The effect of time constraints and running phases on combined event pistol shooting performance

The combined event is a crucial aspect of the modern pentathlon competition, but little is known about how shooting performance changes through the event. This study aimed to identify (i) how performance-related variables changed within each shooting series and (ii) how performance-related variables changed between each shooting series. Seventeen modern pentathletes completed combined event trials. An optoelectronic shooting system recorded score and pistol movement, and force platforms recorded centre of pressure movement 1 s prior to every shot. Heart rate and blood lactate values were recorded throughout the event. Whilst heart rate and blood lactate significantly increased between series (P < 0.05), there were no accompanying changes in the time period that participants spent aiming at the target, shot score, pistol movement or centre of pressure movement (P > 0.05). Thus, combined event shooting performance following each running phase appears similar to shooting performance following only 20 m of running. This finding has potential implications for the way in which modern pentathletes train for combined event shooting, and highlights the need for modern pentathletes to establish new methods with which to enhance shooting accuracy.     

A space for policy legacy: an ethnographic exploration of a secondary school’s commitment to creativity after national policy priorities have changed

To-date qualitative research in the field of policy enactment has tended to focus on investigating existing national policy discourse and the ways in which this discourse is creatively reconstituted in school-based contexts of practice. In this paper, the focus is on uncovering the ways in which a school-based commitment to a specific policy – in this case creativity – is sustained and has a legacy even after national policy discourse and priorities have changed. By focusing ethnographically upon the legacy of policy at a school-based level, the paper sets out to illuminate the social actions teachers undertake to establish, nurture and protect their institutional and professional investment in and commitment towards creativity.     

Teaching community-college students to follow the train of thought in expository texts

Community-college students in a one-semester remedial reading course were taught that main ideas in expository texts are located in sentences connected by rhetorical relations into trains of thought. After extensive practice with a variety of materials, they were compared to students in no-treatment and alternative-treatment control groups on (a) identifying main ideas while reading a test passage, and (b) recalling main ideas and supporting details two days later. The test passage differed in rhetorical structure from passages previously studied. Results indicated that the experimental group scored significantly higher than both control groups on main-idea identification. The experimental group also scored significantly higher than the alternative-treatment group on the free-recall of main ideas but not supporting details. Effect sizes were generally large. Information about the course is presented, and the theoretical rationale for its design is discussed. Implications for classroom instruction and for the reading comprehension curriculum are discussed.     

Development of anxiety disorders in a traumatized pediatric population: a preliminary longitudinal evaluation

OBJECTIVE: The current study was conducted to determine if post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology predicted later development of non-PTSD anxiety disorders in children and adolescents victimized by interpersonal trauma. METHODS: Thirty-four children with a history of interpersonal trauma and no initial diagnosis of anxiety disorder participated in the study. Children were assessed at time one (T1) and then 12-18 months later at time two (T2). At T1, the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale for Children and Adolescents (CAPS-CA) and the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL) were used to evaluate children's PTSD symptoms and comorbid non-PTSD anxiety disorder diagnosis. At T2, the CAPS-CA and the K-SADS-PL were repeated. RESULTS: The diagnosis of PTSD and PTSD symptoms in children exposed to interpersonal trauma at T1, particularly the symptoms associated with avoidance and constricted emotional expression (criteria C) as well as physiological hyperarousal (criteria D), predicted the development of other anxiety disorders at T2. CONCLUSION: Traumatized children with initial PTSD symptomatology may be at risk of later development of other anxiety disorders.     

Problems in the planning of higher education

With the growing demand for places in German universities, the present system of allowing entrance to everyone who holds the Abitur has become unsatisfactory. This paper looks at ways of controlling the size of the higher education system and allocating resources from the viewpoint of economic theory.Three ideal type educational planning models are sketched, one of which - a market model - is argued to have the greatest advantages. It would involve a state credit scheme for students with repayments via a graduate tax; student fees would provide all or most of the universities' funds. It would remove the inequity of the present system which involves a transfer of income from today's (relatively poorer) earners to tomorrow's, and from those with lower earning potential to those with higher. Since students would be in a position to choose the most satisfying and/or cheapest courses of study and would find it easier to change courses if they wished, it would reward cost-saving and student-satisfying innovation. By providing more finely graded levels of qualification within subject areas, it would reduce the extent to which jobs are ordered hierarchically in an irrational and inefficient way; and the universities would respond more flexibly to changes in labour market demands.This is a translation, with minor amendments, of a paper published in Fundamental Problems of Infrastructure Planning for Growing Economies, Proceedings of the Conference of the Society for Social Policy, Innsbruck, 1970, Berlin: Verlag von Duncker und Humblot, 1971. It is reproduced here by arrangement with the publisher. The article was translated into English by David Webster.