The establishment of links between the University and the community in which it is embedded is a permanent challenge. Exploring new ways to open university doors to vulnerable populations is a means of developing young adults’ civic responsibility and global citizenship. This relationship of enrichment and mutual benefit does not only crystallize through the transfer of knowledge but also through service. When, within the community, this service is aimed at students with specific needs of educational support (SNES), we enter fully into the field of inclusive education, developing competencies and reaching sustainable development goals, which go far beyond those of mere knowledge-sharing. This paper presents service-learning (SL) projects carried out in English class by undergraduate Engineering and Education students at a Special Education Center for adults. The main goal was to develop a basic linguistic competence in English so that SNES students could understand science texts and technological instructions to handle ICTs with some autonomy. Face-to-face versus online modality use, forced by the pandemic, are contrasted and results are compared over a three-year period. University students’ perceptions on how this pedagogical approach of service learning contributes to their personal growth and consolidation of global citizenship are presented.
29 January 2025 in Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy
Background: Suicide has been linked to emotional disorders which, according to the transdiagnostic model, share common constructs such as positive and negative affect. This study examined the mediating role of positive and negative affect in the relationship between emotional symptoms and suicide risk. Method: The sample included 1,014 participants (33.82% male, 66.17% female) aged 18 to 75 years ( M = 33.0, SD = 15.15). Four independent mediation analyses were conducted, using depressive, anxious, somatization, and obsessive symptomatology (measured with the LSB-50) as independent variables; positive and negative affect (measured with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, PANAS) as mediators; and suicide risk (measured with the Risk of Suicide Scale, RS) as the dependent variable. Sociodemographic variables were controlled. Results: Across all models, the relationship between emotional symptoms and suicide risk was positively mediated by negative affect and negatively mediated by positive affect. Conclusions: Positive and negative affect function as transdiagnostic factors that partially mediate the relationship between emotional symptoms and suicide risk.