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.     

Improving teacher professional development for online and blended learning: a systematic meta-aggregative review

Educational technology research and development - In order to fully realise the potential of online and blended learning (OBL), teacher professional development (TPD) strategies on how to teach in...     

Assessing the Impact of School-Based Marketing Efforts: A Case Study of a Foreign Language Immersion Program in a School-Choice Environment

The marketization of K–12 education has led to an increase in school-based marketing efforts. Relatively little research, however, has examined how public schools market themselves, who is involved in marketing, and how these marketing efforts impact key stakeholders, including school administrators, teachers, students, and parents. We explore these questions in this qualitative study of school-based marketing efforts at South Boulevard,¹Because of the long and public history of desegregation litigation associated with the school and with the school district, we use real place names throughout the paper. Thus, we disclose both the school's name—South Boulevard Foreign Language Academic Immersion Magnet—and the name of the city in which the school is located—Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in order to maintain the authenticity of the case and the findings. a foreign language immersion magnet elementary school in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. Analysis of data from participant observation and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders reveals that administrators, teachers, parents, and students actively participated in marketing and recruiting, and that these efforts were associated with a number of implicit and explicit costs. Introducing two concepts from the business literature—business-level strategy and brand communities—yields a number of observations and policy questions. Finally, the shifting role of parents and administrators in an increasingly market-like school-choice environment is discussed.     

Understanding gaps in research networks: using “spatial reasoning” as a window into the importance of networked educational research

This paper finds its origins in a multidisciplinary research group’s efforts to assemble a review of research in order to better appreciate how “spatial reasoning” is understood and investigated across academic disciplines. We first collaborated to create a historical map of the development of spatial reasoning across key disciplines over the last century. The map informed the structure of our citation search and oriented an examination of connection across disciplines. Next, we undertook a network analysis that was based on highly cited articles in a broad range of domains. Several connection gaps—that is, apparent blockages, one-way flows, and other limitations on communications among disciplines—were identified in our network analysis, and it was apparent that these connection gaps may be frustrating efforts to understand the conceptual complexity and the educational significance of spatial reasoning. While these gaps occur between the academic disciplines that we evaluated, we selected a few examples for closer analysis. To illustrate how this lack of flow can limit development of the field of mathematics education, we selected cases where it is evident that researchers in mathematics education are not incorporating the important work of mathematicians, psychologists, and neuroscientists—and vice versa. Ultimately, we argue, a more pronounced emphasis on transdisciplinary (versus multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary) research might be timely, and perhaps even necessary, in the evolution of educational research.     

University-based child development laboratory programs: Emerging issues and challenges

University-based child development laboratory programs have a long and rich history of significant contributions to the early childhood education field, yet many are being threatened by cutbacks and/or closures. This paper identifies emerging issues and challenges facing lab schools nationwide as they attempt to build support for their programs. Recommendations for strengthening the roles lab programs play in the early childhood field are outlined based on these issues and challenges.     

In-Class Simulation of Pooling Safety Stock

In managing business process flows, safety stock can be used to protect against stockouts due to demand variability. When more than one location is involved, the concept of aggregation enables the pooling of demands and associated inventories, resulting in improved service levels without increasing the total level of safety stock. This pooling of safety stock can be done physically by consolidating inventory in one location, or by using virtual centralization, where inventories are kept at decentralized locations, but information is centralized. In teaching the concept of pooling safety stock, a simple in‐class simulation can be helpful in demonstrating why the approach works. The approach presented here involves operations for a company where total product demand is constant, but there are two products and product mix can vary. The simulation can also be implemented using an electronic spreadsheet for classes that are taught on the Internet. A quiz was given to two sections, one that experienced the simulation and one that did not. A comparison of the results from the quiz provided evidence of the effectiveness of the simulation in helping students understand the impact of pooling safety stock. In addition, a brief anonymous survey that was administered in the section that had the simulation provided further support for the effectiveness of the simulation.     

Federal funding and the rate and direction of inventive activity

Leveraging a new measure of patent citation trees (Corredoira and Banerjee, 2015), we demonstrate that research funded by the federal government is associated with more active and diverse technological trajectories. Our findings tie government funding to breakthrough inventions. The differences are especially evident at the upper percentiles of the distribution of long term patent influence and stem primarily from research conducted outside the federal government and sponsored by the DOD, HHS and NSF. Government funded patents are inputs into a broader range of technologies. Additional analyses indicate that federal programs invest in some technological areas that private corporations eschew, and federally funded university patents are in different technological classes than non-federally funded university patents. In this sense, the government may play an irreplaceable role in the rate and direction of inventive activity.“Generally speaking, the scientific agencies of Government are not so concerned with immediate practical objectives as are the laboratories of industry nor, on the other hand, are they as free to explore any natural phenomena without regard to possible economic applications as are the educational and private research institutions.” - Vannevar Bush, Science the Endless Frontier”, 1945.     

Customer relationship management and customer recovery and retention: the case of the 407 express toll route

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - Highway 407, henceforth 407ETR, is North America's first solely fully electronic toll road, and runs east/west, north of the greater Toronto area,...