Revisiting the 1990 special issue on minority children: an editorial perspective 15 years later

The 2006 Special Issue on Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in Child Development occurs 15 years after the 1990 Special Issue on Minority Children and marks roughly 50 years since the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. This issue provides an assessment of how researchers have represented development of America's diverse youth. This commentary provides a perspective of the progress and needs inferred from the 1990 special issue. A consistent theme is the necessity to link research and developmental theorizing with the intentions of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, as the relevant integration is often left to legal scholars, Whiteness studies theorists, and a few child-development-focused researchers (e.g., Cross, 1991; Spencer, 2005).     

Psychological causation and goal-based episodes: Low-income children's emerging narrative skills

This study examined the association between an understanding of psychological causation and the ability of young children to produce goal-based episodes in narratives. Participants were white, pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children living in a low income neighborhood in an industrial city in Appalachia (n = 34). They were asked to “read” Mercer Mayer's A Boy, A Dog, and A Frog to a researcher, and the resulting narrative was examined for use of psychological causation and number of goal-based episodes. Overall 68% of the children used psychological causation and 71% of the participants produced at least one goal-based episode. Use of psychological causation was related to age, and was a stronger predictor of producing goal-based episodes than was either age, or overall language ability. Further research is called for.     

Primary Teachers’ Recommendations for the Development of a Teacher-Oriented Movement Assessment Tool for 4–7 Years Children

To inform the development of a teacher-oriented movement assessment tool, this study aimed to explore primary school teachers’ perceptions of assessing fundamental movement skills (FMS) within Physical Education (PE) lessons. Thirty-nine primary school teachers of PE, located in the United Kingdom, participated in an individual or group in-depth interview. Findings signify that teachers perceive a need for a movement assessment tool that is simple for them to use, quick to administer and provides valuable feedback to guide future teaching and learning. This is vital as teachers indicated a lack of appropriate resources and a shortage of curriculum time restricts their use of assessment within PE. A movement assessment tool that was integrated on a digital technology platform could increase teachers’ understanding of assessing FMS and enhance children’s learning of FMS.     

Student performance in high-stakes examinations based on content area in senior secondary (VCE) physical education

Background: Senior secondary physical education courses for certification continue to evolve with curricula reform occurring to ensure content is contemporary, student learning outcomes are maximised and assessment practices are valid for determining certification of students. The content of examinable senior secondary physical education courses privilege theoretical concepts over student physical performance of motor skills and this is reflected in the use of written assessment of cognitive outcomes in many courses internationally.

Purpose: Student examination data were analysed from the year 12 (exit year) written examination of Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) Physical Education to determine if student performance varied by Area of Study (content). Additionally, it investigated whether there was a relationship between student performance in each of the four Areas of Study examined and overall examination performance and considered the alignment of curriculum, assessment and pedagogy and the implications the findings may have on the teaching of VCE Physical Education in the future.

Methods: A secondary data analysis of student results from the 2011 (n?=?9323; M?=?5212, F?=?4111) and 2012 (n?=?8781; M?=?5011, F?=?3770) VCE Physical Education (Victoria, Australia) examinations were conducted. Examination questions were categorised by content, and means and standard deviations (SD) for discrete and continuous data were calculated, and categorical variables were presented as percentages. Regression analysis was also performed to establish the relationship between student cohort size and examination scores. An independent sample t-test was used to explore the examination scores and each Area of Study scores across 2011 and 2012. A one-way ANOVA were performed to investigate the differences of each Area of Study scores between examination grades from UG to A+.

Results: The results showed a positive correlation between VCE Physical Education student cohort size in a school and examination score in 2011 and 2012. Student performance differed across both years (2011 and 2012) and across Areas of Study within each of the years analysed. Students performed significantly lower on questions relating to the ‘planning, implementing and evaluating a training program’ Area of Study in 8 of the 11 possible grades (2011) and 10 of the possible 11 grades (2012) than in each of the other Areas of Study.

Discussion and conclusions: This study reveals that student performance on the external VCE Physical Education examination is not consistent across all content areas (Areas of Study). This may suggest that student difficulties in answering questions based on content in ‘planning, implementing and evaluating a training program’ result from topic or content difficulty rather than process or question difficulty. From these findings, implications for teaching examinable physical education effectively include the use of experiential learning and practical experiences to provide students with experiences from which they can draw knowledge when completing written assessment tasks. Additionally, the importance of having the required content knowledge to teach examinable physical education confidently for pre-service and in-service teachers is discussed.     

What is modelled during observational learning?

In this article, we examine the question of what information is processed during observational learning by evaluating a variety of methods, theories, and empirical data. Initially, we review work involving neuroimaging techniques and infant imitation. We then evaluate data from behavioural experiments involving adults, wherein a variety of attempts have been made to isolate the critical or minimal information constraining the acquisition of coordination. This body of research has included comparisons between video and point-light displays, manipulations to the amount and type of information presented in the display, the collection of point-of-gaze data, and manipulations to the task context in terms of outcome goals. We conclude that observational learning is governed by specific features of the model's action (i.e. motions of the end effector) and the task (i.e. outcome constraints) and, in contrast with traditional theoretical modelling, more global aspects of a model (i.e. the relative motions within and between joints) do not appear to be the primary method for constraining action execution.