Abstract:

Higher education teaching processes should take advantage from the evidence-based methodologies, if we want to provide greater learning quality for our students. In this line, some successful educational actions were implemented in the bilingual dual-degree in Pre-school and Primary Education with the aim of carrying out the most supported procedures by research. In the case of the subject Developmental Psychology, the action called "Applied research methods" was implemented during the academic year 2016/2017, as a practice in the second issue about Psychomotor skills development. This practice is expected to develop the specific competence number 2, i.e. To know the characteristics of the students, as well as the characteristics of their motivational and social contexts. The practice was entitled Analysis of the development of children drawing, and consisted of collecting, in groups of 5-6 students, a total of 8 drawings performed by 8 children, aged between 2 and 10 years old. Specifically, students were proposed to join drawings from one girl and one boy from these specific age periods: 2-3 years old, 3-4 years old, 5-8 years old, and 9-10 years old. Children were invited to draw something they liked it or what they want in a blank sheet of paper. After finishing, they were asked what they drawn. After collecting all drawings, students should analyze their characteristics by age and gender, based on the literature presented in class, by differentiating between the different stages, i.e. squiggle, frustrated realism, intellectual realism and visual realism. Then, these works conducted by students were presented in class as a poster presentation, an oral communication or a brief manuscript, within the Students' Conference on Developmental Psychology, celebrated at the end of the semester. APA format and style were respected for citation and reference, and for structure. The performance of this successful methodology was effective to teach the contents related with children drawing, and it was also highly valued by students, as a more active way of learning, providing a direct contact with the children's reality. Results from the satisfaction enquiries revealed excellent scores in learning resources, understanding, motivation, organization and overall satisfaction with teaching work.

Keywords:

Higher education, teaching, learning, evidence-based, experience, innovation, primary education degree, pre-school education degree.