DROPOUT AND STOPOUT PATTERNS AMONG DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION STUDENTS IN TEXAS COMMUNITY COLLEGES

The dropout/stopout patterns of community college students were examined in the research reported here. About two thirds of the 51,903 students in the study were enrolled in developmental education courses. Success in college was defined as a passing grade point average after five semesters of coursework. Student success was found to be associated with enrollment patterns, initial skill deficiencies, and age. Community college students who enrolled for consecutive semesters outperformed students with other types of enrollment patterns.     

Mixed Doubles: Political Hegemony,Urban Entrepreneurialism and the Australian Open Tennis Championships

The National Tennis Centre in Melbourne, Australia, occupies a symbolic role in the repositioning of a once ‘rust-belt’ city as a place for ‘footloose’ capital and tourism. This paper explores the decisions that have been made by successive Victorian state governments between 1984 and 1998 to construct and upgrade the National Tennis Centre. Thematic content analysis of three daily newspapers, and one monthly tennis magazine, was undertaken to map political decisions and accompanying public discussion surrounding the foundation and upgrades of the National Tennis Centre. Successive state governments, representing both the left and right side of politics, have adopted an urban entrepreneurial approach to development and economic regeneration of Melbourne since the early 1980s. Targeting sport as a competitive advantage, significant public investments have been made to ‘sell’ this product to consumers identified as citizens and tourists. Worthy of note, and of particular concern, is the limited consultation with important interest groups, particularly environmentalists and the citizenry, when creating an elite sporting entertainment centre.     

Fear of injury in gymnastics: Self-efficacy and psychological strategies to keep on tumbling

The aim of this study was to examine female gymnasts' fear of injury, their sources of self-efficacy and the psychological strategies used to overcome their fears. The participants were 10 female gymnasts aged 12?–?17 years. They had all taken part in competitive gymnastics and had experienced some type of injury during their careers. Individual interviews were conducted using a structured interview guide. Data were analysed using an inductive content analysis. The results indicated that gymnasts were most fearful of injuries because of the difficulty in returning from an injury and being unable to participate in practices and competitions while injured. Gymnasts described aspects of their past performance experience, such as success, consistency and communication with significant others, as important sources of self-efficacy. Some examples of psychological strategies used to overcome their fear of injury were mental preparation (e.g. imagery, relaxation), just “going for a skill” and the coaches' influence.     

Setting Aside the Course Reader: The Legal, Economic, and Pedagogical Reasons

In this article we examine the changing status of the course reader as an instructional technology in higher education. We assess the advantages of simply providing students bibliographic entries for assigned readings instead of readers, and we evaluate this alternative in regards to intellectual property and fair use issues focusing on Cambridge University Press v. Becker (2012). A study of 110 course readers showed that 45 % of the readings are freely available either through the university library or open access sources. Finally, we review a number of pedagogical benefits to having students work directly with scholarship within a dynamically hyperlinked environment.     

Aspirations of adult learners in Aboriginal family service agencies

There is a gap in the literature on the experiences of Aboriginal adults who have made the transition into education and employment after moving to an urban community. Staff of three Aboriginal inner-city family services agencies participated in an interview that included the question: What changes do you see in your employment and education? Forty-four participants made a total of 70 unique responses. Participants grouped the responses into nine concepts including: advancement in their work, formal education, gaining new skills, teaching others, learning more about themselves, professional development, work experience, helping the youth and working for their own community. Results are compared to the available literature and implications for future research are presented.     

Rhythms of knowing: toward an ecological theory of learning in action research

This article describes the culmination of a 2-year research study, where the researchers used writing practices with participants to structure interpretations of gay, lesbian and transgendered teachers' experiences. The researchers were interested in learning how such work might help the teachers interpret the ways in which they negotiated minority identities within public school teaching. For the final aspect of the study, the researchers decided to move the group from an urban setting to a seaside location, and chose to move more definitively into a participatory role by inviting a colleague to lead the group in interpretive research activities through the use of writing techniques and practices. The three-day writing workshop yielded new insights about the nature of writing and human cognition and, more specifically, revealed how events of collaborative research reflect an ecological complexity, where the outcomes of such work co-emerge and are co-specified by a particular group of individuals working in a particular place and time. As such, these research events develop their own patterns and rhythms of insight.     

Industrial relations techniques

A study (involving 466 high school and college students) comparing women's and men's ratings of their own and ideal speech showed that a greater number of speech characteristics of males differed from the speech characteristics of the ideal speaker. The results of the study combined with material from the writings of women who have made a conscious effort to change their language indicate that before women continue to try to alter their speech by such means as assertiveness training they should consider the desirable characteristics associated with female speech.     

The longitudinal relationship between generalized self-efficacy and physical activity in school-aged children

Our understanding of the longitudinal relationship between generalized self-efficacy (GSE) and physical activity in children and youth is limited. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of GSE towards physical activity on sedentary behaviours and physical activity in school-aged children over time. A total of 2278 nine-year-old children (1120 girls and 1158 boys) were recruited at baseline and followed for seven waves of data collection from 2005 to 2008. All children completed questionnaires at each wave assessing their GSE (adequacy, predilection, and enjoyment), sedentary behaviours, free play, and organized activity. Mixed-effects models were used to estimate changes in physical activity and GSE within individuals over time, controlling for gender and motor ability. The results showed that participation in free play significantly increased over time, whereas organized activity significantly decreased over the same period. Children with high perceived adequacy and predilection had higher free play and organized activity participation relative to other children over time. However, the effect of perceived adequacy diminished over time, while the gaps between groups with different levels of predilection widened over time. While sedentary behaviours were lower over time in children with high predilection, these behaviours were consistently higher in children with high enjoyment. The differences in sedentary behaviours between groups increased over time for both predilection and enjoyment. This study highlights the importance of different components of GSE on physical activity participation. In addition, interventions targeting the enhancement of predilection may facilitate physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviours.