Evidence-based practice: extending the search to find material for the systematic review

BACKGROUND: Cochrane-style systematic reviews increasingly require the participation of librarians. Guidelines on the appropriate search strategy to use for systematic reviews have been proposed. However, research evidence supporting these recommendations is limited. OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the effectiveness of various systematic search methods used to uncover randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for systematic reviews. Effectiveness is defined as the proportion of relevant material uncovered for the systematic review using extended systematic review search methods. The following extended systematic search methods are evaluated: searching subject-specific or specialized databases (including trial registries), hand searching, scanning reference lists, and communicating personally. METHODS: Two systematic review projects were prospectively monitored regarding the method used to identify items as well as the type of items retrieved. The proportion of RCTs identified by each systematic search method was calculated. RESULTS: The extended systematic search methods uncovered 29.2% of all items retrieved for the systematic reviews. The search of specialized databases was the most effective method, followed by scanning of reference lists, communicating personally, and hand searching. Although the number of items identified through hand searching was small, these unique items would otherwise have been missed. CONCLUSIONS: Extended systematic search methods are effective tools for uncovering material for the systematic review. The quality of the items uncovered has yet to be assessed and will be key in evaluating the value of the systematic search methods.     

Imagery use in elite youth sport participants: reinforcing the applied significance of achievement goal theory

This study examined the motivational profiles of elite youth athletes to determine whether individual differences in goal orientation corresponded with differential levels of imagery use. Two hundred ninety male (n = 88) and female (n = 202) young athletes (M = 16.6 years, SD = 1.48) completed the Perceptions of Success Questionnaire (POSQ, Roberts, Treasure, & Balague, 1998) to assess dispositional goal orientations and the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (Hall, Mack, Paivio, & Hausenblas, 1998) to assess frequency and function of imagery use. A two-stage cluster analysis on the POSQ scores revealed a three-cluster solution with a multivariate analysis of variance indicating significant differences among cluster groups in imagery use. Athletes in Cluster 3 (higher task/higher ego) used significantly more imagery, regardless of the function than athletes in Cluster 1 (lower task/moderate ego) or Cluster 2 (moderate task/lower ego). These findings are discussed with reference to the role of achievement motivation in influencing young athletes' behavioral investments in mental strategies.     

Eyes Wide Shut: Recent Educational Policy in the Light of Changing Notions of English Identity*

Although Curriculum 2000 includes some welcome changes, such as the inclusion of drama, it is essentially a missed opportunity. I argue that it fails to address the complexity of modern life. In many academic areas, including literature, issues of identity are central to fundamental debates. Such debates have been precipitated by increasing economic globalisation and the consequent increase in interdependence between people from diverse cultural heritages. Although this situation is not new, the social and technological changes of recent decades have altered the pace of such developments. In most cities school populations reflect such changes. In this paper I argue that there are substantial gaps in the curriculum which derive mainly from government policy being premised on crude and obsolete notions of English identity. Such notions lead to a confusion of the concepts of culture and citizenship as modes of belonging. In my view both of these factors severely constrain our ability to construct a critical curriculum which adequately addresses contemporary interests and dilemmas.     

Legal and Psychometric Criteria for Evaluating Teacher Certification Tests

Will our teacher certification testing program stand up to a court challenge? What are the critical issues the courts consider in examining teacher certification testing? What do we need to do to strengthen our program legally and psychometrically?     

‘[We're on the right track,baby], we were born this way’! Exploring sports participation in Norway

Based on quantitative data from the Norwegian Statistisk Sentralbyrå (Statistics Norway) study of Mosjon, Friluftsliv og Kulturaktiviteter, this paper explores trends in Norwegians' participation in sports, with a focus on young people. Norway boasts particularly high levels of sports participation as well as sports club membership and young Norwegians are the quintessential sporting omnivores. Among other things, the Statistics Norway study reveals substantial increases in participation (among young people and females especially) during the period 1997–2007, a shift in the peak of participation to the late teenage years, a relatively high level of lifelong participants, a re-bound effect in the post-child rearing years and a growth in lifestyle sports. Young Norwegians grow up in a socio-economic context of relative equality between the sexes and high standards of living. An abundance of natural and artificial outdoor and indoor sporting facilities alongside a well-established voluntary sports club sector and an elementary school system that emphasizes physical exercise and recreation, as well as high levels of parental involvement, add to the favourable socio-economic conditions to create seemingly optimal circumstances for sports participation. All these reinforce the sporting and physical recreation cultures deeply embedded in Norwegian society and embodied by the very many middle-class parents in a country which, for the time being at least, remains relatively young in demographic terms. In terms of lessons to be learned for policy towards sports and physical education beyond Norway, there may be grounds for some optimism around parental involvement in children's sport as well as the potential appeal of lifestyle sports. That said, it is likely to be the greater socio-economic equalities in Scandinavian countries such as Norway that make them unrealistic benchmarks for sports participation elsewhere.