vol. 10 núm. 1 (2014)

Physical activity is a protective factor for occupational stress. The objective in this study was to analyze the relationship between physical activity and occupational stress among universities employees of Medellin, through a relational study with 120 ramdomly selected employees. We used the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and the Maslach-Jackson test. Frequency, chi-square, confidence intervals for the mean difference and Spearman correlation were used for the analyses. Findings include sedentarism in 71 % of the sample, high emotional exhaustion in 29 %, depersonalization in 38 % and low personal accomplishment in 91 %. An inverse correlation was found between physical activity and emotional exhaustion, and positive for depersonalization with emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. With these results we concluded that physical inactivity and occupational stress have a high prevalence; physical activity has a protective effect on occupational stress.

On several occasions, conditional statements are perfected, that is, are understood as biconditional statements. This causes problems for texts interpretation in general and for the correct understanding of the instructions of the selection task in particular. Usually, the results of this task are unexpected and, due to this, theories have been raised in order to try to explain them from hypotheses about certain mental mechanisms or special types of reasoning in human beings. In this paper, I try to demonstrate, through a critical review of a particular experiment in the literature, that it is not necessary to assume such hypotheses and that it is possible to explain what happens in such experiment simply assuming that participants perfect some conditional rules proposed in it.

The objective of this work is to establish the relationship between the social determinants of health and the components of disability. Methods and Tools: descriptive study with phase correlation. 6.150 records corresponding to the totality of the population indexed in the Public Record of Location and Characterization of People with Disability, provided by the local Health Department of Manizales, were analyzed. Results: 3.181 of the total records were women and 2.969 were men; the average age was 40.5 years for men and 48.9 years for women. The study showed that the most significant alterations were: Alterations in body movement, hands, arms and legs (44.7 %); the main barriers are architectural ones; greater involvement in religious and family activities was found; involvement in cultural activities was scarce. The study revealed that permanent impairments are more common in middle adulthood, old age and childhood; the study also showed a relationship between age and ethnicity with participation restriction, p < 0,05. Conclusions: Low educational levels, resulting from a restriction in participation, hinder the capability to acquire knowledge and skills which would otherwise allow access to a broader labour market and to better living conditions.

This document is part of the doctoral research: Sense and Meaning of Job in a Flexible Job Market Environment. Approach to the Medellin – Colombia case. Objective: To study the flexible job market in Colombia and its contribution to job quality deterioration. Methodology: Literature review. Procedure: review of peer articles and research done in Colombia, media releases and government available data and information. The results show that job market flexibility in Colombia has emerged as a demand from businesses to government in their pursuing for competitiveness and survival. However, it has brought in with it a significant loss of legal protection for workers, increasing the deterioration of job quality. The job market flexibility in Colombia is implemented through contracts with agency employers, workers’ cooperatives and defined body work contracts, on top of definite term employment. In conclusion, and generally speaking, the use of this type of employment contract is rising every year and increases the loss of job quality and lack of stability, with the consequent deterioration on quality of life and well-being of workers and their families. In this environment, getting a job becomes a matter of survival. It is worth to note that employers hire and fire personnel under basic economic criteria, encouraging a job market ruled by the excess of power of the strongest, the employer.

This article contributes to academic reflection on scholarly reading and writing practices in Higher Education, stemming from the Colciencias–funded inter-institutional research project “What do we read and write for in the Colombian University? A contribution to the consolidation of academic culture in the country”. This project was a country-wide study of 17 universities. To this end, some results of a survey of college students from participating universities in the project are presented. We present a reflection on academic literacy from the analysis of the survey results, focusing on questions such as what did university students read and write about and what purpose did they fulfill. The survey showed, as tendencies, the predominance of the reading and writing on class notes, and the academic activities associated to assessment, aspects that are analyzed from educative practices proposed to institutions and the cognitive performance involved in writing.

This paper shows relationships that have been studied between knowledge management and leadership in order to better understand the interaction between both constructs. With this purpose, we have first performed a theoretical review of the central aspects of knowledge management and leadership, and then we have analyzed the relationship between these concepts in order to set perspectives that contribute to the identification of areas and process development for the sustainability of organizations. Our results indicate the existence of a strong relationship between leadership and knowledge management, so companies need greater knowledge about the characteristics of leadership to facilitate the understanding and implementation of best practices in the organization.

One concern of universities that allocate research resources is how to measure their results beyond academic products. This paper proposes organizational learning as one important result of the research process. From research results, it is proposed that indicators and indexes can measure the learning process and facilitator conditions in research groups. The work was carried out with researchers of groups that are part of the Research System of the University of Cauca, in Colombia.

This work presents the main issues of item directionality on validity, objectivity and reliability of measurement instruments used in various fields (education, psychology or health). This is an important element to be considered in the definition of variables, the preparation of item banks, the production of tests and the interpretation of reports. Directionality depends both on the theory and the conceptual model involved in the measurement instrument, as well as the type of practice (educational or clinical for example), but it is also ruled by a “typical” behavior or response of the focal group. Item coding should not be done in terms of “presence-absence” but must take into account the direction and sense of growth of the variable as “typical-non typical”, “appropriate-non appropriate” or other distinctive unidimensional trait that should be represented in a Cartesian axis. The elements of the model of directionality are used in an instrument designed to measure the experience of the women’s symptoms with acute coronary syndrome based on the Symptom Management Conceptual Model.

The goal is to describe the training of undergraduate psychology students on psychometrics. We reviewed the study plans of 23 Psychology academic programs in Bogota and Chia, and we interviewed 7 teachers of the area. According to the descriptive analysis of the data, it was found that a course of psychometrics is being normally taught, with the lecture being the most used pedagogical strategy. The most frequent topics correspond to validity and reliability, with José Muñiz as the most referenced author and SPSS being the most used software. We conclude that the psychometric course amounts to only 1 % of the curricular content of the psychology program and that this course is currently being applied in accordance with APA quality standards (2011), referred to the training of psychologists. Finally, suggestions are given intended to strengthen the aforementioned training process.

This paper seeks to establish the validity and enforceability of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. To this end, a systematic literature review was performed. 452 papers that met the inclusion criteria of research in 2000-2010 were found. However we determined to use a proportional sample of 10 % for each years , leaving a total of 46 articles. We found a constant use of the instrument, with research being done in various areas. The test has good psychometric properties, in addition to being endorsed by several other systematic reviews. We discuss the use made of the evidence, and we find that the instrument has broad utility, and also discuss the analysis of the instrument in many studies through clustering.

Over time, the human body goes through a natural aging process, leading to functional changes, reducing vitality and fostering the emergence of diseases related to life span. The main risk factors for the development of depression in the elderly include genetics, stressful events, age-related cognitive deterioration and neurobiological abnormalities, with prevalence rates of major depressive disorder in the elderly range from 2 % to 5 %. Elderly people with depressive and anxiety symptoms had more severe cognitive deficits. The aim of this study is to ascertain whether there is significant correlation between the cognitive performance of elderly patients with symptoms of depression, anxiety and age. 231 seniors participated in this study. The design was a quantitative cross-sectional study and. We used the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). The results showed that age correlated statistically significantly and negatively with the MMSE score (r =-0.205, p < 0.005), which shows that age reduced cognitive performance. Older people with depressive symptoms and more severe symptoms of anxiety had lower scores on the MMSE.

New researchers often face difficulties in the statistical analysis of data for verification of the working hypotheses, particularly in the selection of an appropriate statistical technique, its application and interpretation. It is often argued that the foregoing of a negative attitude toward the quantitative analysis related to perceived difficulties in statistics classes and research methodology in education. The purpose of this article is to provide a reference guide for non-expert researchers in the use of some statistical techniques with broad applications in the generation of knowledge. Each multivariate technique is defined and the conditions under which it is possible its application are enumerated, presenting the minimum conditions to be met. In addition, three examples are presented showing inconsistencies resulting from a wrong use of statistics and assumptions in analyzing the data.