Escala de atribuições de causalidade de estudantes do ensino fundamental - EAVAT-EF / Causal attribution scale for elementary school students

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo de examinar as propriedades psicométricas de uma escala deatribuição de causalidade para sucesso e fracasso escolar para alunos do Ensino Fundamental. Aescala foi construída com originalmente 55 itens fechados em forma de escala Likert, de três pontos,relacionados às dimensões locus e controlabilidade da causa. Foi aplicada a uma amostra de 668estudantes do Ensino Fundamental. A análise fatorial revelou o bom funcionamento de 35 itens e umaestrutura bifatorial: fator 1 - causas para fracasso e 2 causas para o sucesso. Os índices de consistênciainterna, aferidos pelo Alpha de Cronbach, foram 0,91, respectivamente, para a escala total, 0,92 para ofator 1 e 0,83 para o 2. A variância total explicada foi de 29,03%. Espera-se que a escala possa ser útila pesquisadores e educadores(AU)

Causal attributions in Brazilian children's reasoning about health and illness.

INTRODUCTION: At a time when a great number of diseases can be prevented by changing one's habits and life style, investigations have focused on understanding what adults and children believe to be desirable health practices and uncovering the factors associated with successful adherence to such practices. For these, causal attributions for health and illness were investigated among 96 Brazilian elementary school students. METHODS: Ninety six subjects, aged 6 to 14, were interviewed individually and their causal attributions were assessed through 14 true-false items (e.g. people stay well [healthy] because they are lucky). The relationship between the children's causal attributions and demographic characteristics were also examined. RESULTS: Overall, the results were consistent with previous researches. "Taking care of oneself" was considered the most important cause of good health. "Viruses and germs" and "lack of self-care" were the most selected causes of illness. Analyses revealed significant relationship between subjects' causal attribution and their age, school grade level, socioeconomic status and gender. CONCLUSIONS: The study findings suggest that there may be more cross-cultural similarities than differences in children's causal attributions for health and illness. Finding ways to help individuals engage in appropriate preventive-maintenance health practices without developing an exaggerated notion that the individuals can control their own health and illness is a challenge which remains to be addressed by further research.

Cross-cultural differences in children's concepts of health and illness.

INTRODUCTION: In spite of general agreement that cross-cultural research is needed in the health area, most existing investigations of children's development of health and illness-related concepts have involved samples from developed countries. The study examined the development of the concepts of health and illness as a function of subject's age, socio-economic status (SES), gender and grade level in a Brazilian sample of 96 elementary and junior high school students. METHODS: Subjects were interviewed individually and their ideas of health and illness were assessed through open-ended questions. Participants' answers were transcribed verbatim and subjected to content analysis. RESULTS: Chi-square analyses revealed significant age, school grade and SES-related differences in participants' concepts of health and illness. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The themes employed by subjects to define both health and illness were broadly consistent with those found by previous research. The study showed a predictable relationship between subject's age and school grade level and increasingly more highly differentiated and multidimensional concepts of health and illness. This investigation suggests that, for the most part, cross-cultural similarities in children's concepts of health and illness may be more striking than the differences.

[Factors associated with the non-utilization of contraceptives in adolescence]. / Fatores associados a não-utilização de anticoncepcionais na adolescência.

The literature concerning the major correlates of the non-utilization contraceptives in adolescence is critically reviewed. Research findings are analyzed and discussed in terms of their contribution not only to a deeper understanding of adolescents' risk-taking sexual behavior, but also to the implementation of more effective and realistic sexual education for this age-group.

[The concept of disease and preservation of health of a population of teachers and first grade students]. / Conceito de doença e preservação da saúde de população de professores e escolares de primeiro grau.

In view of the fact that information about how teachers and students conceptualize illness and their ideas of health preservation have important implications of health education, these two concepts were studied in a sample population of teachers and pupils, of a school course of up to 14-year-olds, representative of the northern area of Rio de Janeiro County. The results obtained are discussed in the light of two approaches: (a) the contributions from the cognitive theories of concept formation; (b) the influence of the social context in the acquisition, development and characterization of the concepts studied. This study was undertaken with a view to contributing to the field of health education by means of critical review and reflection on the concept of the health illness process in schools, in view of the complex and multidimensional aspects involved in the process.