Evaluating Approaches to Physical Literacy Through the Lens of Positive Youth Development

The potential of physical activity and sport programs to promote positive youth development (PYD) is well-recognized among youth sport researchers and practitioners. More recently, physical literacy has gained traction among sport organizations as an important component of long-term athlete development. With conceptual roots in academic writing, two approaches to physical literacy emerged: a holistic approach, encompassing cohesive developmental processes and outcomes; and a performance-driven approach, focused largely on physical competencies and performance. This article will evaluate the dual approaches to physical literacy through the lens of PYD. By pairing the theoretical foundation of the holistic approach with the attention to measurement in the performance-driven approach, we subsequently propose an integrated approach to physical literacy grounded firmly in sport and physical activity PYD research. Guided by this approach, we offer key insights and practical recommendations for the implementation of programs that seek to foster both physical literacy and PYD.     

Evaluation of Neuroanatomy Web Resources for Undergraduate Education: Educators’ and Students’ Perspectives

Despite the development of novel teaching strategies and the abundance of adjunct teaching web resources, students and early career physicians have continuously reported difficulties in learning and clinically applying neuroanatomy. Differences in instructional design of these resources, the lack of assessment of their capacity to meet intended educational goals, and a poor understanding of the user’s perspective may have hindered their success in increasing understanding and retention of neuroanatomical knowledge. To decipher the limitations of existing web resources, an online search for neuroanatomy web resources was performed and distilled through a strict filtration rubric. A selection of resources were analyzed by a panel of educators and rated using Likert scales, focusing on the identification of features influencing their usefulness in learning the anatomy of the spinal pathways. The top three ranked web resources were subsequently evaluated by a panel of medical and neuroscience students to assess how specific features aided in their learning of the subject. This detailed analysis has identified features of neuroanatomy web resources that are valued by both educators and users with regard to instructional design. One resource was rated highest by end users and educators on a series of Likert scale questions in terms of clarity of explanation, step-wise teaching design, summarization of information, control of instructional-pace, integration with neurophysiology, neuroradiology and clinical correlates, deployment of a wide array of pedagogical tools, and factors for visualizing neuroanatomical inter-relationships. These results have provided a novel user perspective on the influence of specific elements of neuroanatomy web resources to improve instructional design and enhance learner performance.     

Innovation Without the Word: William F. Ogburn’s Contribution to the Study of Technological Innovation

The history of innovation as a category is dominated by economists and by the contribution of J. A. Schumpeter. This paper documents the contribution of a neglected but influential author, the American sociologist William F. Ogburn. Over a period of more than 30 years, Ogburn developed pioneering ideas on three dimensions of technological innovation: origins, diffusion, and effects. He also developed the first conceptual framework for innovation studies—based on the concept of cultural lags—which led to studying and forecasting the impacts of technological innovation on society. All in all, Ogburn has been as important to the sociology of technology as Robert K. Merton has been to the sociology of science and Schumpeter to the economics of technological innovation.     

Group-Based Emotions: Evidence for Emotion-Performance Relationships in Team Sports

Purpose: In team sports, players have to manage personal interests and group goals, emphasizing intricacies between personal and social identities. The focus of this article was to examine the effect of identity mechanisms on appraisal processes, based on the following research question: Does the level of self-abstraction (low [personal identity] versus high [social identity]) lead to group-based emotions and influence performances? Method: An experimental design was used in which the level of self-abstraction was manipulated through the induction of a self- versus a team-oriented goal. Thirty elite male rugby players (M_age = 19.06, SD = 0.78, randomly split) participated in a match reproducing conditions similar to those of official games. Individual and perceived team-level emotions and performance were measured 17 times during the match. Results: Linear Mixed Effects models showed that a high level of self-abstraction: (a) led to more positive and less negative individual (variances explained: 52% and 46%) and perceived team-referent (variances explained: 57% and 40%) emotions; (b) reduced the correlation of team-referent emotions with individual ones; and (c) positively influenced team and individual performances (variances explained: 50% and 19%). Moreover, after controlling for potential effects of the level of self-abstraction, only positive team-referent emotions influenced performance. Conclusions: This study is the first to experimentally manipulate athletes’ social identity to examine group-based emotions in sport. Challenging the usual intrapersonal approaches, these findings suggested that social identity and its association with team-referent emotions could be one of the key dimensions of emotion-performance relationships in team sports.     

Links between in-class use of social media and school adjustment of high-school pupils

Education and Information Technologies - The present study was conducted to assess the links between in-class use of social media and academic and social school adjustment of high school students...     

The crusade against ‘Foreigners’: the Romanian national football team through the eyes of a modernist writer

Abstract

Established in 1922, the Romanian national football team was composed throughout the interwar period mainly of representatives of ethnic minorities, primarily Hungarians and Germans coming from Transylvanian clubs. The team’s status as a national symbol prompted an ardent debate around the squad’s Romanianization, which I followed in the discourse of one of the most modernist interwar Romanian writers, the novelist and philosopher Camil Petrescu (1894–1957), present in the country’s literary canon as founder of the modern novel. Petrescu’s interwar press articles target the Romanianization of the Romanian national football team by removing the representatives of ethnic minorities. Despite the political framework characterized by nationalism, Romanianization and centralization, football’s Romanianization eventually failed in the interwar period.     

A review of the penetration of Francophone research on intervention in physical education and sport in Anglophone journals since 2010

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Since the 1990s, the notion of intervention has expanded with growing interest in the analysis of practices in Francophone country. French-speaking research community considers intervention sciences as a specific field of research in sport and PE. The aim of this literature review was to characterize the penetration of Francophone research in the English-language literature in physical education and sport concerned with intervention since 2010 in the category ‘Education & Educational Research’ of the Journal Citation Reports (2017). This research was in line with the analysis of the papers presented during six Francophone congresses from 2000 to 2010 of the Association for Research on Intervention in Sport (Musard and Poggi 2015 Musard, Mathilde, and Marie-Paule Poggi. 2015. “Intervention in Physical Education and Sport: Trends and Developments in a Decade of Francophone Research.” Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy 20 (3): 250–267. doi:10.1080/17408989.2013.817008.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).

Methods: The selection of articles was carried out in three stages: selection of journals, selection of articles manually, the second level of selection. The selection of journals is do in this category "Education & Educational Research" (JCR, 2017) focusing primarily on sport and physical education. Six journals met these criteria: Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, European Physical Education Review, Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, Sport Education and society, Quest, Journal of Hospitality Leisure Sport & Tourism Education. Then, the selection of articles was manually analyzing all the publications of each journal since 2010 (almost 2000 articles) according to inclusion criteria "sport or physical education", "francophone authors", and "intervention". Each 46 articles selected was classified according to its theoretical framework. The last stage of selection corresponded to an analyze and an extension of the literature review by a French-speaking specialist in each theoretical framework.

Results: The results show that French-language research on/in/for intervention is in close connection with the international tradition. Some approaches such as didactique, a technological approach, and course of action, have a Francophone specificity based on various international theoretical anchors; others such as motor learning, social psychology, ecological approach come from non-French-speaking international theoretical frameworks.

Discussion and conclusion: These findings raise the question of the Francophone specificity of intervention sciences. Beyond particular French-speaking theoretical frameworks, concepts and concerns join Anglophone traditions. As in the international fields of ‘sport pedagogy’ or ‘praxis’, the Francophone intervention sciences are composed of a diversity of theoretical approaches and are focused towards an epistemology of action. These two communities can enrich each other and deserve more interaction and exchange.     

Educational opportunities for adult disabled persons

Abstract

Educational opportunities for adult disabled persons are limited, despite the growing consensus on their importance. Unesco has assembled case studies of provision for disabled adults from eight countries. These are analysed here in terms of five aspects: disabled and non‐disabled adults studying together; facilitating the study situation; training for independent living; sociocultural and creative stimulation; and increasing public awareness of disability. Guidelines for future action are set out.