The Practical Feasibility of Diary Studies for INSET

Although diary studies have previously been employed for research purposes on INSET courses, the value and effectiveness of log‐keeping from the perspective of the consumer, i.e. the course participants and institution, have not beenfully investigated. This study focused on the use of the diary on intensive inservice courses as a means of formalising participant response to teaching input from the dual perspective of pedagogy and evaluation. The practical implications of introducing diaries as a formai component of INSET are examined and ways explored of adapting the journal to this context.     

Financing training in developing countries: The role of payroll taxes

In most developing countries, the major programs of vocational training and manpower-skill development are financed from general government revenues. Increasingly, however, earmarked payroll taxes are employed to finance training. This paper summarizes international experience with these payroll taxes, drawing the distinction between the more traditional revenue raising schemes on the lines of the Latin American model and the newer levy-grant schemes.Drawing upon experience of payroll taxes in advanced economies it discusses the incidence of these taxes in developing countries and presents an economic rationale for their growing use, as part of a reverse social security scheme. It concludes that the desirability of using payroll taxes to finance training, compared to other alternatives available to developing country governments, is likely to be contingent upon the stage of a country's development.     

Reshaping Teaching and Learning: The Transformation of Faculty Pedagogical Content Knowledge

A qualitative study of faculty members participating in a campus-wide problem-based learning initiative examined the process of transforming faculty pedagogical content knowledge. Researchers found that faculty existing knowledge and the institutional intervention influenced new knowledge of faculty roles, student roles, disciplinary structures, and pedagogy. Communicating new knowledge solidified the transformation.     

Generic Interests and School Subject Choice

While empirical research on school subject preferences and choices has a long history, ‘interest’ has infrequently been invoked as an explanatory construct. Three levels on which interest is conceptualised in educational research are identified. The most general derives from vocational psychology and may be characterised by the themes of Holland’s RIASEC typology. The results of five recent Australian studies in which interests were related to school subject preferences and choices are reviewed, and a series of multi-level models of data from the most recent are presented. The models offer a coherent summary of interest – school subject choice relations and enable accurate estimates to be made of their relative importance across the curriculum fields typically available in the senior secondary years. The consistency in the results of the five studies provides strong support for the hypotheses that school subject preferences and choices are systematically related to interests, and that Holland’s RIASEC themes provide a coherent account of preferences and choices across a broad range of objects, activities and contexts encountered in school and work.     

Updating RIGs: including the systematic influence of online study on student evaluation of teaching

Based on student evaluation of teaching (SET) ratings from 1,432 units of study over a period of a year, representing 74,490 individual sets of ratings, and including a significant number of units offered in wholly online mode, we confirm the significant influence of class size, year level, and discipline area on at least some SET ratings. We also find online mode of offer to significantly influence at least some SET ratings. We reveal both the statistical significance and effect sizes of these influences, and find that the magnitudes of the effect sizes of all factors are small, but potentially cumulative. We also show that the influence of online mode of offer is of the same magnitude as the other 3 factors. These results support and extend the rating interpretation guides (RIGs) model proposed by Neumann and colleagues, and we present a general method for the development of a RIGs system.     

Music Selection Behaviors in Everyday Listening

Data on everyday music listening obtained via the Experience Sampling Method indicated that selection method was related to liking for and emotional response to the music, attention paid to the music, and perceived consequences of hearing the music. Individual listener's characteristics (e.g., age and level of engagement with music) were associated with selection behaviors. Negative effects resulted when individuals perceived they did not have control over music selection. In contrast, possessing control led to positive consequences such as enjoyment and motivation. These results indicate that control is an important aspect of one's everyday music experiences.     

On Bosworth Field or the Playing Fields of Eton and Rugby? Who Really Invented Modern Football?

In 1867 the Football Association was considering disbanding but was largely dissuaded from doing so by the progress the game was making in Sheffield. The football rules used there seemed much more appealing to teams and spectators alike and the game was beginning to be exploited commercially. This commercialism was resisted though by the local social elite who still had a fierce belief in amateurism and opposed the professionalisation of football. At the same time, in Lancashire, there existed a vigorous sporting culture surrounding pedestrianism, horse racing, boxing and cricket together with a well developed structure of sporting facilities. By the 1870s football, a game that had not previously been exploited commercially in Lancashire, was beginning to become popular and was rapidly professionalised. Nominal record linkage indicates that this development was essentially driven by schoolteachers, clerks, bookkeepers and accountants using their social and cultural capital rather than the transference of public school culture through returning public schoolboys. The formation of modern association football in Lancashire between 1830 and 1885 can then be seen to be effected though linear continuities in local popular culture and the emergence of a lower middle class rather than public school traditions and a civilising process.     

Endurance training adherence in elite junior netball athletes: A test of the theory of planned behaviour and a revised theory of planned behaviour

This study examined the utility of Ajzen's () theory of planned behaviour and Maddux's () revised theory of planned behaviour to predict endurance training intentions and adherence of elite junior netball athletes. One hundred and fifteen athletes from the England Netball World Class Start Programme were assessed on constructs central to the predictions of the two theories. Adherence to a recommended endurance training programme was recorded in self-report diaries across a 9-week period. Validity for the diaries was supported by significant correlations (P <?0.001) with recalls across 7 days and 9 weeks. Adherence was moderate and variable between athletes (mean = 66.05, s = 25.75%). Two separate path analyses were conducted to examine the predictions of the theories. Goodness-of-fit indices suggested acceptable fit of the data to the models. Analyses showed that attitude towards the new behaviour, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control predicted training intentions. The relationship between intention and adherence was weak. The present results suggest that the constructs of the theory of planned behaviour offer some insight into the explanation of intentions to follow an endurance training programme. Constructs unique to the revised theory of planned behaviour did not significantly predict training intentions or behaviour. Implications for practitioners working with team sport performers are provided.