Measuring the current situation of civic literacy of senior primary school students (grade 5 and 6) and exploring its affecting factors is the basis for improving the effectiveness of civic education at this stage.The research developed the measurement questionnaire through item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and other methods. It then was distributed nationwide online through stratified and cluster sampling, through which 1642 valid questionnaires were finally collected. The study took mean analysis, difference analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis.M = 299.53, SD = 28.15, N = 785 are significantly higher than the boys’ civic literacy scores M = 293.18, SD = 32.25, N = 857, t = 4.263, p < 0.01), and whether they have been student leaders .The statistical results eventually showed the civic literacy of China’s senior primary school students is, on the whole, at a comparatively high level. Chinese scholars Zhang Jiajun and Xu Jiao combined the particularity of civic literacy to divide it into four dimensions and the performance of the four dimensions of civic literacy is revealed to be: civic affection > civic cognition > civic competence > civic behavior. Further, a significant difference exists in students’ civic literacy by gender  and school education were significantly positively correlated with students’ civic literacy. Based on this, primary schools should implement educational compensation for cultivating civic literacy among the socioeconomically disadvantaged senior primary school students and carry out civic education according to the specific conditions of civic literacy of senior students. It shouContemporary senior primary school students are students growing in a completely new environment of the socialist market economy that is flourishing and developing . YoungerQuestion 1: What is the status quo of civic literacy of Chinese senior primary school students?Question 2: What are the significant factors that affect their civic literacy?2.The term “citizen” was bred in the ancient Greek democratic city-states and then developed in modern European countries; that refers to a member of a particular country who has the rights or a person who lives in a particular town or city . Other rA liberal and dynamic democracy is based on the principles of good governance through vigorous participation of informed citizenry . It was Literacy traditionally meant the ability to read and write. The modern term’s defined as the knowledge, skills and attitudes that students need to work effectively in a diverse society , and it The development of modern democratic society has made civic education the focus theme in the international community and educational development in various countries and regions. However, it should be noted that the civic values and the course contents and implementation of civic education are inevitably different among different countries of the world. Paul Morris pointed out that the formal civic curriculum in China, Chinese Hongkong, Chinese Taiwan and Thailand is usually a series of ethical education related to “good citizens” and “common interests.” At the same time, the United States and Australia focus on studying democratic values, the history of national constitutionalism and civil rights .The media literacy of citizens has also attracted the attention of scholars in China, as Cai Lianyu considered that media education research should be expanded from the specialized media studies and vigorously studied and implemented in citizen moral education . Chen XiThe academia in China has also paid close attention to the theoretical research on public awareness of citizens and civic literacy, even though there is a lack of systematic research on civic literacy, especially empirical research. With this background, the China National Condition Research Center of Peking University launched a large-scale investigation based on nationwide probability sampling in 2008, namely, the 30th Anniversary of the Reform and Opening Up Policy which was the Annual Survey of Chinese Citizenship Consciousness. This survey aimed to investigate the development status of citizenship consciousness in national identity and pride, civil liberty, democratic consciousness, legal consciousness, rights and obligations of citizens, justice consciousness, citizen participation, and trust and to explore further the impacts and changes on citizenship consciousness brought about by China’s modernization. This survey filled the gap in a systematic empirical study of citizenship consciousness in China . In addiOn account of the differences in cultural and ideological traditions among countries globally, it is necessary to make localization design when constructing a civic literacy measurement scale, and it is impossible to have a completely unified one. As Lee Wingon pointed out, East Asian countries and regions influenced greatly by Confucian culture had unique citizenship and civic education characteristics compared to Western countries. They emphasized the harmonious relationship between individuals and others, individuals and society and spirituality . The extGenerally, since the Reform and Open, along with the progressing elaboration of social politics, economy and education system, the research on civic education in China has also presented a prosperity trend, and a large number of translations, monographs, academic papers and other achievements have sprung up during this period. However, the study of civic literacy is slightly weaker than that of civic education. The theoretical research about civic literacy in China is mostly monographic studies focusing on one aspect of civic literacy’s connotation. These include a focus on civic awareness and competence or a single type of civic literacy, like environmental, media, health, and moral literacy. In contrast, the systematic studies on civic literacy are relatively fewer. From the point of view of applying research methods, most of the existing studies belong to theoretical research, and empirical research based on data surveys is relatively deficient. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the current status quo and affecting factors of senior primary school students’ civic literacy in China, thereby providing data to support the effectiveness of civic education.3.3.1.This research chose China’s senior primary school students (Grade 5 and 6) as study objects, used stratified and cluster sampling methods, and took primary school as the cluster unit. Sampling units covered China’s eastern, central and western areas and involved six province-level administrative regions, including Beijing, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Shandong and Hubei between September to the end of December 2021. Samples were from the fifth and sixth graders of primary schools in the countryside, townships, counties and cities of the provincial regions above. A total of 2,100 questionnaires were distributed online, all participant in the study offered an informed consent form, and 1,995 were collected. After 353 invalid questionnaires were eliminated because of the missing of many information’s, there were 1,642 valid questionnaires left and it is representative for the general population and the minimum sample size for the representative sample with fraction size 323 , and the effective recovery rate was 78.19%, and the difference of gender 52.19% were Male and 47.81% females does not affect the results of the study and there’s no significant difference in the grade 5 (51.22%) and grade 6 (48.54%). All participants were guaranteed anonymity and their response will be used for academic study. The Ethics Committee of the Zhejiang Normal University’s, College of Teacher Education approved the study and participant consents and the study followed the Declaration of Helsinki.Demographic information on the questionnaire included gender, origin’s, whether the only child, grade and whether they were student leaders. The specific sample information is shown in 3.2.The questionnaire was developed by combining self-compilation and adaptation methods. The construction of the scale was based on the four-dimensional structure model of Zhang Jiajun and Xu Jiao, in which civic literacy was split into four first-degree indexes, including civic cognition, civic emotion, civic competence and civic behavior. The scale used the seven points by Likert. Reverse questions were set in all four dimensions. There were 64 items on the initial scale with first 16 questions for civic cognition and participants were asked such questions as (“e.g: A good habit of civility and courtesy is a kind of self-cultivation?” – “e.g: It is our duty to care for public property), 15 items for civic emotion as (“e.g: I think China is a great country?”), 15 items for civic competence as  and 18 items for civic behavior as  .The questionnaire test adopted a cluster random sampling method to select two primary schools in Jinhua city, Zhejiang province, choosing grade 5–6 students as respondents. A total of 210 questionnaires were distributed, and 207 were collected. After eliminating 9 missing data questionnaires, there were 198 valid questionnaires left, and the effective rate was 94.29%. After numbering the valid questionnaires, SPSS22 was used to encode the questionnaires and input data. Then, the research adopted methods of item analysis, exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis to modify the questionnaire.3.2.1.Extreme group comparison was used to analyze items. Each dimension was divided into the higher scores group (the first 27%) and the lower scores group (the last 27%). Then, the average scores of each item of the higher and lower scores group were analyzed with Independent-Samples T-Test. If the mean difference is non-significant, the item lacks discrimination. The results showed that the average scores of each item of higher and lower score groups of each dimension had a significant difference, which meant that each item had good discrimination.3.2.2.The construction of the scale was based on the four-factor structure theory of current research. The good structural validity of the theoretical structure model has been confirmed. Therefore, during the exploratory factor analysis, items of each factor could be implemented separately . Before 3.2.2.1.The test results show that KMO is equal to 0.729, and the degree of sphericity of Bartlett is less than 0.001, which indicates that exploratory factor analysis is feasible. The number of factors whose eigenvalue is greater than 1 is six. The total explained variance is 54.14%. Combined with the observation of the screen plot, three factors were extracted. After several model modifications, five items were deleted in the end from 16 items. The three factors were named “moral cognition,” “cognition of politics and law (PL cognition),” and “public cognition.” The total explained variance is 49.27%.3.2.2.2.The test results were that KMO is equal to 0.763, and the degree of sphericity of Bartlett is less than 0.001, which indicates that exploratory factor analysis is feasible. The number of factors whose eigenvalue is greater than 1 is five. The total explained variance is 62.38%. Combined with the observation of the screen plot, three factors were extracted. After several model modifications, four items were deleted in the end from 15 items of civil emotion. The three factors extracted were named “national identity,” “social responsibility,” and “collectivism.” The total explained variance is 57.63%.3.2.2.3.The test results were that KMO is equal to 0.840, and the degree of sphericity of Bartlett is less than 0.001, which indicates that exploratory factor analysis is feasible. The number of factors whose eigenvalue is greater than 1 is five. The total explained variance is 63.30%. Combined with the observation of the screen plot, four factors were extracted. After several model modifications, two items were deleted in the end from 15 items. The four factors extracted were named “rights protection,” “moral judgment,” “moral choice,” and “cooperation.” The total explained variance is 62.59%.3.2.2.4.The test results were that KMO is equal to 0.829, and the degree of sphericity of Bartlett is less than 0.001, which indicates that exploratory factor analysis is feasible. The number of factors whose eigenvalue is greater than 1 is six. The total explained variance is 67.108%. Combined with the observation of the screen plot, three factors were extracted. After several model modifications, five items were deleted from 18 items. The three extracted factors were “public life,” “social participation” and “moral behavior,” respectively. The total explained variance is 62.457%.After the exploratory factor analysis, the conclusion of the factor structure of the measurement scale of civic literacy of senior primary school students is shown in 3.2.3.Exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis, the measurement scale of civic literacy of senior primary school students was eventually formed, which contained three-level indexes . The for3.3.The statistical results of the formal investigation showed that the internal consistency reliability of the measurement scale of civic literacy of senior primary school students was (cronbach α = 0.910), the reliability coefficients of civic cognition, civic emotion, civic competency and civic behavior were  respectively, and this showed that the reliability of the whole scale was good. At the same time, experts were consulted for advice on the process of developing the questionnaire. On this basis, the questionnaire was compiled and revised, which assured the expert validity of the whole questionnaire. The factor analysis results in the test phase showed that the questionnaire had good construct validity.4.The research analyzed the current situation of the civic literacy of senior primary school students in six provinces of China through survey data. It explored the main factors that impact the civic literacy of senior primary school students, using difference analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis methods.4.1.The scale used the seven points by Likert, a total of 48 items, ranging from 48 to 336. The specific points are shown in p < 0.01). Comparing the four dimensions of civic literacy and ranking them according to the mean value, the literacy level goes from civic emotion to civic cognition and then down to civic competence and finally to civic behavior.As shown in 4.2.4.2.1.F = 44.772, p < 0.01]. The method of Tukey was used to check out afterwards, the result of which is in  =137.292, p < 0.01), and the results of the robustness examination  are significantly higher than the boys’ civic literacy scores . The differences in the average scores between the two groups were 6.36, t(1640) = 4.263, p < 0.01. Using the same test method, the statistical results showed that the civic literacy scores of those students who served as student leaders  were significantly higher than those who were not student leaders . The differences in the average scores between the two groups were 13.46, t(1631) = 9.272, p < 0.01. Based on the finding of univariate dependent sampling analysis of variance in terms of origins, students’ civic literacy does have significant differences because of different origins . The research used the method of Tukey to perform post-tests. The result  were also analyzed. In the independent sample T-test regarding gender, girls were set to “1,” and the boys were set to “2.” The data analysis showed that the girls’ civic literacy scores  = 106.106, p<0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.202. Since the two variables belong to ordered variables, we can also use the Spearman rank correlation to show the degree of relevance between the two, and the data showed that ρ = 0.271, p < 0.001. The results demonstrated a significant correlation between different family SES groups and different levels of civic literacy.The chi-square independent test between different family SES groups and different levels of civic literacy was conducted to examine whether there was a significant correlation between the two grouping variables. The results showed that χp < 0.001. According to the general interpretation of the correlation coefficient, when the coefficient is lower than 0.2 or 0.3, it indicates a low correlation. When the coefficient is between 0.3 to 0.6, it indicates a moderate correlation; when the coefficient is between 0.6 and 0.8, it indicates a strong correlation; when the coefficient is above 0.8, it indicates a high strength correlation  and the four dimensions of civic literacy. The statistical results  show tha2 = 246.355, p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.275. We used the Spearman rank correlation to show the degree of relevance between the two, and the data showed that ρ = 0.362, p < 0.001. The results indicated a significant correlation between different levels of school education groups and different civic literacy groups. Thirdly, the study correlated school education and senior primary school students’ civic literacy. Results in the table  = 146.418, p<0.001. As shown in the regression model summary  = 7.450, p = 0.000] and school education  can easily predict senior students’ civic literacy scores. The effects of other variables are relatively small and, thus, were not included in the regression model. Therefore, the regression equation model of family SES and the school education to senior primary school students’ civic literary was constructed:Apart from the statistical analysis above, the multiple regression analysis methods were also used to explore the relationship between senior primary school students’ civic literary and other independent variables and to test the account table rates and the predictive power that family SES and school education can do to the civic literacy of senior students. According to the research results, the multiple regression of family SES and school education on civic literacy scores makes the overall effect remarkable,  summary , the detand 0.26 ; therefoand 0.26 , we coulWhere: Y: criterion variable, representing the civic and literary scores of senior primary school students.X1:predictive variable 1, representing family SES scores.X2:predictive variable 2, representing the school education scores.5.Based on the measurement of civic literacy of senior primary school students and the study of its main affecting factors, the following conclusions were reached: The civic literacy of China’s senior primary school students is, on the whole, at a comparatively high level, and the scores on the four structural dimensions of civic literacy, from high to low, can be ranked as civic emotion, civic cognition, civic competence, civic behavior. Additionally, there is a significantly positive low correlation between family social and economic status (SES) and civic literacy and a significantly positive moderate correlation between school education and civic literacy. Moreover, family social and economic status (SES) and school education can, to a certain extent, interpret and predict the level of senior primary school students’ civic literacy but school education were better predictor than family social and economic status (SES). Further, the differences in civic literacy among senior primary school students are as follows: girls scored higher than boys; students who are or were student leaders scored significantly higher than those who were or were not. Civic literacy also varies by origin. Students in the city and the county scored significantly higher than those in the countryside areas. Students in the county also scored significantly higher than those in townships.5.1.As for senior primary school students, family SES is their family background of growth. Social stratification is an important topic in sociology, and family SES is its core concept . Family Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist, divides capital into social capital, economic capital, cultural capital and symbolic capital . General5.2.Citizenship education is implemented through family education, social education, school education and self-education . The impM = 299.53, SD = 28.15, N = 785 are significantly higher than the boys’ civic literacy scores M = 293.18, SD = 32.25, N = 857); the civic literacy of students who served or serving as student leaders is significantly better  than those who were not student leaders . As a whole, school education and civic literacy of senior primary school students are significantly positively correlated. Effective civic education at school can enhance the civic literacy of senior students, and the effectiveness of civic education needs to be based on the status quo of civic literacy found in this study. There should be a gender difference in civic education in the school. As a result, civic education should target different gender characteristics, especially different psychological characteristics. Civic education at school can also take measures like “serving as a class teacher, and schools should emphasis on females civic education and take more effort to reduce the discrepancy in this field between genders. It will enhance the civic literacy of senior primary school students. Moreover, school civic education needs to develop students” civic emotions, broaden their civic cognition, enhance their civic competence, and focus on promoting the implementation of their civic behavior. Such targeted initiatives will improve the effectiveness of civic education for senior primary school students, thereby contributing to the development of their civic literacy.This study found that the scores on civic literacy of senior primary school students ranked from high to low: civic emotion, civic cognition, civic competence and civic behavior. As for individuals, civic emotion, like sympathy, is relatively easy to obtain. However, acquiring civic cognition and civic competence based on the former requires studying hard. Furthermore, it is more difficult for individuals to commit civic behaviors because it often needs to overcome more ‘fetters’. Therefore, the difference in the scores among the dimensions of civic literacy of senior primary school students that this study found is a realistic situation that can be easily interpreted theoretically. In addition, the study also found that the civic literacy of senior girl students is significantly better than boys girls’ civic literacy scores The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.The procedures performed in this study involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Zhejiang Normal University, Human Experiment Ethics Committee and were in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments and ethical standards. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.YY, L-YC, and MO contributed to conception and design of the study. YY organized the database and performed the statistical analysis. YY and L-YC wrote the first draft of the manuscript. L-YC and MO wrote sections of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.This study was funded by research grant of Humanities and Social Sciences Project number 19YJA880023 from Ministry of Education, China.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


The P300 is and auditory Evoked Potential, called endogenous potential because it reflects the functional use the individual makes of the auditory stimulus, being highly dependent on cognitive skills; among them we list attention and auditory discrimination. It is a procedure of objective evaluation; however, one that depends on the examiner's experience to detect wave peaks, and it is important to use recording methods that facilitate the response presence analysis and result interpretation.to analyze the P300 Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential obtained through the use of two active electrodes positioned on Fz and Cz.330 individuals from both genders and age ranging between 7 and 34 years participated in this study, they all had normal hearing and did not have any risk factor for mental problems.Results show that there was no statistically significant difference for N2 and P3 latency and P3 amplitude as far as gender is concerned, nor correlation with the individual's age. There was a strong correlation of these measures with Fz and Cz electrode positioning.Fz and Cz active electrodes positioning can be considered one more resource to help in the P300 clinical analysis. The hearing mechanism is based on the transduction of the acoustic stimulus into neural inputs through the inner ear, the transmission of these inputs through a neural network all the way to the cerebral cortex and the perception registering with later cognitive elaboration of the acoustic signal. Thus, the sound message is perceived and understandable. When talking about hearing skills, we initially think about what happens in the ear, that is, the capacity to detect the sound presence; however, this skill is only part of the processing that happens in the hearing systemStudying Auditory Evoked Potentials allows one to evaluate the entire auditory system, from its periphery as in electrocochleography, all the way to its more central portion, as in the Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential. The P-300 Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential is considered a cognitive, endogenous potential, because it reflects the functional use the individual makes of the stimulus, not depending directly on its physical characteristics. For it to be generated, it is necessary to discriminate a rare auditory stimulus, among others which are frequent and of the same modality, with different physical characteristicsIt is believed that multiple generators contribute to recording components N2 and P3 belonging to the P-300 Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential, such as the supratemporal cortex, in the case of component N2, and the reticular formation, lemniscus, inferior colliculus, thalamus, primary cortex, frontal cortex, centro-parietal cortex and hypocampus,,,In clinical practice, these potentials are recorded using electrodes which are positioned on the skull surface, according with the International System 10–20 (SI 10–20) of the American Society of EletroencephalographyThere are literature reports of great variability in the latency of the P-300 Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential P3 component, when measured in Fz and in Cz, shown by the high values of the standard deviation which were 33.59 ms and 25.50 ms for Fz and Cz, respectively. The same was observed for the P3 amplitude, especially with the electrode positioned on Fz, which standard deviation value was of 8.16 microvoltsWe must also take into account the age and gender of the individuals when analyzing the P300-Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential. As far as chronologic age was concerned, most of the studies were held during the 70's and 90's, and showed an increase in latency and amplitude reduction with age,,Nonetheless, the literature studied does not have a consensus in relation to the minimum age for a person to be tested. Some authors,As far as the individuals' gender was concerned, some papersThis paper aimed at analyzing the P-300 LongLatency Auditory Evoked Potential obtained through the use of two active electrodes positioned on Fz and Cz, in normal individuals and check for its true relevance in the clinical analysis of the case.This study was carried out in the Speech and Hearing Therapy clinic of the Bauru Dentistry School - University of São Paulo, and was approved by the Ethics in Human Being Research Committee of the Faculdade de Odontologia de Bauru da Universidade de São Paulo, protocol # 69/2003.Our series had 33 individuals, 14 males and 19 females, with ages ranging between 7 and 34 years, defined according to the central nervous system maturing process.All the participants and/or guardians were aware of the procedure and received a patient instruction letter. They all signed the Informed Consent Form.We used a questionnaire to rule out hearing impairment risk factors or neurologic alterations that could impact the results, and later we performed a conventional audiologic evaluation made up of Threshold Tonal Audiometry, Logoaudiometry and Acoustic Impedance Testing. This assessment was carried out in a sound-treated booth, using the Madsn Audiometer, model Midmate 622, with TDH-39 ear-phones, calibrated in the ANSI-69 standard and the Interacustic, AZ 7 impedance meter. We considered normal hearing threshold to be equal to or below 25 dBHL.The P 300 Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential test was carried out in a silent room, with the individual comfortably laying down on a bed, instructed to remain alert, paying attention to the rare stimulus presented in a random fashion to the frequent stimulus , and count it out loud.In order to study the P300 Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential, we used the Biologic's Evoked Potential System (EP) device, which test parameters and electrode positioning are described in As to the analysis parameters, as study objects, we used the absolute latency of P3 and N2 components and P3 amplitude, recorded from Fz and Cz .Figure 2We considered the P300 Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential present when the N2 and P3 components were simultaneously recorded from Fz and Cz. In order to localize the N2-P3 complex in each record, we used the N2 component as the highest negative peak with latency around 200 ms, located before the highest positive peak, P3, with latency around 300ms .The results were submitted to descriptive statistical analysis ; t student tests for gender comparison, at a significance level of p ≤ 0.05; and the Pearson correlation coefficient in order to compare the correlation between age variables and the recordings from Fz and Cz, with significance levels of p ≤ 0.05 and p ≤ 0.01, respectively.The P-300 Long Latency Auditory Evoked Potential assesses hearing cognitive processes, providing the clinician with information about the central auditory nervous pathway integrity.In this study, the values associated with the mean and standard deviation found for the P-300 Long Latency Evoked Auditory Potential from Fz and Cz  were of ,,,The results obtained in this study corroborate others,,Considering the age of the individuals evaluated and the P-300 Long Latency Evoked Auditory Potential, for components CzN2, FzN2, CzP3 and FzP3, CzP3amp, FzP3amp, the Pearson Correlation test did not show correlation between age and latency and amplitude values , despite26As seen on Although there is no consensus in the literature regarding the number of active electrodes to be used for an effective recording of the P-300 Long Latency Evoked Auditory Potential and their placement on the skull, this study showed, in the series studied, that the use of two active electrodes, in this case Fz and Cz, is a parameter that can be used in clinical practice in order to determine the presence of the P3 component.The study of P-300 Long Latency Evoked Auditory Potential is an objective procedure, but its analysis is rather subjective, depending on a good clinical experience to visually detect the waves. Thus, this type of analysis can help in obtaining more worthy results in the assessment of the auditory system by means of electrophysiological procedures.With these results, we can conclude that there was no correlation between P3 and N2 component latencies, as well as P3 amplitude and the age of the individuals; there was no statistically significant difference between genders, and the use of two active electrodes positioned on Fz and Cz, respectively, can be considered one more option to help in the analysis of the P-300 Long Latency Evoked Auditory Potential.


Finanical fraud targeting older adults is on the rise, with annual losses in the billions of dollars. There is little longitudinal research on the causal relationships between known risk factors and scam susceptibility, including poor psychological well-being and poor health and financial literacy. Interventions designed to enhance well-being and/or literacy may reduce scam susceptibly among older adults. In this study, we use repeated measures from the Rush Memory and Aging Project to simulate how different trajectories in well-being and literacy might impact scam susceptibility among older adults alive over a seven year period. We simulated the effects of interventions of varying degrees -- 10%, 50%, and 100% increase in well-being/literacy from baseline scores. Simulations were performed for all participants as well as by education and income subgroups. Simulation models show that intervening on well-being causes a greater reduction in average scam susceptibility over time compared to intervening on total literacy. Even a 10% increase in baseline well-being significantly reduces scam susceptibility over time, regardless of participants’ baseline income or educational attainment. Both interventions caused slightly greater reductions in susceptibility for those who are not college educated and those with an annual household income of less than $30,000. This study suggests that interventions that target self-efficacy and sense of purpose may help reduce older adults’ scam susceptibility even more than interventions that improve health and financial literacy, but that both are promising targets for intervention.


Sombere (kind-hearted and hospitable) and Smart City.” BHC has been working with the city planning office to incorporate the map findings into its bottom-up planning processes and the 5-year mid-term plan for Makassar.In Makassar, Indonesia, the USAID-funded Building Healthy Cities (BHC) project engaged 240 multi-sector stakeholders to gather qualitative data across three workshops and two citizen town halls from 2019 to 2021. These data were synthesized with results from BHC’s nine other Makassar activities to build maps of the current system and identify high-impact areas for engagement. Contextual findings showed that Makassar leadership has actively innovated and used new technology to improve the city, resulting in improved connectivity and responsiveness. However, this drive toward innovation has strained existing infrastructure and workforce capacity. When this strain fails to meet promised results, citizens are less likely to engage and support the innovations. This is central to the systems map that BHC developed, and is expanded upon through additional patterns that fall within four main areas: (1) leadership, governance, and financing; (2) infrastructure and workforce; (3) collaboration and data; and (4) community cohesion and awareness. Stakeholders found three key leverage points within this context that, if included in every action, could help overcome barriers. These leverage opportunities are: (1) increasing data-driven decision-making; (2) ensuring equitable policy and leadership; and (3) increasing community participation. By combining key patterns discovered in the Context Map with the leverage opportunities, BHC was able to co-create with stakeholders six “coherent actions” that can move Makassar to a healthier, “ Municipal planning often requires coordination of priorities and funding across many levels of government. In some cases, coordination is organized from the bottom up, meaning citizen feedback is gathered and filtered upward, sometimes to the national level . In otheMakassar is the fifth largest city in Indonesia, with a population of 1.4 million as of 2020 . The citTobacco smoking is a leading risk factor for ill health in Makassar. According to the 2018 National Health Research Study (RISKESDAS), 25% of the population in Makassar were smokers; of those, most (98%) were men. In addition, 31% of the population was exposed to a passive smoker in the same room on a daily basis .Barriers to data use have affected planning for and management of these urban health issues in Makassar. At the start of BHC in 2017, there was no universal policy in place that required every department to share its data with the Smart City data dashboard, a central, real-time data center which is nicknamed the “war room” .Musrenbang, a mixed planning process that includes a large bottom-up component that starts at the sub-district level [These complex issues make it difficult to prioritize health-related activities during city planning, which in Makassar is centered on the annual ct level . Musrenbrembug bersama (gather and discuss) process, to formulate, implement, and evaluate programs. The aim is to integrate all members of the community in program development [Before we describe this process, its findings, and its use in Makassar, it is worth noting other systems approaches that have been tried in Indonesia. In Bandung, West Java, collaborative planning has been implemented to involve multiple sectors and communities in the elopment . Within elopment . As outlThe Smart City effort builds upon earlier initiatives. Makassar adopted a “Healthy City” effort as far back as 2007, which established a multi-sector forum and a workplan for Healthy City Makassar –16. WhilIn BHC’s initial discussions with Kominfo, Bappeda, and the Mayor’s office in 2018, we heard that what the city still needed was additional support for both convening of the regular multi-sectoral Healthy City Forum coordination meeting, and a way to collect, store and update the data for the 170 Healthy City indicators. The regular meeting schedule had been disrupted by frequent turnover of staff, and without data they could not effectively track or fully implement the Healthy City strategies.The full methodology used for this work is defined in another article in this issue, Pomeroy-Stevens et al. 2022) . In summ . In sumSampling of participants was done purposively to achieve representation from all key sectors identified during the baseline assessments and as defined by our discussions with city leadership during the establishment of the project. This sampling cut across seven sectors  and included governmental, academic, nongovernmental organization, civil society, private sector, and donor respondents. For the citizen town halls, BHC worked through local civil society organizations to invite community members representing groups selected as most marginalized during the baseline health needs assessment. In total, the BHC Makassar team engaged 240 stakeholders over the course of this work from 2018 to 2022.While systems maps can be developed from either qualitative or quantitative data, this study relied on qualitative methods for data collection, and the analysis used a grounded theory lens with the goal of revealing emergent patterns, relationships, and behaviors in the city system. Because the project had collected volumes of key informant interview and direct observation data under the three baseline assessments, these data were first re-analyzed in Excel to tease out key barriers and enablers under the themes uncovered under health needs, data use, and the political economy . These wFurther details about the qualitative data analysis of the workshop data and visualization can be found in Pomeroy-Stevens et al. (2022) . A uniqu11 Sombere means “kind-hearted” and identifies Makassar as a hospitable place to live. Reframing this goal statement as an aspirational “healthy and resilient city system” goal created the basis for the system’s Guiding Star and vision statement. The mutually agreed upon vision statement for Makassar was “Makassar as a world class city that is healthy and resilient for all.”Makassar’s Smart City program had a pre-existing goal statement which is “Sombere and Smart City.”https://embed.kumu.io/2de1ef204cd9d98002558a87df17ebe3)—centers on a central “Deep Structure” called “Innovation Stagnation.”Building from this shared vision, the Makassar Context Map—available in an interactive format here  leadership, governance, and financing; (2) infrastructure and workforce; (3) collaboration and data; and (4) community cohesion and awareness. Table To continue participatory analysis, BHC facilitated a gathering of city stakeholders to incorporate priorities identified through the Musrenbang process into the map. As a result, we identified the key obstacles and opportunities that will need to be addressed to achieve the vision statement of a healthier Makassar. These details can be found in the Kumu maps, and we share the implications in the discussion section.https://embed.kumu.io/00d0112de9a758e29482f6f854e35b07).Leveraging of the Context Map revealed which changes might have the biggest impact, and what parts of the context may never change. Based on this analysis, and feedback and information received from the stakeholders, BHC identified three leverage opportunities, or areas where change would have the biggest impact. These are described in Table . The actions are detailed in Table The obstacles and opportunities were discussed at BHC’s Theory of Action workshop held in Makassar. Using the system leverage opportunities and the four main areas of the Context Map, BHC and stakeholders developed a set of suggested coherent actions to move Makassar toward its vision statementBHC used a refining process described in another article in this issue, Pomeroy-Stevens et al. (2022) , to flesThe resulting Action Plan underwent a validation process in 2021 and 2022, which has seen several unexpected and positive extensions of this work to support city planning processes. This included support to develop the Musrenbang prioritization plan for 2021 and 2022, and the mid-term city planning for 2021–2026 .Systems thinking has proven to be a useful tool for understanding complex challenges, and in particular, for helping to build partnerships for tackling those challenges. Palutturi (2013), in his assessment of the Healthy City Makassar movement, noted key factors that could challenge effective partnerships . These aClear communication is a key part of successful urban health interventions, as the determinants are complex and sometimes hard to understand. The BHC workshops provided a starting point for formal communications, which helped to also revive interest in attendance of the Healthy City Forum meeting by designated departments, which then provided further avenues for informal communications. While COVID-19 did slow the convening of these meetings in 2020–2021, BHC held one-on-one meetings with member departments to keep momentum toward the goals set during the systems mapping sessions. Through Bappeda’s engagement with the BHC process, they were able to mobilize several private sector and civil society organizations on key topics identified during the mapping, and they worked through the Healthy City Forum to secure commitment charters to tackle both wastewater management and nutrition. One shortcoming of BHC’s process was that we were not able to extend this process all the way to the sub-district and village healthy city working groups, which were identified as part of the Healthy City coordination structure .Purpose of partnerships is where we felt the BHC systems approach brought the most added value. As noted in the results, creating a shared vision at the beginning of the workshops is a simple but crucial step to ensure similar motivation and goals for all involved. The final result of the process is a mutually defined Action Plan which provides a roadmap for Makassar stakeholders to achieve their vision for a healthy city. For each action, the plan provides recommended roles and responsibilities, an estimate of the implementation costs, suggested nongovernmental partners, monitoring and evaluation indicators , and finally an estimate of the potential impact of these combined actions on key health outcomes. By basing the plan on a participatory systems mapping process, it bypassed concerns about how context appropriate the plan is, and had widespread buy-in for the actions even before the plan was finalized. The systems maps provide a publicly available, transparent visual framework that explains why these actions were chosen. The maps are in the process of being handed over to Bappeda for their ongoing use even after BHC ends.Finally, regarding resources, while BHC as an outside organization cannot change staffing norms, we have tried to buffer the leadership of work toward a healthier Makassar against frequent staffing changes on both the forum and in political leadership by broadening the support and ownership of this work. By engaging with Kominfo as leadership for Smart City, Bappeda as leadership for regular financing and planning, and the Mayor's office, this can help keep momentum for the work going even as individuals rotate in and out of positions.Finally, as noted in Bachani et al. (2022), the systems mapping process has provided a new skillset and capacity for prioritization to the city . The resThere were unexpected benefits of using this process to develop the Action Plan. First was the uptake of the systems mapping methodology by Bappeda to support the Musrenbang prioritization process to develop city planning for 2021 and 2022. Musrenbang is conducted annually, and citizens from the sub-district up must articulate their needs to the local government in hopes of directing funding to their neighborhoods. Bappeda must then sort and prioritize those needs, determine what programs will be funded, and align them with top-down priorities, often in a very compressed timeframe. Bappeda requested that BHC facilitate trainings on using a systems approach to prioritize high impact programs suggested through the Musrenbang process, to support efforts to increase the efficiency of multi-sector urban spending . The BHCDespite the successes so far, it is important to note some constraints and limitations. Due to human resources constraints and, later in the process, COVID-19 restrictions, the bulk of the community engagement on the maps happened between the Context Map development and leveraging phase. Some community groups were not engaged, including disabled persons associations, and communities in remote areas of the city. Ideally, BHC would have re-engaged all key demographics immediately after the Theory of Action workshop. With COVID-19 restrictions now easing, BHC is aiming to re-engage some communities before finalization of the plan in early 2022. Another caveat to the systems mapping approach is that, as with any qualitative data collection, the results are only as complete as the stakeholders interviewed. We acknowledge that we had less private sector engagement than desired, and this is something that the city should consider as they move forward with the actions. In addition, while BHC did interview refugees and migrants as part of the baseline data that was used for the Context Map, we were not able to socialize the map with those particular groups. Finally, the Action Plan is not meant to be a comprehensive list of every needed action to improve the city system, but rather those actions that are at the intersection of the key leverage opportunities and what is most feasible for the city to address without changing what is “frozen” in the map.These limitations noted, BHC’s systems approach offers several improvements in action planning over some more traditional methods of consensus-based policy development. In Makassar City, Bappeda is a leading sector in developing both annual and mid-term city plans. In the past, these plans have been developed in part by using a logical framework, where every department proposes programs to be included . The BHCSome lessons that might be useful to other cities that are considering using this process are how this process encouraged multi-sectoral discussion, and in some ways reduced territoriality regarding sector resources by looking at patterns that effected all sectors equally. It was also helpful to define sector-specific roles and responsibilities for each high impact action, with one department, such as Bappeda, providing overarching leadership, guidance, and coordination. Finally, the open source nature of Kumu, the interactive map used to create the maps, eased data sharing and use issues—it can easily be transitioned to a different owner such as the government, nongovernmental organizations, and private sector partners, and is publicly available for anyone who wants to view the map.The systems approach is a promising option for cities looking to conduct comprehensive, multi-sector planning and budgeting. The city of Makassar successfully applied this approach to their mid-term city planning for 2021–2026, which allowed them to identify comprehensive problems with a broader view using the systems map, and improve partnerships across multiple sectors to design coherent actions as solutions. Makassar City, through Bappeda, should expand this approach to be used by all departments for their planning. Other cities can benefit from Makassar’s current and future experience introducing a new systems approach.


Currently, young people have access to a large amount of information, so they must have the ability to critically analyze the texts they are exposed to in order to choose those that are useful for their training or research process, as well as to have the necessary skills to interact efficiently with the texts, especially with those specialized documents corresponding to their area of study. In this regard, this article aims to identify how cognitive, emotional, attitudinal, digital and personality aspects influence the development of academic literacy skills in university students.Research was conducted with the mixed method, in which quantitative instruments were applied and analyzed: a Likert scale questionnaire to measure the perceived level of mastery of academic literacy skills, which was applied to a sample of 595 students from higher education institutions in Mexico and Spain. In addition, a test was applied to identify personality type. For the qualitative part, the case study was chosen and the qualitative instruments applied were interviews with a teacher and a student and a focus group with five students.The findings identified were as follows: (a) the cognitive aspect of academic literacy is the one with the lowest perceived mastery by students, (b) having a positive attitude favors the development of academic literacy, (c) by knowing the aspects of their personality that can favor the development of academic literacy, students can seek strategies to improve that competency, (d) the emotional part has repercussions in the process of developing the competence of academic literacy, (e) students prefer to interact with texts in digital spaces and therefore must learn to interact critically in virtual environments, (f) Mexican students perceive themselves to have a higher level of mastery of the academic literacy competency than Spanish students.The literature review and the mixed methods study allowed identifying the relevance of approaching academic literacy in university environments in a holistic manner through the analysis of the influence of cognitive, attitudinal, emotional, digital and personality aspects. The complex scenario currently faced by university students makes it necessary to reflect on the competencies that students should have as part of their graduate profile. One of the transversal competencies that is considered fundamental is academic literacy, since it can facilitate the learning process to be able to develop competencies such as efficient information search, comprehension of texts in the area of study to which the students belong, and writing texts with academic rigor. The mixed methods approach was chosen for the research to have a broader view of the object of the study. This study aimed to answer the question: How do cognitive, emotional, attitudinal, digital, and personality aspects influence the development of academic literacy competencies in university students?A literature review was carried out to identify previous studies related to the topic addressed in this research. Two scoping reviews were identified, one with the objective of exploring and describing methods and strategies to promote the development of academic literacy  and the For the specific search of studies in Mexico and Spain, the Scopus database was chosen. A total of 12 studies were found in Mexico using the TITLE-ABS-KEY (“academic literacy” AND “Mexico”) search string. Only those studies that involved a higher education level were selected. A study was identified about the subaltern practices of academic literacy, specifically regarding the use of quotation marks, making a comparison between indigenous and non-indigenous students at the higher education level; in this study, it was concluded that the meanings and practices of literacy that constitute unauthorized variation at the micro and macro levels should be a matter of reflection and educational praxis . AnotherFew studies of academic literacy in Spain could be found. Using the search string TITLE-ABS-KEY (“academic literacy” AND Spain) in the Scopus database, only seven articles were found. A study corresponding to high school students was eliminated. An integrative systematic review was identified to analyze the contextual and pedagogical variables associated with the development and evaluation of the Final Degree Project (TFG). This review made it possible to locate Europe as the continent where most research on TFG has been published (51.85%), with Spain in the first place (64.29%). The study concludes that the TFG involves academic literacy and is an indicator of professional development achieved . AnotherAs can be seen, the studies conducted on academic literacy in Mexico and Spain focused mainly on specific aspects, but it is important to conduct studies that analyze academic literacy in a broader sense. It was possible to identify that the studies found focus mainly on the cognitive aspect, only one article was located in Mexico related to the personality aspect, and only two articles were found that addressed the digital aspect, one in each country. Therefore, the present study whose objective is to analyze the influence that cognitive, attitudinal, emotional, digital, and personality aspects may have on the development of academic literacy in Mexican and Spanish university students is relevant.It is important to start with the definition of academic literacy that governs this research. Academic literacy is the teaching process that may (or may not) be put in place to promote students’ access to the different written cultures of disciplines. Academic literacy is currently closely linked to competencies to be able to evaluate digital content to subsequently produce knowledge .The components that integrate academic literacy competence are as follows. (a) Attitudes toward academic literacy: the development of self-regulation skills, self-evaluation, metacognition, self-efficacy, and self-esteem as a writer and the attitudes of persistence and frustration tolerance are integrated ; (b) acaIn addition to knowing the components that make up academic literacy, among which the cognitive aspect is included, it is important to identify the aspects that influence the development of academic literacy; therefore, it is important to address theoretically the emotional, attitudinal, digital, and personality aspects. In this research, the aforementioned aspects are theoretically supported as follows: the digital element is supported by the Digital Competencies Framework for Citizenship (DigComp 2.1), specifically in Competency Area 1: Information and Digital Literacy, which seeks the development of the following competencies: 1.1 navigate, search, and filter information and digital content, 1.2 evaluate information and digital content, and 1.3 manage information and digital content . The attEach person is different with respect to their abilities, strengths, and the way they perceive their environment, which allows their personality type to influence the way they perform in the different areas of their lives. In the educational field, it is not surprising that the personality and learning style of each student will result in success or failure in their academic life, as well as the development of learning skills . PersonaAttitude is made up of three essential components, which are related to (a) the cognitive component, which is based on the ideas and perceptions about the object of the attitude, (b) the affective component, characterized by the feelings that the person has and their intensity (acceptance-rejection), and (c) the behavioral component, given by the response that the subject has, in reaction to the object of the attitude . There aSeveral studies were identified related to the influence of attitude with learning and specifically with the performance of complex writing tasks as a part of academic literacy. In education, learning theory, and research, there are a number of constructs that relate closely to attitude and attitudinal learning, including learner beliefs, motivation, self-regulation, and self-efficacy . Self-efThe emotional aspect and its link to academic literacy development have also been addressed in previous research. To carry out the coordinated mental activities involved in constructing meaning from text, especially when reading complex texts, a reader must be motivated and put forth effort . A lack Academic literacy is currently developing in a more complex scenario: the digital scenario. The evolution of technology has always had an enormous impact on all fields of human activity and, in this sense, the digital environment in terms of information search and interaction with texts is no exception. The complexity of the digital scenario not only presents difficulties but also has advantages . DigitalIn México, research has been conducted on academic literacy and digital scenarios. With virtual ethnographic interviews and two online questionnaires, an analysis was made of students’ perceptions of the blogs’ influence on their academic literacy, the links and tensions between the two types of writing, and the possible lessons for educational innovation in the area . AnotherAs can be seen earlier, the theoretical framework of this research is based on Carlino’s definition (2013), which conceives academic literacy as the way in which students manage to interact with texts from their field of study and from different disciplines (cognitive aspect) and is enriched with the theories that, in previous paragraphs, explain the attitudinal (TPB), emotional , digital , and personality aspects . This theoretical approach allows for a holistic view of academic literacy development.The participating institutions were Tecnologico de Monterrey (various campuses), Universidad del Valle de México (various campuses), and Universidad de Sevilla and Universidad de Cantabria. As the study was part of the NOVUS OpenResearchLab project of the Tecnologico de Monterrey, the research professors who were part of the project team were in charge of providing support for the application of the eResearch&Literacy questionnaire in their institutions. The application of the questionnaire was carried out online using a Google form.For the present research, the Mixed Methods approach was used since the information was collected and analyzed by means of quantitative and qualitative instruments to know the perception on the levels of mastery regarding academic literacy competencies. An explanatory sequential design was chosen since the data obtained through quantitative instruments are enriched with the data collected through qualitative instruments. In the quantitative part, the instrument called eResearch&Literacy  was applIn the qualitative part, the Case Study approach was chosen. Case studies are analyses in detail of single phenomena that are studied holistically by one or more methods. These single phenomena under study—the cases—may be persons, events, decisions, periods, projects, policies, institutions, or other phenomena or systems . For theThe eResearch&Literacy questionnaire was subjected to a validity and reliability process. Criterion validity was determined, which refers to the strength of the relationship between the measures intended to predict the final criterion of interest and the criterion measure itself . The expThe teacher of the “Business Strategy and Talent” course decided to apply the 16Personalities test so that students could learn about their personality types. This resource was used for the present research to identify the relationship between personality type and the development of academic literacy competencies. The test, as its name suggests, yields 16 personality types, which are classified into four groups, namely, Analysts, Diplomats, Sentinels, and Explorers. The personality types are shown in Campaigner is someone with extraverted, intuitive, feeling, and prospecting personality traits. These people tend to embrace big ideas and actions that reflect their sense of hope and goodwill toward others. Their vibrant energy can flow in many directions. A Debater is a person with extraverted, intuitive, thinking, and prospecting personality traits. They tend to be bold and creative, deconstructing and rebuilding ideas with great mental agility. They pursue their goals vigorously despite any resistance they might encounter. A Protagonist is a person with extraverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging personality traits. These warm, forthright types love helping others, and they tend to have strong ideas and values. They back their perspective with the creative energy to achieve their goals. An Entrepreneur is someone with extraverted, observant, thinking, and prospecting personality traits. They tend to be energetic and action-oriented, deftly navigating whatever is in front of them. They love uncovering life’s opportunities, whether socializing with others or in more personal pursuits.The personality types we focused on are those that correspond to the five focus group participants. A As already mentioned in the “Method” section, the participants in this study were 595 university students from Mexico (383) and Spain (212) for the application of the eResearch&Literacy instrument but, for the qualitative part, were carried out through a case study, the group analyzed consisted of 18 first-semester undergraduate students from a university in northern Mexico, of whom 5 participated in the discussion group, one participated in an interview, and a professor was also interviewed. In addition, all 18 students were administered the 16Personalities test. The research results emerged from the application and analysis of quantitative and qualitative instruments, as well as their triangulation.After applying the eResearch&Literacy instrument to 595 higher education students, we obtained the averages for each dimension of the instrument as well as the overall average regarding the perception of research and academic literacy competencies. For the present research, we focused on the part corresponding to academic literacy, as shown in As can be seen in An analysis was also performed to identify the averages by item according to academic literacy, as shown in It can be seen in A comparative analysis of the perception of university students in Spain and Mexico is shown in An interview was conducted with a teacher and other with a student, in addition to a focus group with five students, and important data were obtained regarding their perception of the personality strengths assigned to them according to the 16Personalities test they answered as well as the points that could be an obstacle to the development of these competencies.In the focus group, although the students were chosen randomly, it turned out that the participants possessed different personality types. They shared the strengths of their personality to facilitate the development of academic literacy competencies and the points that could be an obstacle to achieving their development, as shown in Although the eResearch&Literacy instrument was analyzed only with respect to the academic literacy competencies portion of the instrument, when conducting the interviews with the teacher and student and the focus group, it was reinforced that there is a close relationship between both types of competencies and that it was important to address it also in this study, which aims to provide a holistic view. The teacher’s (PR) view on this point is reflected as follows:I believe that everything is governed by the curiosity to investigate. I believe that we can start from there so that a person is able to review, investigate, inquire, formulate, etc. I believe that it is a whole, we could not say that this competence is better for literacy, because it is a whole and somehow in research you will have to go through all the phases, even if it is multidisciplinary.The student interviewed (S6) responded as follows regarding research skills that can foster the development of academic literacy skills:Look for reliable information and if you have the support of a teacher, ask him/her as well. Generate that criterion of saying this information is useful, this information is not useful, what am I looking for. If I am going to give proposals to McDonalds, I am not going to give them information that they already have, I am going to generate new information, so how to have my own criteria to say what I am looking for to see what I write.The participants in the focus group were asked about what strengths they considered their personality type to favor the development of their research and academic literacy competencies. In this regard, S4 comments:I think one strength of the animator personality is that he is very communicative, so it is easy for him to communicate and get sources of information, also another one could be that he is a person with a lot of imagination and so on. So, I think that could help a lot.Also, S3 shares:The strong point in the personality type that came out for me is that we really like to work in a team. I think that if you do research in a team it is a good way to learn more and have more knowledge.For his part, S2 explains, “I was an innovative person. I think it is important to be one step ahead of others, because you are researching, you want to know more and more” and S1 expresses, “The useful ones would be that I am, well, I said that I am very good at generating new skills.”In the focus group, students were led to reflect on what they felt were the aspects of their personality type that hindered the development of research and academic literacy skills. S1 expressed that, for her, the obstacle was, “If I do not find what I want or expected I get disappointed very easily.” S2 shares that, “One obstacle of my personality I think is my patience, because if I do not see results soon is to see what is happening, I need more, more, more, more.” S3 and S5 agree that the main obstacle of their personality type is that they are easily distracted. In contrast, S4 comments, “Being so changeable, you do not focus on a single point and you want to cover a lot, so it gets complicated in the end.”For students, academic writing is not a simple process. Sitting down to write a report, a research report, or an essay, among others, is a complex process. S6 states “I consider myself very good in spelling and grammar and in research in general, but what I struggle with the most is to land my ideas, that is, to draw conclusions, that is what I struggle with the most.”Also, teachers detect the difficulty students have regarding academic writing. PR shares:There are serious spelling problems that we have to help them clean up, secondly, they kind of go off into their own thoughts and write themselves, trying to use writing as a kind of outlet, which is fine, I mean, it’s part of what we are working on, but sometimes it’s so much the daily type that they put in there, that suddenly they forget about the academic part.A question that has been less explored is how the emotional side can influence proper academic writing and thus efficient academic literacy. PR reflects on how this plays out in students and concludes:I do have my reflection, I am clear about what I am thinking, but then how do I ground that to the concepts we are seeing. That part of aligning mine with the theoretical part because they go more to the emotional or to what I bring and feel, although maybe in some way they do thread it, when I review it in writing it is not seen and that is what they need to integrate.The emotional side is also reflected in research work that can serve as a basis for academic literacy, as exemplified in S1’s comment: I started reading everything, but I did not know what I was going to use, almost nothing helped, that’s as far as I got. When the student was asked if he had become unmotivated, he responded: Yes, they were moving very fast and I had to study a lot.Another aspect that can influence how academic literacy is developed is attitude. An important issue that can positively influence academic writing is the attitude to research, is the attitude to be curious, willing, and also open to constructive criticism regarding research reports to improve academic writing skills and is the attitude research has on a better development of academic literacy competencies. PR expresses that attitude even goes beyond the realm of academic literacy, which impacts everything, as she explains below:I believe that for everything, organizations can check this part, the attitude, the quality of service, assertiveness, all these personal skills that a person already has as personal skills help you to develop the rest. From having to apply a test to a certain group of the population, to be able to reach a certain group of the population you need to know how to negotiate and communicate effectively and be very assertive, be friendly, if you are not like that, they will hardly want to answer you something, even if it is to know the quality of a product or for marketing purposes, etc.Some students showed a positive attitude toward research competencies that can favor the development of academic literacy, as in the case of S2: “I like to read other people’s research and then be able to implement them, at the moment if I am liking research.” With respect to academic writing, a positive attitude was identified, as shown in S4’s response: “That is why it is good to get a second opinion, or read it after 2 days to see if it makes sense what you are expressing, maybe there are things you understand but others do not.”Currently, students can access a large number of texts at the click of a button; they are no longer limited to going to a library to consult a limited collection compared to the vast amount of information provided by the web, the main site where they search for their schoolwork or research. PR reinforces this statement when it shares:I think that more than anything the digital part, the printed part is not much to their liking, with the digital part they respond better, but if you put a video where you integrate the message you want to provide them with, it is better for them. They prefer listening, watching, not so much the reading part. I mean, there are those who, yes, have that ability more developed, it is a taste they have for reading, but in general, let’s say, 80% are more visual than anything else.Regarding the search for information on Internet sites, they prefer the web since it is more complex for them to access databases of the digital library of their institution. S6 comments, “Well, the most common is to search in Google, in the open one, Scholar I always forget to use it.” PR also agrees, which is reflected in the following comment:Google (laughs), the whole web, Wikipedia is almost not used, because they also have already demonized it. I feel that for a while there was a very negative message regarding Wikipedia, so they have already identified it as a space where they can find information, but teachers are not going to accept it. More than anything else on the web, there are some very smart people who use Google Scholar, but it is rare, it is very rare who really uses digital library sources.Adequate academic literacy in higher education requires solid knowledge of academic discursive genres and the structure of scientific texts. The attitudinal part has an impact on learning in general and, therefore, on the development of academic literacy. Knowing their personality type can have the benefit of helping them identify those areas of opportunity that they can transform to achieve better learning and, in this case, better academic literacy development. The emotional part can also influence adequate academic writing. In the “Influence of the emotional side on academic literacy” section, it is reflected that sometimes students get carried away by the emotional part of their writings and do not take care to integrate what they are writing with the theoretical part of the course for which they elaborate their writings. Emotions are closely related to the educational process and the inability to regulate emotional processes that can significantly impair the student’s academic performance . The emoLearning is now largely framed in digital environments, which also impacts how university students interact with texts. The content of the “Students prefer to interact with texts on digital platforms” section shows how students prefer to read in digital environments; unfortunately, they do not have an adequate level of mastery regarding their digital competencies. Upon entering the university context, students encounter specialized knowledge, and therefore, they need to develop specific strategies to engage in the different text analysis and production activities required for learning in the higher education context . As if tAn important aspect was to establish an analysis between Spanish and Mexican students to know the difference in their perception of their level of mastery of academic literacy. The literature review allowed us to have a notion of the path taken by researchers regarding the development of academic literacy in university students. In the “Introduction” section, two reviews were found, which were a good contribution to learn about research that shared strategies for the development of academic literacy. It was also valuable to identify several articles that showed evidence of interventions, but it could be seen that the focus was on text analysis and production. The literature review confirmed that the present study generates a contribution to the field of the study of academic literacy in the university context since it contemplates aspects that have not received much attention but which, in the theoretical framework and in the “Results” section of this article, show their importance on aspects, including attitudinal, emotional, and personality, that have been analyzed in various studies involving cognitive and digital, giving rise to a holistic view of the development process of academic literacy competence.The present study found that, in relation to the cognitive aspect, it is necessary to reinforce the knowledge of the different types of academic discursive genres and the structure of texts from the time students enter the undergraduate program and to facilitate the comprehension of texts in their area of study and even enable them to understand texts from other disciplinary areas, to favor their participation in interdisciplinary projects. It was also identified that the attitude that students show toward learning may depend on the learning environments that teachers provide so that innovative strategies can be motivating to promote academic literacy. The emotional part should also be considered; the school environment can provide resources that promote emotional regulation in students so that they can have an adequate school performance, which can influence the development of competencies, such as academic literacy in this case.With respect to personality, it was found that it can be of great benefit to generate spaces and facilitate resources so that students can identify their personality type and their way of learning since they will become aware of their strengths and areas for improvement to design strategies that facilitate their teaching-learning process, allow them to improve their skills and competencies, and favor the development of an efficient academic literacy. Another finding was that students largely interact with texts through digital environments, so universities must seek to promote critical and creative thinking so that they can distance themselves from the contents to which they are exposed and can choose those that are truly in line with their research topics, and it is important to adapt the training to the use of the digital library, taking special care that the information is clear and simple. To ensure that students are trained, it may be necessary to establish formal courses as the teacher interviewed suggests, since having students enter training voluntarily has not yielded results.It was possible to identify that Mexican students have a higher perception regarding their level of mastery of academic literacy competence than Spanish students. Also, through a literature review, it was found that more studies have been conducted on academic literacy in Mexico than in Spain and that, in both countries, the research focuses on specific aspects, largely in relation to the cognitive and digital aspects. Therefore, a study that addresses academic literacy in university students with a holistic approach is relevant.The design of strategies that contemplate the elements of the cognitive, attitudinal, emotional, digital, and personality aspects will make it possible to provide students with the possibility of favoring their learning process, generating greater motivation, and making it more meaningful. This will have an impact on the development of competencies necessary for today’s complex environment, among them, the academic literacy competency, which is so important in the graduate profile of university students.For future research, we recommend the design and validation of an instrument to evaluate the cognitive, attitudinal, emotional, digital, and personality aspects to have more information to provide greater support for the design of strategies that favor the development of academic literacy in university students. Strategies could even be designed to be the curricular integrated into the last grade of high school to generate a valuable bridge that allows students to enter with greater knowledge and skills for academic reading and writing, facilitating their progress in their level of mastery in their academic literacy competence.The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent from the  was not required to participate in this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.IC-M was primarily responsible for designing the study, collecting and analyzing data, and drafting the manuscript. CC participated in the methodology and the writing of the manuscript. LG-M and MR-M contributed to the revision and improvement of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.This publication is a product of the projects “OpenResearchLab: innovation with artificial intelligence and robotics to scale domain levels of reasoning for complexity” (ID Novus N21-207), funded by the Institute for the Future of Education (IFE) and “Challenge-Based Research Funding Program 2022”. Project ID # I005 - IFE001 - C2-T3 – T. Also, academic support from Writing Lab, IFE Tecnologico de Monterrey, México.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


Scoliosis is a three-dimensional deformity of the spine and trunk , and desHigh-quality studies have expressed doubts about the possibility of bracing to change the natural history in mild scoliosis patients ,6. Some Evidence is also growing regarding exercises, with former Cochrane Review results  reportinWhile we wait for a deeper understanding of the aetiology that would allow us a more specific treatment, based on current evidence, there are novel challenges that clinicians and researchers must face. After focusing on effectiveness for decades, research concerning bracing should now focus on protocols and biomechanical effectiveness. The high dosages (hours per day of brace wearing) are a documented key factor for success . HoweverEvidence for PSSEs is quite promising , with noPoor-quality research remains crucial in limiting the possibility of increasing our knowledge and implementing the best available treatments. Several years ago, we described some of the most frequent issues related to this, including selection bias, inappropriate outcome measures and follow-ups, the misinterpretation of findings and missing evaluations of skeletal maturity . These pIn conclusion, in recent decades, knowledge on idiopathic scoliosis and its treatment has grown thanks to broader interest in and better quality of research. The creation of the Scientific Society on Scoliosis Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Treatment (SOSORT) strongly supported the increased number of published papers. Nevertheless, some areas are still under investigation, and poor-quality articles are still being published. We need to focus on these areas and provide the best possible evidence for the sake of our patients. The present Special Issue is an example of interest in bridging this gap between current knowledge and the needs of clinicians.