Recent studies show that 30% of Spanish undergraduates do not finish their studies compared to 16% of undergraduates from other European countries. Is it possible to reduce these alarming levels of academic failure at public Universities?

A doctoral thesis carried out in the Department of Evolutionary and Education Psychology at the University of Granada (Universidad de Granada) by Francisco Fernández Martín, and led by researchers José Luis Arco, Fernando Justicia and María Carmen Pichardo, introduced a programme of psychopedagogical intervention of proven effectiveness, efficiency and usefulness. This thesis aimed at improving process indicators and teaching results according to the Spanish Council of University Co-ordination, a division of the Spanish Ministry of Education.

The Programa de Tutoría Entre Compañeros (Peer Guidance programme known as PTEC) incorporates the guidance of Ph. D. and final-year students, who have more experience and competences than first-year students, as its main intervention strategy. After a training period and by following a structured framework for relations, Ph. D. and final-year students helped and supported first-year students in the learning process through this pair work structure.

Needs analysis

“The study started by analysing the needs related to the problem of academic failure at public Universities,” says Fernández Martín. The diagnostic conclusion was obtained from the results of this analysis, which served to set the aims of the intervention and to design and plan the programme. The next step was to inform as many students as possible about this new programme, in which 100 first-year students and 41 Ph. D. and final-year students (the samples) participated. Thirdly, the Ph. D. and final-year students were trained, assigned groups randomly and guidance sessions were started.

Finally, the process, impact and results of the programme were evaluated. The PTEC seems to have helped to improve the quality of teaching in the degrees in which this programme was introduced “because average marks, per Spanish credit, of first-year students improved (one credit corresponds to 10 hours of lectures), as well as performance and pass rates in first and second semester exams and in the repeat exams for the 2004/2005 academic year,” highlights Fernández Martín. In addition to this improvement, the number of undergraduates dropping their studies decreased and their study habits improved. Moreover, the Ph. D and final-year students also improved their study habits and social skills. Furthermore, the personal and academic satisfaction of both samples was significantly high, and the subjective feedback was highly positive.

Applications

The usefulness of this study in the short, medium and long term is significant for several reasons. First of all, the results of university teaching have improved. Secondly, it is being carried out at the right moment bearing in mind the current changes in higher education in Spain and Europe. As researcher Fernando Martín explains, “with the Bologna Process it is essential to develop programmes which help students and lecturers improve on one of the basic pillars of the quality of the development of teaching like guidance action (information and guidance for first-year students, additional activities for their education, training in self-regulated learning skills, etc.).”

Finally, Fernández Martín emphasises the transference possibilities that this programme offer to pre-undergraduate students with preventive purposes.

Reference: Prof. Dr. Francisco Fernández Martín. Department of Evolutionary and Educational Psychology of the University of Granada. Tel: (+34) 958 24 96 59. Mobile: (+34) 658 578 156.

How can it be proved that a patient is lying when they say that they have a cognitive problem, such as memory or concentration problems or anxiety? There are many people who exaggerate their injuries and even feign them in order to receive more money from insurance companies or obtain a sick leave, according to a pioneering research in Spain. This research was carried out in the Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment of the University of Granada by Doctor Raquel Vilar López. The conclusions of her study, which focused on patients who suffered from head injuries, speak for themselves: nearly half of the people who go to court feign psycho-cognitive disorders with the objective of profiting from this in some way. They are not hypochondriacs or overanxious or obsessive patients, they just lie in order to receive some sort of compensation, as for example money. They are the so called ‘simulators’.
Until now, in Spain no reliable system existed to detect if a person was faking their symptoms. For this reason the study by Vilar López coordinated by Manuel Gómez Río and Miguel Pérez García is so important: for the first time, Spanish health professionals have a set of reliable tools to prove empirically if a patient is lying when they declare, for example, that their memory problems renders them unfit for work.

Validated Evidence

The work by this researcher has validated a series of ‘tests’ which, when used on patients without them being aware of it, detect which patients are simulators and which are not. These neuropsychological tests were included in a three-hour-long battery of neuropsychological tests which assesses other cognitive aspects of the patient in order to disguise the actual tests and in this way obtain the desired information.

Raquel Vilar López explains that in her research she adapted a series of tests that where already known in the United States – a country with a long history of work in the field of neuropsychology – to the Spanish context, because «the neuropsychological tests cannot be extrapolated without adjustments from a context to another”. The percentage of patients who suffer from head injuries that feign symptoms is nearly the same as that obtained by the American researchers.

The study carried out in the UGR also included a method which has become very popular recently due to several television programs: the lie detector, an instrument which registers the physiological responses of blood pressure, heart beat, breathing rate and galvanic skin response. Vilar López used this equipment with a group of 80 Psychology students as the “analogous group”, that is, as no patient would admit being a simulator, a group of people without any disorders were asked to fake them in order to confirm the validity of the test. Furthermore, 54 actual patients were analyzed by the doctor. These patients belonged to different departments of the University Hospital Virgen de las Nieves in Granada.

The researcher explains that “although the lie detector itself has no scientific rigor, it could be an efficient instrument if combined with other tools, as for example the tests that we have validated”. Part of the results of her research were presented at the last ‘International Neuropsychological Society’ and ‘National Academy of Neuropsychology’ conferences – the two most important organizations in the field of neuropsychology in the world – and in the prestigious scientific journal ‘Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology’.

Reference: Doctor Raquel Vilar López. Department of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment of the University of Granada.
Phone: 958 242 948. Mobile phone: 699 407 282.
E-mail: raquelvilarlopez@hotmail.com