Training of perceptual-cognitive skills in offside decision making

This study investigates the effect of two off-field training formats to improve offside decision making. One group trained with video simulations and another with computer animations. Feedback after every offside situation allowed assistant referees to compensate for the consequences of the flash-lag effect and to improve their decision-making accuracy. First, response accuracy improved and flag errors decreased for both training groups implying that training interventions with feedback taught assistant referees to better deal with the flash-lag effect. Second, the results demonstrated no effect of format, although assistant referees rated video simulations higher for fidelity than computer animations. This implies that a cognitive correction to a perceptual effect can be learned also when the format does not correspond closely with the original perceptual situation. Off-field offside decision-making training should be considered as part of training because it is a considerable help to gain more experience and to improve overall decision-making performance.     

In defence of writing: a social semiotic perspective on digital media,literacy and learning

From a learning perspective, social semiotics researchers tend to focus on the liberation latent in the multimedia options available through the new media. It is true that digital media democratise the possibilities open to the general public of a more varied and comprehensive text production than ever before, both in and outside school. Participating in this text production naturally implies a richer potential for learning. But digital technology also allows us to opt out of, and thus avoid, semiotic work. With this as the starting point, the present article sets out to highlight the pedagogical benefits associated with the written mode, precisely in an age when the digital media are making multimodal forms of expression increasingly available to us all.     

Monk,knight or artist? the archivist as a straddler of a paradigm

The contextual approach gives the impression that we are moving into the 21st century with three competing scientific traditions of interpretation. Another understanding is the systemic view, which indicates a paradigm with complementing traditions of interpretation, depending on ontological level. The paradigm of archival science is, like that of many other sciences, influenced by positivism, systems theory and hermeneutics. The relevance of the paradigm depends on personal beliefs. The hermeneutic understanding of archival science emphasizes the context and deconstructs central concepts. Hermeneutics emphasizes the influence of conceptual changes and technological advances on perception. Hermeneutics stresses the need for a socio-cultural and historical orientation of archival science. The positivistic tradition is coloured by the myths about an ideal science. This is reflected firstly in the analogy comparing archives with nature, and secondly in the deductive method. Positivism is instrumental in its demands for distinct definitions of concepts and its insistence on the record as the basis of archival science. The flexibility of systems theory highlights the complex relations between context and record. Systems theory can, at its best, serve as a meeting-place for researchers, archivists and users and accordingly form the basis for new knowledge and theory formation. Systems theory enables a materialistic/dialectic epistemology based in reality and inspired by other relevant sciences. The result may be the foundation of a systemic-functionalist archival science with activities, records creation and evidential values in focus.     

The creative use of companion values in environmental education and education for sustainable development: exploring the educative moment

Our paper addresses the emergence and evolution of values in educational settings. It builds upon and extends earlier work on companion meanings to develop a theory of the creative use of companion values and meanings in education. The recognition of companion values in educational practices highlight epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic transactions that occur in ways we characterize as ‘other than modern.’ Introducing the idea of educative moments allows us to identify situations where value spheres interpenetrate and interrogate each other in the meaning-making of students and teachers. These moments occur when students suddenly experience companion meanings and values such that teacher and student must deliberate together rather than the teacher dictating some dominating epistemological, ethical, or aesthetic value. This way, it is possible to accommodate critical and creative reflection in education where new values can emerge or evolve. We illustrate the theory by empirical examples from classroom conversations.     

Sport activities differentiating match-play improvement in elite youth footballers – a 2-year longitudinal study

This study examined contributions of different types of sport activities to the development of elite youth soccer performance. Match-play performance of 44 German male players was assessed by expert coaches twice, 24 months apart (age 11.1–13.1 years), based on videotaped 5v5 matches. Player pairs were matched by identical age and initial performance at t₁. Each player was assigned to a group of either “Strong” or “Weak Responders” based on a higher or lower subsequent performance improvement at t₂ within each pair (mean Δperformance 29% vs. 7%). A questionnaire recorded current and earlier amounts of organised practice/training and non-organised sporting play, in soccer and other sports, respectively. Group comparison revealed that “Strong Responders” accumulated more non-organised soccer play and organised practice/training in other sports, but not more organised soccer practice/training. Subsequent multivariate analyses (multiple linear regression analyses (MLR)) highlighted that higher resultant match-play performance at t₂ was accounted for R²_adj = 0.65 by performance at t₁, together with more non-organised soccer play and organised engagement in other sports, respectively, and greater current, but less earlier volume of organised soccer. The findings suggest that variable early sporting experience facilitates subsequent soccer performance development in German elite youth footballers.     

Kinematical analysis of the V2 ski skating technique: A longitudinal study

To characterise timing of movements and evaluate performance effects of technique alterations in V2 ski skating, 13 elite male cross-country skiers (age, 23 ± 2 years; stature, 182 ± 6 cm; body mass, 76 ± 8 kg; V2 V?O_2max, 79.3 ± 4.4 mL · kg^?1 · min^?1) were tested four times during the preparation and competition phase on a roller ski treadmill. Each test consisted of submaximal intensities of exercise for determination of oxygen cost followed by one 1000-m performance test. Hip movement (from accelerometer data) and joint angles (2D video) were determined for high-intensity exercise (6° and 3.5 m · s^?1; ~ 97–100% of V?O_2peak). Each ski thrust consisted of three phases: gliding phase (18–50% of cycle time), poling phase (50–70% of cycle time), and kick phase (70–78% of cycle time). Flexion/extension of the hip initiated all phases, followed by the respective joints in legs and arms. Mixed-model analysis, adjusting for systematic time-point effects, identified that both reduced vertical hip acceleration and increased cycle time gave a small likely reduction in oxygen cost and 1000-m time. In conclusion, well-developed hip movement is a key characteristic of the V2 technique for elite-standard skiers’ long-term performance development.     

‘It doesn't matter how they move really,as long as they move.’ Physical education teachers on developing their students’ movement capabilities

Background: Movement is key in physical education, but the educational value of moving is sometimes obscure. In Sweden, recent school reforms have endeavoured to introduce social constructionist concepts of knowledge and learning into physical education, where the movement capabilities of students are in focus. However, this means introducing a host of new and untested concepts to the physical education teacher community.

Purpose. The purpose of this article is to explore how Swedish physical education teachers reason about helping their students develop movement capability.

Participants, setting and research design. The data are taken from a research project conducted in eight Swedish secondary schools called ‘Physical education and health – a subject for learning?’ in which students and teachers were interviewed and physical education lessons were video-recorded. This article draws on data from interviews with the eight participating teachers, five men and three women. The teachers were interviewed partly using a stimulated recall technique where the teachers were asked to comment on video clips from physical education lessons where they themselves act as teachers.

Data analysis. A discourse analysis was conducted with a particular focus on the ensemble of more or less regulated, deliberate and finalised ways of doing things that characterise the eight teachers’ approach to helping the students develop their movement capabilities.

Findings. The interviews indicate that an activation discourse (‘trying out’ and ‘being active’) dominates the teachers’ ways of reasoning about their task (a focal discourse). When the teachers were specifically asked about how they can help the students improve their movement capacities, a sport discourse (a referential discourse) was expressed. This discourse, which is based on the standards of excellence of different sports, conditions what the teachers see as (im)possible to do due to time limitations and a wish not to criticise the students publicly. The mandated holistic social constructionist discourse about knowledge and learning becomes obscure (an intruder discourse) in the sense that the teachers interpret it from the point of view of a dualist discourse, where ‘knowledge’ (theory) and ‘skill’ (practice) are divided.

Conclusions. Physical education teachers recoil from the task of developing the students’ movement capabilities due to certain conditions of impossibility related to the discursive terrain they are moving in. The teachers see as their primary objective the promotion of physical activity – now and in the future; they conceptualise movement capability in such a way that emphasising the latter would jeopardise their possibilities of realising the primary objective. Should the aim be to reinforce the social constructionist national curriculum, where capability to move is suggested to be an attempt at formulating a concept of knowledge that includes both propositional and procedural aspects and which is not based on the standards of excellence of either sport techniques or motor ability, then teachers will need support to interpret the national curriculum from a social constructionist perspective. Further, alternative standards of excellence as well as a vocabulary for articulating these will have to be developed.