eleven Best Practices. Overall results suggest that media literacy has been in the spotlight in the Portuguese context since the 1980s. There is also a tendency for media literacy initiatives to engage target audiences through active, participatory and creative approaches. However, and although the longest-running activity dates from the late 1980s, the initiatives identified are limited to a specific timeframe, suggesting that there is a lack of continuity repeatedly emphasised in the research (Jorge et al., 2014; Brites et al., 2017). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between the lexical size and the emergence of morphological and syntactic markers in toddlers between the ages of 16 and 30 months and to compare these results between Galician and European Portuguese. Parents of 3012 Portuguese toddlers and those of 1081 Galician toddlers completed the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences. The results indicated that the number of words, the ability to combine words and the number of different morphemes produced increased with age. The ability to combine words was used as an indicator of syntactic development; this ability was also associated with the toddlers' lexical size. In both samples, gender morphemes seemed to be the first to have their production generalized, followed by the plural and the past participle. The production of gender morphemes was accompanied by a small lexical size, whereas the imperfect tense and the person mark onset were associated with large lexical sizes. The implications of these results for charting the continuity between lexical, morphological and syntactical development are discussed.

The results from a large-scale study on toddlers' language acquisition in European Portuguese are presented. Toddlers' lexical and grammatical competencies were assessed using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences. The results, based on 3012 reports completed by parents, indicate an increase in the lexical size and on five measures of grammatical development (production of regular morphology, irregular morphology, over-regularizations, mean length of utterances and sentence complexity) across age groups. A main effect of gender was found for lexical size, production of regular and irregular morphology, production of over-regularizations and sentence complexity, with girls obtaining overall higher scores than boys. All lexical and grammatical development measures are positively correlated, even after controlling for age and gender effects. These findings are discussed in terms of their consistency with those obtained for other languages.

Universities seek to promote entrepreneurship through effective education approaches, which need to be in permanent evolution. Nevertheless, the literature in entrepreneurship education lacks empirical evidence. This article discusses relevant issues related to promoting entrepreneurship in the software field, based on the experience of a 15-European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System course. This course seeks to instil in the students the recognition of the need to reconcile technical and business visions, organisational and commercial aspects, most of which have never been addressed previously. A series of semi-structured interviews made it possible to obtain relevant insights about the teaching-learning process underlying this course and its evolution over a seven-year period. Materials related with this course have been analysed, namely guidelines produced by the teachers and deliverables produced by the students. This article discusses the dimensions that were identified as fundamental for promoting entrepreneurship skills in the field of software, namely teamwork, project engagement, and contact with the market.

Background: One of the essential elements within Sport Education is the inclusion of student roles and responsibilities. While previous research has examined students' performance in officiating tasks, the examination of student-coaches' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) within peer-assisted tasks of Sport Education has been scarce. Indeed, the only study to date which has examined student-coach effectiveness was conducted by Wallhead and O'Sullivan [2007. "A Didactic Analysis of Content Development During the Peer Teaching Tasks of a Sport Education Season. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy" 12 (3): 225-243]. In that study, student-coaches struggled to manifest PCK by providing appropriate demonstrations, to diagnose errors, or to modify tasks for higher order content development. The study of PCK may be a useful heuristic to examine instructional effectiveness in physical education. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the evolution of the PCK of a cohort of student-coaches across three hybrid Sport Education-Step Game Approach seasons, and to examine the impact of protocols put in place to specifically enhance coaches' PCK. Participants and setting: Twenty-one students and one teacher from a school class in the north of Portugal participated in the present study. Method: Data from multiple sources were collected: (a) videotape observations of all lessons, (b) field notes, and (c) pre-lesson interviews with the student-coaches. These were then subjected to deductive examination through a process of thematic analysis. Findings and conclusions: Following a baseline season that identified four key limitations within the student-coaches' instruction (task presentation, error diagnosis, feedback, and task modification), these students participated in specific coach preparation that involved modelling teacher's instruction, pre-lesson meetings, and coaches' corners. While showing marked improvement in their content knowledge across the second season, a second protocol was instigated during the third that involved the student-coaches to participate in stimulated reflections of their instruction and the incorporation of planning sheets to enhance their instruction. It was found that both interventions were efficacious in developing student-coaches' PCK, which allowed a more complete transfer of the instructional responsibility from the teacher to the students. These results give insight into the importance of including coach education protocols within the design of seasons of Sport Education with respect to student-coaches' instructional preparation.

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Portuguese music education occurs in two branches: general and specialized. The specialized subsystem is also subdivided into vocational schools (conservatories and music academies) and professional schools. Although different in nature and organization, vocational and professional schools have several goals in common. In the first part, this article contextualizes the historical development of the vocational branch, from the creation of the first Portuguese conservatory (in Lisbon in 1835) until the present day. It describes the emergence of professional schools in the 1990s and, finally, it questions the concept of "vocational schools" itself. In the second part, the article describes the structural reform initiated in 1983 by Law-Decree nr. 310/83, underlining its unquestionable contribution to the improvement of public music education in Portugal. The last part of the article presents a summary of the main effects of this reform in the present situation of specialized music schools.

The transition from the 20th to the 21st century has been the stage of contradictory messages regarding youth citizenship. There is a powerful public and academic rhetoric on youth political disengagement and apathy and, concurrently, an assumption that young people are not knowledgeable, competent and responsible enough to be active citizens, and therefore some kind of "education" should be provided to them. Over this landscape, citizenship education in schools has been the object of fluctuations in European educational policy, from a relative absence to becoming the central transversal goal of education, and back again. This paper contrasts educational policies with the vision of school practice by significant actors (in this case, NGOs working in the field of citizenship education), departing from a cross-European analysis to focus on the specific experience of Portugal and England. On the whole, results suggest that the political disinvestment might be reinforcing the "NGOisation" of citizenship education, a phenomena that has both advantages and risks. If "all that comes in threes is perfect" then education policies must provide a coherent framework that would guide schools and NGOs in collaboratively fostering opportunities to practice citizenship and learn democracy in and out of schools.

Background: Research on relationships between lifestyle behaviors and adiposity in school youth is potentially important for identifying subgroups at risk. This study evaluates the associations between waist circumference (WC) and objective measures of sedentary behavior (SB) in a sample of rural school adolescents. Methods: The sample included 254 students (114 boys, 140 girls), 13-16 years of age, from rural regions of the Portuguese midlands. Height, weight, and WC were measured. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) was assessed with the 20-m shuttle-run test. An uniaxial GT1M accelerometer was used to obtain 5 consecutive days of physically activity (PA) and SB. Multiple linear regression was used to test associations between WC and SB, adjusted for several potential confounders (age, sex, PA, CRF, parental education). Results: SB was not significantly associated with the WC, neither in the unadjusted model nor after adjustment for all potential confounders. In the final model, the unique significant predictor of the WC was cardiorespiratory fitness (ß = -0.82; 95% confidence interval [CI], -1.02 to -0.62). Conclusion: WC was not independently associated with SB time in rural school adolescents. Future research is claimed among rural adolescents in different geographic contexts to try to clarify recent findings of less studied communities.

Our purpose is to empirically examine whether gender, age, work experience, and attendance of a course on ethics affect the ethical perceptions of Portuguese accounting students and analyze the influence of some individual factors that may affect their ethical decision-making. Additionally, we consider the degree of importance assigned to a list of personal traits and their relationship with those factors. We concluded that gender influenced the degree of importance attributed by students to initiative/entrepreneurship, obedience, and responsibility; age influenced the degree of importance attributed by students to integrity; work experience influenced the degree of importance attributed by students to obedience; and attendance of a course on ethics influenced the degree of importance attributed to independence. For each of these factors, the influence did not prove to be statistically significant in decision-making. Similarly, the study identified some reservations regarding attitudes the students' peers might have, and when asked about this, they had negative opinions, believing their colleagues would have lower ethical standards. Our results add to the literature, especially because, in Portugal, little has been done to understand which factors may affect students' ethical decision-making processes. We expect to bring added value to stakeholders, teachers, and scholars engaged with these matters.

The impact of a hybrid Sport Education-Invasion Games Competence Model (IGCM) unit of instruction on students' game performance and game understanding in soccer was examined in this study. Pre- and posttest measures were collected from one fifth grade class of students (n = 24, mean age 10.3) residing in Portugal during a 17-lesson unit of instruction (season). Students' game performance during multiple 10-min long matches was assessed using the coding instrument of Blomqvist, Vänttinen, and Luhtanen (2005). An author developed game understanding test was used to assess knowledge on decision making and skill execution. Performance differences between males and females were examined using the Mann-Whitney test and student improvement pre- to post-study was examined using the Wilcoxon test. The combined application of Sport Education (authentic learning environment) and the IGCM (with learning tasks focused on the specific tactical-content and skills of soccer) promoted improvements in students' game performance and understanding, and increments on the correlations between both constructs.

A procedure to improve the greenness of a synthesis, without performing laboratory work, using alternative protocols available in the literature is presented. The greenness evaluation involves the separate assessment of the different steps described in the available protocols--reaction, isolation, and purification--as well as the global process, with the tool green star. This proved to be adequate to assess separately the microgreenness of the steps. Two case studies, the syntheses of ethyl acetate and manganese(III) acetylacetonate, are presented. The results show how the different steps limit the global greenness of the synthesis and suggest that the workup may be more problematic than the reaction itself. Moreover, the study showed that the green star can be used for comparing in detail the alternative protocols proposed for a synthesis, finding the best alternative for each step and allowing the design of a greener protocol by combining them.