Stackable credentials and career/college pathways in culinary arts at Kingsborough Community College,CUNY

Discussions of workforce development emphasize stackable training, and assume linear advancement and alignment, through college and career paths. Stackable credentials have become a best practice for community colleges across the United States as they struggle to advance the college completion agenda and ensure that students graduate with the skills needed to find gainful employment. This study examined the concept of stackability in culinary arts at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York. It compared employment and education opportunities for students enrolled in short-term training to those of students enrolled in an associate degree program. Its goal was to explore gaps between employer demand for trained workers and long-term investments in education. The study also aimed to suggest ways in which we can meaningfully support students in their pursuit of degrees, even as they seek employment in a high-growth sector for which education, experience, and job titles are often an imprecise match.     

The construction of abstract units in geometric and numeric settings

The main thesis of this paper is that the construction and coordination of abstract units is central to mathematical activity in both numerical and geometric settings. Data were gathered from students in grade three through six, with four students being observed over a three year period. A consistent parallel was found in the sophistication of the types of units constructed in a geometric setting (tiling the plane) with their numeric activity. The tiling activity of the students was analyzed for evidence of the construction and coordination of units. Some students constructed rather sophisticated abstract composite units to facilitate their tiling with a particular shape while others had difficulty making a covering. Students who constructed abstract composite units in tiling did so also in adding and subtracting whole numbers. Evidence of unitizing and coordinating the units constructed was associated with advances in mathematical thinking. Unitizing seems to be a fundamental mental operation in coming to act mathematically. As mathematics activities are planned, it is important to provide opportunities for students to construct abstract composite units in both geometric and numeric settings. Emphasis on prescribed procedures such as subtracting with two-digit numerals may inhibit this construction process.     

Attentional focus effects on sprint start performance as a function of skill level

Abstract

Several researchers have demonstrated that an external focus of attention (about movement’s effects) during movement execution allowed better performances and learning of various motor tasks than an internal focus of attention (about movement itself). However, attentional focus effects have not been studied in tasks requiring explosive actions preceded by fast reaction time to a signal, such as a sprint start. We hypothesised that the beneficial effect of external focus of attention would be observed in the different stages of the sprint start (i.e. reaction time, block clearance and running) for both expert and novice sprinters. Novice and expert sprinters performed sprint starts followed by a 10 m sprint under three conditions: external focus instructions; internal focus instructions; and neutral instructions. The reaction time and the running time were significantly shorter in the external focus condition than in the internal focus condition, for both expert and novice participants. These results confirm the beneficial effect of an external focus of attention on the speed of movement execution. Moreover, they revealed that attentional focus influences movement preparation. Several hypotheses are proposed to account for these results, with reference to the processes that could be responsible for the observed effects.     

When Does 'Good News' Become 'Bad News'? Relationships between Government and the Integrated Schools in Northern Ireland

The development of a set of religiously integrated schools in Northern Ireland since 1981 is often portrayed in wholly positive terms. However, the continued growth of the movement has generated serious tensions at a number of levels which have wider implications for any analysis of the implications of parental choice.     

Mixed Mode Latent Class Analysis: An Examination of Fit Index Performance for Classification

This Monte Carlo study examines the performance of fit indices commonly used by applied researchers interested in finite mixture modeling for the purposes of classification. Conditions for the simulation study were selected to reflect conditions found in applied educational and psychological research. The factors included in the investigation were metric level of indicators, sample size, and class prevalence. All models contained a combination of categorical and continuous indicators. All categorical indicators were dichotomous, and continuous indicators were normally distributed. The fit indices examined were Akaike’s information criterion, Bayesian information criterion (BIC), sample size-adjusted Bayesian information criterion (SSBIC), integrated classification likelihood criterion with Bayesian-type approximation, and Lo–Mendell–Rubin likelihood ratio test. Overall, SSBIC tended to identify the correct solution with higher frequency than other indices. BIC tended to identify the correct solution with higher frequency than the other indices in models with more continuous than categorical indicators, or when rare classes were absent.     

Exploring indicators of engagement in online learning as applied to adolescent health prevention: a pilot study of REAL media

Educational technology research and development - Engagement is central to the effectiveness of online health messages and the related educational programs that aim to deliver these messages to the...     

Introduction to Usus,a Community Website on Library Usage,and a Discussion about COUNTER 4

Established in 2014, Usus (Latin for usage), supported by Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources (COUNTER), but editorially independent, is a community-run website designed to provide a space for librarians, consortia, publishers, aggregators, repository managers, and scholars to discuss all aspects of usage, including particular ways that use is measured. In this session, Usus Supervisory Board members provided an introduction to Usus, outlined the purpose of the community-run site, and discussed how librarians may utilize the site to submit ongoing and complex usage issues. In addition, the presenters engaged attendees in discussing specific e-resource usage issues they have encountered as well as report changes and additions in the recently released COUNTER Code of Practice 4.     

Multivariate analyses of individual variation in soccer skill as a tool for talent identification and development: utilising evolutionary theory in sports science

The development of a comprehensive protocol for quantifying soccer-specific skill could markedly improve both talent identification and development. Surprisingly, most protocols for talent identification in soccer still focus on the more generic athletic attributes of team sports, such as speed, strength, agility and endurance, rather than on a player’s technical skills. We used a multivariate methodology borrowed from evolutionary analyses of adaptation to develop our quantitative assessment of individual soccer-specific skill. We tested the performance of 40 individual academy-level players in eight different soccer-specific tasks across an age range of 13–18 years old. We first quantified the repeatability of each skill performance then explored the effects of age on soccer-specific skill, correlations between each of the pairs of skill tasks independent of age, and finally developed an individual metric of overall skill performance that could be easily used by coaches. All of our measured traits were highly repeatable when assessed over a short period and we found that an individual’s overall skill – as well as their performance in their best task – was strongly positively correlated with age. Most importantly, our study established a simple but comprehensive methodology for assessing skill performance in soccer players, thus allowing coaches to rapidly assess the relative abilities of their players, identify promising youths and work on eliminating skill deficits in players.