Examination of birthplace and birthdate in World Junior ice hockey players

The present study investigated birthdate (known as the Relative Age Effect; RAE) and birthplace as determinants of expertise in an international sample of elite ice hockey players. The sample included 566 World Junior (WJR) ice hockey players from four countries (Canada, n = 153; USA, n = 136; Sweden, n = 140; Finland, n = 137). Participants competed in the International Ice Hockey Federation World U20 Championship between 2001 and 2009. A series of Poisson regression models were conducted to examine the consistency of direct then interactive relationships between both birthdate and birthplace and WJR membership across the four countries (Canada, USA, Sweden, and Finland). Findings revealed a consistent RAE across the four countries for World Junior participation from 2000 to 2009. WJR players from the four countries were also less likely to be from major cities. In addition, there was no evidence in any of the four countries of an interaction between RAE and birthplace. Future research should explore the contextual and cultural factors that influence elite athlete development in smaller towns, cities and communities.     

Exploration De La Résilience éducationnelle Chez Des Enseignants

AN EXPLORATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL RESILIENCE OF TEACHING STAFF – This study focuses on the degree of resilience displayed by teaching staff with the aim of promoting their professional development and preventing job-related exhaustion. Seven underprivileged schools in Montreal were selected, and 24 teaching staff with contrasting personal profiles were interviewed on the subject of their work. The Alceste software was used to analyse the conversations, which revolved around techniques applied when dealing with critical incidents. The main analysis identified five different discourses among the respondents. Three of these were associated with the more resilient of the teachers and two were associated with the more vulnerable ones. Resilient teaching staff characteristically discussed dealing with aggressive behaviour, the teaching-learning relationship and the subject of social relationships, whereas vulnerable teaching staff focused on work beyond the classroom, people in positions of higher authority and the community. The authors note that teachers who are just embarking on their careers appear more vulnerable than more experienced teaching staff, which suggests that more resources should be provided to support teachers in their profession.     

The Dilemmas of the Reform of Romanian Education: Shock Therapy,the Infusion of Innovation,or Cultural Decommunization?

The recent presidential election in Romania has reawakened public interest in the reform of education at all levels. The author proposes a comprehensive approach to reactivate the reform process by what he calls reform through infusion. A reform programme reflecting this approach would give pride of place to centres of excellence scattered throughout the country and acting in an administrative environment of subsidiarity, decentralization, and diversity of provision. It would be the successful compromise between top‐down and bottom‐up reform strategies that in their pure forms have not worked very well. The result would be successful systemic reform moving in five main directions: an end to the state monopoly in educational provision; identification of new sources of funding; improved quality assessment; a humanist, democratic, and European approach to education; creation of a system of life‐long learning. New programmes, however, should be derived from existing ones that they will gradually supersede.     

The harmful aspect of teacher conditional support on students’ self-perception of school competence

When children perceive a conditional support, they only feel loved and encouraged for their ability to meet others’ standards. This may lead them to develop high sensitivity to errors and anxiety and low perception of competence. In this study, we examined the relationship between the perceived conditional support from teacher and children’s self-perception of school competence. We tested the mediating effect of sensitivity to errors and test anxiety in the relationship between teacher conditional support and children’s perception of school competence. Participants were 524 elementary school students (aged 9–10 years). The results showed that the greater the extent to which the children perceived conditional support from their teacher, the lower their self-perceived scholastic competence. They also confirm that this relationship was mediated by sensitivity to errors and test anxiety.     

The illusion of scholastic incompetence and peer acceptance in primary school

This paper reports results from two studies aimed at examining whether perception of social acceptance and actual social acceptance differ according to the presence of an illusion of scholastic incompetence. Results of both studies conducted in Belgium and in Quebec (respectively 179 and 543 participants) show that children’s illusion of scholastic incompetence is linked to a negative perception of social acceptance. However, according to the evaluation by peers, social acceptance of those children is similar to the others. This suggests a generalization of the negative bias of self-evaluation to both academic and social domains. The discussion proposes further variables that could improve the understanding of the origin of the illusion of incompetence.     

Internality-norm theory in educational contexts

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the socionormative approach of internality in the field of education, and more specifically regarding scholastic judgment. It describes the theoretical development and the main procedures used by researchers to show that internal causal explanations have more value than external ones because they are normative and convey social value. We present results that show that the preference for internal explanations is learned in school. We also demonstrate that internal explanations are often chosen for self-presentation purposes and have some bearing in evaluative practices (here, scholastic judgment). We also present results which show that certain internal explanations of school events, regardless of their valence (success or failure), enhance the social worth of the pupil producing them. This applies to effort-based explanations which are more highly valued than others (e.g., in terms of personological traits such as aptitudes or abilities). Such results lead us to discuss the role played by internal explanations in the evaluation practices. We underline the relevant aspect of the socionormative theory of internality by comparison to another sociocognitive approach namely Weiner’s attributional theory of motivation.     

Hollow dimension of modules

In this paper, we are interested in the following general question: Given a module Mwhich has finite hollow dimension and which has a finite collection of submodules Ki (1≤i≤n) such that M=K1 ... Kn, can we find an expression for the hollow dimension of Min terms of hollow dimensions of modules built up in some way from K1 Kn? We prove the following theorem:Let Mbe an amply supplemented module having finite hollow dimension and let Ki (1≤i≤n) be a finite collection of submodules of Msuch that M=K1 ... Kn. Then the hollow dimension h(M) of Mis the sum of the hollow dimensions of Ki (1≤i≤n) ifand only if Ki is a supplement of K1 ... Ki-1 Ki 1 ... Kn in Mfor each 1≤i≤n.     

Tracking the mind during writing: immediacy, delayed, and anticipatory effects on pauses and writing rate

This study examines the dynamics of cognitive processes during writing. Participants were 5th, 7th and 9th graders ranging in age from 10 to 15?years. They were shown a short silent video composed of clips illustrating conflictual situations between people in school, and were invited to produce a narrative text. Three chronometric measures of word n were analyzed using a Linear Mixed-Effects Model regression procedure: pause duration before word n, pause duration within word n, and writing rate of word n. The predictors were sublexical and lexical properties of word n, i.e., immediacy effects, word n ? 1, i.e., delayed effects, and of word n?+?1, i.e., anticipatory effects. The writing-rate and the intra-word-pause measures show both immediacy and anticipatory effects. However, the between-word-pause durations show only delayed effects, which has not been reported in previous studies. As far as we know, our study is the first investigation which reveals the occurrence of parallel and serial effects in written text production: preprocessing of word n?+?1 occurs when word n is being written, and properties of word n ? 1 still exert their influences while the pen has already moved to the next word.