From Traditional Assessment to the New Competency-Based Assessment

The evaluation of school students has always attempted to estimate the effort, abilities and learning of students. However, at the beginning, evaluation consisted in measuring the progress of the student’s behavior compared to a desirable behavior. Later on, different changes in evaluation benefited the processes addressed to assessing the academic achievement of students and learning itself. Today, the demands of the contemporary society are vast and numerous: students not only require knowledge, they need to develop skills, values and postures. Postmodern education requires individuals to develop different talents and competencies to grow in every way. Therefore, evaluation should respond to such needs promoting an ethical, technical, reliable assessment of the student’s competencies, thus providing more fair and objective, qualitative and quantitative judgments. This dissertation project is the result of a literature review of several authors and the daily work of teachers in the Centros de Educación Media Superior a Distancia [High School Distance Centers] of Morelos, Mexico.

Quality of Life Profile, Overweight-Obesity and Sedentary Behavior in Elementary and High School Children of Guanacaste

The purpose of this study was to identify the quality of life profile, overweight-obesity and sedentary behavior in a group of elementary and high school children of Guanacaste. 635 students participated in the study. The participants completed a protocol by which they were anthropometrically evaluated, and also filled up a questionnaire related to sedentary behavior and quality of life. In general, the findings reflected a prevalence of overweight and obesity of 13, 9%. The most important sedentary activities were, in descending order, the small screen (watching TV, video games, computer), and certain social and cultural activities. The self-reported quality of life index was within acceptable limits but not exceeding 80 points on a scale of 1-100. There was no significant relationship between the rate of the overall quality of life, overweight, obesity and some sedentary behaviors, although some anthropometric parameters like percentage of body fat and body weight showed significant correlation with sedentary behavior and specific aspects belonging to quality of life. The study provides valuable information to health authorities, directors of educational institutions and parents about key issues related to child development.