How to win a bid for major sporting events? A stakeholder analysis of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games French bid

While understanding the planning and hosting of major sporting events is a popular research area, less is known about the bid process despite the potential economic and political spinoffs. Some studies offer criteria for successful bids and even consider the stakeholder network as a key factor. Considering the importance of the stakeholder network, we delve deeper into this area. Using the power, legitimacy and urgency framework by Mitchell et al. (1997), we examine the 2018 Olympic Winter Games’ French national bid competition (four candidacies) to analyse the stakeholder relationships, identify their salience and then determine stakeholder-based bid key success factors. Archival material and 28 interviews were analysed. We notably found that to increase the probability of winning, no actor alone should have a definitive status, the sport stakeholder group should have at least the expectant status, and no strategic stakeholder should have the latent status. We also find that a three-level analysis of the stakeholder network allows for a greater understanding of the bid governance and process dynamics at play, which help to elucidate a successful bid. We contribute to the literature by (a) showing how stakeholder salience analysis can assist in understanding the bid network governance structure; (b) demonstrating that stakeholder salience depends on the level which is analysed (local, between bids, and with the event owner), the stage (deciding to bid, national bid competition, national bid win/international competition), and the case/context; and (c) determining stakeholder-based key bid success factors such as who should and should not be more salient in the bid process.     

Outside the library: Early career researchers and use of alternative information sources in pandemic times

Presents findings from a study into the attitudes and practices of pandemic-era early career researchers (ECRs) in regard to obtaining access to the formally published scholarly literature, which focused on alternative providers, notably ResearchGate and Sci-Hub. The study is a part of the Harbingers project that has been exploring the work lives and scholarly communication practices of ECRs in pre-pandemic times and during the pandemic, and utilizes data from two rounds of interviews with around 170 ECRs from the sciences and social sciences in eight countries. Findings show that alternative providers, as represented by ResearchGate and Sci-Hub, have become established and appear to be gaining ground. However, there are considerable country- and discipline-associated differences. ECRs' country-specific level of usage of the alternative providers is partly traceable to the adequacy of library provisions, although there are other factors at play in shaping ECRs' attitudes and practices, most notably convenience and time saving, as well as the fact that these platforms have become embedded in the scholarly dashboard. There is a dearth of evidence of the impact of the pandemic on ECRs' ways of obtaining scholarly papers.     

Experiences Situating Mathematical Problem Solving at the Core of Early Childhood Classrooms

Our goal in this article is to discuss the importance of problems in early childhood education for the child’s development and engagement with the mathematics existing in childhood culture. Our assumption is that an important task for young children’s education is to create a democratic and critical environment, in which multiplicity of perspectives is celebrated, along with diversity of concepts and practices, with movement between imaginary and real worlds. In light of this, the goal of this article is to defend a perspective for curriculum and for the role of the mathematics educator, promoting the learning of mathematics through problem solving in early childhood years. In order to discuss and illustrate this perspective we describe the pedagogical practices of two teachers who teach 4- and 5-years-olds, who create for their students an environment rich in problem solving and investigations. In both classrooms, all children individually succeeded in sharing their unique solutions and new knowledge constructed as a result of their inquiries. The experience provides evidence that problem solving affords children the opportunity to raise conjectures, to discuss possibilities and to draw conclusions, even if partial ones, that are then vetted by the group as the authors share their solutions. In this way, the work with problem solving nurtures cooperative learning and promotes the exploration of a diversity of ideas.     

The influence of the family,the school,and the group on the environmental attitudes of European students

The attitudes of young people arise from an intense interaction with their social groups of reference, and in this work we examine the extent to which this background conditions the individual environmental attitudes of the young. Using data provided by the PISA 2006 survey for the European Union, we test for the influence of the family, the characteristics of the school, and the social interactions or school peer group on attitudes toward the environment. The existence of social interactions, as well as the important role of family characteristics and school activities, are confirmed. The results allow us to emphasize the importance of the social context of the adolescent, and the need to take this into account as a channel that amplifies the influence of specific environmental education strategies.     

Regenerative Capacities: New Materialisms,Inheritance, and Biopolitical Technologies in Education Policy

Inheritance and social reproduction have been widely theorized and studied concepts in the social sciences. In theories of social reproduction a focus on social position and identity is assumed; a focus on moving from one position to another at the cost of overlooking the rich, and arguably more important, movement, process, and flow in between. Turning toward new materialisms for theoretical insight, this article points toward an alternative post-humanist perspective. Leaning on Massumi (2002) and Puar (2007), the author asserts that expanding the analytical focus to include the movement and process of biopolitical capacity will further sharpen the (new) materialist analysis of force and power relations, what Puar refers to as regenerative capacities. It is through the employment and performative force of biopolitical technologies in education policy, the author concludes, that enables the surveilling, managing, and demarcating of regenerative capacities that constrain the movement, process, and potentialities for, and of, social change.     

Modeling Unproductive Behavior in Online Homework in Terms of Latent Student Traits: An Approach Based on Item Response Theory

Homework is an important component of most physics courses. One of the functions it serves is to provide meaningful formative assessment in preparation for examinations. However, correlations between homework and examination scores tend to be low, likely due to unproductive student behavior such as copying and random guessing of answers. In this study, we attempt to model these two counterproductive learner behaviors within the framework of Item Response Theory in order to provide an ability measurement that strongly correlates with examination scores. We find that introducing additional item parameters leads to worse predictions of examination grades, while introducing additional learner traits is a more promising approach.