Dynamics of Acculturation, Enculturation, and Ethnic Identity: Influence of Psychocultural Constructs on Conscientiousness and Expectations of Higher Education Among Latinos

This study investigated the influence of psychocultural variables (e.g., acculturation, enculturation, ethnic identity) and personality characteristics in relation to educational expectations among 345 Latino middle school students in the U.S. Results from a path model indicate that 24.4?% of the variance of educational expectations was accounted for by all predictor variables included in the model. Age, acculturation, and conscientiousness had statistically significant direct effects on educational expectations. Findings also show that elements of ethnic identity and conscientiousness mediated the association from acculturation and enculturation to educational expectations. Implications of the findings for counselors are addressed.     

Science Teachers’ Thinking About the Nature of Science: A New Methodological Approach to Its Assessment

This paper describes Spanish science teachers’ thinking about issues concerning the nature of science (NOS) and the relationships connecting science, technology, and society (STS). The sample consisted of 774 in-service and pre-service teachers. The participants responded to a selection of items from the Questionnaire of Opinions on Science, Technology & Society in a multiple response model. These data were processed to generate the invariant indices that are used as the bases for subsequent quantitative and qualitative analyses. The overall results reflect moderately informed conceptions, and a detailed analysis by items, categories, and positions reveals a range of positive and negative conceptions about the topics of NOS dealt with in the questionnaire items. The implications of the findings for teaching and teacher training on the themes of NOS are discussed.     

Measuring faculty learning in curriculum and teaching competence online courses

Online education is used for a variety of purposes in higher education. Two such purposes are improving one's performance over time and understanding one's professional development in the context of online teaching and learning. Relying on data from online staff development courses delivered in five Spanish universities, this article explores online faculty learning through the lens of staff development theory. This theoretical perspective emphasizes the universities' quality assurance contexts and offers an empirical examination of the ways in which faculty members learn curriculum and teaching competencies (CTCs) in online staff development programmes. At the core of this analysis is the contention that faculty members understand and respond to quality teaching lessons and activities. Finally, this study highlights the points deemed important when designing, implementing, and evaluating Internet CTC training courses.     

Institutional repositories versus ResearchGate: The depositing habits of Spanish researchers

Despite the increase in the number of institutional repositories worldwide, most of them seem underpopulated. At the same time, scientists are apparently willing to share copies of their publications on academic social networking sites. This paper compares the availability of the scholarly output in the institutional repositories of 13 top Spanish universities and in ResearchGate (RG). Results show that just 11.1% of the articles published in 2014 by researchers at these universities were available in their institutional repository in the first quarter of 2016. However, most of the articles that were not available in institutional repositories (84.5%) were published in journals that allow the deposit of the article in some form. In contrast, 54.8% of the articles were available in full text on RG. When authors who had uploaded copies of their articles to RG but not to their institutional repository were asked about their reasons, most replies focused on two issues: ignorance about the existence or operation of the institutional repository and awareness of the advantages offered by RG.     

Proofs produced by secondary school students learning geometry in a dynamic computer environment

As a key objective, secondary school mathematics teachers seek to improve the proof skills of students. In this paper we present an analytic framework to describe and analyze students' answers to proof problems. We employ this framework to investigate ways in which dynamic geometry software can be used to improve students' understanding of the nature of mathematical proof and to improve their proof skills. We present the results of two case studies where secondary school students worked with Cabri-Géeomèetre to solve geometry problems structured in a teaching unit. The teaching unit had theaims of: i) Teaching geometric concepts and properties, and ii) helping students to improve their conception of the nature of mathematical proof and to improve their proof skills. By applying the framework defined here, we analyze students' answers to proof problems, observe the types of justifications produced, and verify the usefulness of learning in dynamicgeometry computer environments to improve students' proof skills.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

“Just like us”: Increasing awareness,prompting action and combating ageism through a critical intergenerational service learning project

In the Through their Eyes Project health sciences students are partnered with older adults to explore and assess the age-friendliness of their neighborhood. Using an innovative data collection tool – ‘moving interviews’ – these intergenerational research teams learn about the community and each other by traveling, observing, and discussing these landscapes together. The research project culminates in a community forum where findings are presented to government officials, the housing association and aging organizations. In addition to completing the research project, students are required to keep a journal to reflect on their experience.

The purpose of this study was to explore students experience participating in a critical intergenerational service learning project. Two research questions guided this inquiry: What was the experience for students and, what elements of the project are important to that experience?

Student journals collected over 5 years from 191 students comprised the data for this study. Data were analyzed using a 6-phase thematic analysis process.

Two key findings related to student experience emerged from the study: increased awareness and prompted to action. Elements of the course found significant to this experience included an aging simulation activity and the specific design of the project.

The paper concludes with suggestions for developing and integrating critical service-learning pedagogy into gerontological education.     

Writing reviews: perspectives from the editors of Educational Studies in Mathematics

Educational Studies in Mathematics -     

A systematic review on small-sided games in football players: Acute and chronic adaptations

Small-sided games (SSG) are played on a small pitch, often using modified rules and involving a smaller number of players. This article aimed to critically analyse the literature to determine how small-sided games affect the performance of football players in the short- and long term. Electronic databases were searched for literature dating from January 2000 to July 2018. The methodological quality of the studies was evaluated using the modified Downs and Black Quality Index (cross-sectional studies) and the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale (intervention studies). Fifty-three studies, 44 cross-sectional and 9 intervention studies, met the inclusionary criteria for review. Most of the cross-sectional studies focused on describing the differences between SSG protocols, whereas 4 studies focused on making a comparison between “interval” and “continuous” SSG training regimes. On the other hand, intervention studies focused on making a comparison between SSG-based protocols and high-intensity intermittent training (HIIT)-based running protocols, in addition to determine the effect of a SSG-based training programme alone. SSG-based football plans (2 to 4 SSG sessions per week) show athletic performance improvements in football players by improving sprint, repeated sprint ability (RSA) and change of direction (COD) along with muscular and physiological adaptation.     

Goal-directed self-talk used to self-regulate in male basketball competitions

This study examined how goal-directed self-talk may help basketball players to self-regulate in stereotypical competitive situations: seconds before a challenging game, while clearly winning or clearly losing, and at the close of a tight game. Participants were recruited in groups of three to four, until preliminary inspection of the data indicated that data saturation was reached. In the end, 34 basketball players voluntarily took part in individual interviews, writing up to three self-instructions they had used in each of the four competitive situations to self-regulate. Content analyses revealed that self-talk in competitive basketball situations serves cognitive functions (e.g., regulating cognition and behaviour), motivational functions (e.g., promoting mastery goals) and emotion and activation-regulating functions (e.g., creating activated states). More specifically, the results also indicated that athletes’ self-talk may serve functions specific to the psychological demands experienced in each situation. It is argued that knowing how athletes counsel themselves, could prove important for applied sport psychologists to design psychological skill training.