Psicofisiología Aplicada a la Mejora de los Contextos Educativos

Abstract

Educational research has attempted to analyze and identify the factors involved in the teaching-learning process, seeking to bring about improvements that will help to provide better training for students. This present doctoral thesis sought to analyze the psychophysiological, behavioral, and contextual variables that may affect the performance and state of health of teachers and pupils in pre-school and primary education. Psychophysiological variables, the location of the school, objective and subjective academic performance, the amount of individual physical activity, anxiety status and nutritional parameters were analyzed. The results obtained showed that school location is a variable that modulates the psychophysiological stress response in the educational context. It reveals higher sympathetic modulation in teachers and students from urban environments. No differences were found in academic performance or physical activity between students, but there were differences in the number of daily food intakes, which were higher in urban students. Higher values in body mass index were related to lower grades and a greater number of daily food intakes correlated with higher grades in these students. There was no relationship between physical activity, autonomic nervous system modulation and body composition with objective academic performance (grades) through the academic years but an increasing body mass index and greater parasympathetic modulation were detected in the students. Both variables correlating negatively with the subjective perception of academic performance expressed by the teachers. No significant differences were detected in the variables studied between students with immigrant parents and students with non-immigrant parents within the sample analyzed, showing a homogenization and integration into this school environment. The results obtained allow us to expand our knowledge about the elements involved in the educational process and it may help us to formulate new proposals for its improvement.