Do achievement goals mediate stereotype threat?: an investigation on females' soccer performance

This research investigated stereotype threat effects on women's performance in sports and examined the mediation of this effect by achievement goals. The influence of two stereotypes-relative to the poor athletic ability and the poor technical soccer ability of women-were studied. Fifty-one female soccer players were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, introducing the task as diagnostic of athletic ability, technical soccer ability, or sports psychology. Next, they filled out a questionnaire measuring achievement goals and performed a soccer dribbling task. Results showed that compared with the control condition, females' performance significantly decreased in the athletic ability condition and tended to decrease in the technical soccer ability condition. Moreover, participants endorsed a performance-avoidance (relative to performance-approach) goal when the stereotypes were activated. However, this goal endorsement was not related to performance. The implications of these results for understanding the role of stereotypes in gender inequalities in sports are discussed.     

The Interplay of Psychology and Mathematics Education: From the Attraction of Psychology to the Discovery of the Social

It is a rather safe statement to claim that the social dimensions of the scientific process are accepted in a fair share of studies in the philosophy of science. It is a somewhat safe statement to claim that the social dimensions are now seen as an essential element in the understanding of what human cognition is and how it functions. But it would be a rather unsafe statement to claim that the social is fully accepted in the philosophy of mathematics. And we are not quite sure what kind of statement it is to claim that the social dimensions in theories of mathematics education are becoming more prominent, compared to the psychological dimensions. In our contribution we will focus, after a brief presentation of the above claims, on this particular domain to understand the successes and failures of the development of theories of mathematics education that focus on the social and not primarily on the psychological.     

Museum Assessment and FDH Technology: Towards a Global Approach

This paper presents a global approach for museum assessment. We conceptualise a museum as an entity which needs to be evaluated according to three well defined tasks: preservation, research and communication, and outcomes. We propose a methodology based on the determination of efficiency frontiers. This method uses a deterministic non parametric and non convex technology (Free Disposal Hull). We analyse technical efficiency, but also scale efficiency with a new restrictive scale approach. We present an ordering of museums into classes representing a level of performance with respect to the three required tasks. We illustrate our analysis using a three year database of museums from the French speaking region of Belgium.     

Introducing novel approaches for examining the variability of individuals’ physical activity

Tudor-Locke and colleagues previously assessed steps/day for 1 year. The aim of this study was to use this data set to introduce a novel approach for the investigation of whether individual’s physical activity exhibits periodicity fluctuating round a mean and, if so, the degree of fluctuation and whether the mean changes over time. Twenty-three participants wore a pedometer for 365 days, recorded steps/day and whether the day was a workday. Fourier transform of each participant’s daily steps data showed the physical activity had a periodicity of 7 days in half of the participants, matching the periodicity of the workday pattern. Activity level remained stable in half of the participants, decreased in ten participants and increased in two. In conclusion, the 7-day periodicity of activity in half of the participants and correspondence with the workday pattern suggest a social or environmental influence. The novel analytical approach introduced herein allows the determination of the periodicity of activity, the degree of variability in activity that is tolerated during day-to-day life and whether the activity level is stable. Results from the use of these methodologies in larger data sets may enable a more focused approach to the design of interventions that aim to increase activity.     

On the complementarity between online and offline music consumption: the case of free streaming

From a representative survey of 2,000 individuals, we study whether consumption of music through streaming services, like Spotify or YouTube, is a substitute or a complement to physical music consumption modes, such as CDs and live music. Controlling for the taste for music, various socio-demographic characteristics and the usual determinants of music consumption either offline (radio, TV, friends/relatives) or online (online recommendations, social networks), our results show that free music streaming (where the consumer does not possess the music but only has access to it) has no significant effect on CD sales and affects positively live music attendance, but only for national or international artists who are more likely to be available on streaming services.     

Development of mentor teacher role inventory

This study aimed to develop and investigate the validity and reliability of the Mentor Teacher Role Inventory (MTRI). A total of 1843 student teachers in the Distance English Teacher Training Program participated in the study. The 58 items of the Mentor Teacher Role Inventory underwent principal factor analysis, which revealed nine factors relating to mentorship and explained 52.971% of the total variance. The KMO value of the MTRI was calculated as .968. The Cronbach's alpha was .951. These results indicated that a reliable and valid MTRI could be used for both the distance English teacher training programme and other distance teacher education programmes.