The effects of Reading Recovery on children’s literacy progress and special educational needs status: a three-year follow-up study

Reading Recovery (RR) is an intensive one-to-one reading intervention programme designed for five- to six-year-old children who are the lowest literacy achievers after one year of formal tuition. RR has been shown to have impressive effects in the short-term, particularly on those measures tailored to, and designed for, the programme. However, less is known about the programme’s long-term effectiveness. The present study followed up at the end of Year 4: 120 comparison children, 73 children who had received RR three years earlier, and 48 children in RR schools who had not received RR. We found that the children who had received RR achieved an average National Curriculum (NC) level of 3b in reading which indicates being on track for Level 4 at the end of Key Stage 2. The comparison children were on average at Level 2a in reading, significantly lower than the RR. RR children were also significantly less likely than comparison children to be identified as having a special educational need at the end of Year 3. These findings indicate that effects of the RR programme are still apparent three years post-intervention.     

Reduction in public speaking state anxiety during performance as a function of sensitization processes

Recently, scholars have suggested that biological factors, such as temperament, influence human social behavior, particularly in the formation of traits, such as communication apprehension. Despite progress in this area, the relationship between temperament and states, such as speech anxiety, remains unclear. Theories of temperament predict that the rate at which subjects habituate to stress varies inversely with the degree to which they are sensitized during initial confrontation with stress‐producing stimuli. The inverse relationship between habituation and sensitization, in the context of public speaking state anxiety, is examined in this report. In two separate studies, using both physiological and psychological measures of state anxiety, the inverse relationship between sensitization and habituation was confirmed. Specifically, sensitization accounted for 69.1% and 50.3% of the variance in physiological and psychological habituation, respectively.     

拯救野生动物的十种方法

我周游世界宣传野生动物的保护。一路上,我已经碰到了成千上万富于爱心的年轻人,他们都是野生动物保护的热心者,他们想知道保护野生动物需要什么措施。以下就是10条建议:     

Predicting grade point average from the hybrid model of learning in personality: consistent findings from Ugandan and Australian students

Jackson developed a hybrid model of learning in personality, known as the Learning Styles Profiler (LSP), which seeks to explain personality in terms of biological, socio‐cognitive and experiential processes. The hybrid model argues that functional learning outcomes can be understood in terms of how cognitions and experiences re‐express sensation seeking as functional learning. In two studies from Uganda and Australia (n = 136 and n = 290 respectively), grade point average (GPA) of students was successfully predicted from the hybrid model. Results show evidence of three indirect pathways from sensation seeking through cognitions to GPA and provide a new understanding of the way in which personality can predict performance.     

The influence of hold regularity on perceptual-motor behaviour in indoor climbing

Climbers often train on indoor climbing walls, which are modifiable to simulate features of outdoor climbing environments at different levels of difficulty. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of regularity of climbing holds on emergent perceptual-motor behaviours. Skilled climbers performed six repetitions of two topographically similar routes on an indoor climbing wall. One route was composed of 18 different types of hand holds (irregular route), whereas the other route had only two types of hand holds (regular route). Preview and climbing durations, as well as visual search behaviours, were recorded. Participants rated the regular route as more difficult to climb, requiring greater perceived effort to complete. The time spent previewing, and then climbing the routes, was reduced on average by 12% and 16%, respectively in the irregular route compared to the regular route. There were more fixations made when climbing the regular route (281 vs. 222 fixations per trial). It seems the climbers were more careful and thorough in their gaze behaviours with the regular route because of the additional technical demands it presented, whereas the irregular route afforded a more superficial visual exploration with use of more frequent saccades between holds. The findings suggest how irregularity in the environment is exploited by skilled climbers, apparently making the practice context easier to perceive and act in.     

Upper and lower body responses to repeated cyclical sprints

Purpose: To compare the physiological and perceptual responses of the upper and lower body to all-out cyclical sprints with short or long rest periods between sprints.

Methods: Ten recreationally trained males completed four 10?×?10?s sprint protocols in a randomized order: upper body with 30?s and 180?s of rest between sprints, and lower body with 30?s and 180?s of rest between sprints. Additionally, maximum voluntary contractions (MVC) were measured at pre-sprint and post-sprints 5 and 10. Normalized (% of first sprint) peak power, MVC, heart rate (HR) and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were compared between upper and lower body within the same recovery period, and absolute values (Watts, bpm, RPE scores) were compared within the same body part and between recovery periods.

Results: Trivial differences were identified in normalized peak power, HR and RPE values between the upper and lower body in both recovery conditions (<2%, d?≤?0.1), but MVC forces were better maintained with the upper body (～9.5%, d?=?1.0) in both recovery conditions. Absolute peak power was lower (～147?Watts, d?=?1.3), and HR was higher (～10?bpm, d?=?0.73) in the 30?s compared to 180?s condition in both the upper and lower body whereas RPE scores were similar (<0.6?RPE units, d?≤?0.1). Despite the reductions in peak power, MVC forces were better maintained in the 30?s condition in both upper (2.5?kg, d?=?0.4) and lower (7.5?kg, d?=?0.7) body.

Conclusions: Completing a commonly used repeated sprint protocol with the upper and lower body results in comparable normalized physiological and perceptual responses.     

On understanding the nature of interpersonal conflict between coaches and athletes

Conflict is a part of coach-athlete relationships and should be carefully considered as it can have effects on the quality of coaching and the level of performance. Despite its practical relevance, there is a dearth of research around coach-athlete conflict. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the characteristics and topics of conflict, as well as coaches and athletes’ emotional, cognitive and behavioural experiences during conflict. A total of 22 independent coaches and athletes participated in semi-structured interviews evolving around the nature of interpersonal conflict. After all interviews were transcribed, a deductive-inductive content analysis was conducted. This was guided by the interview schedule as well as the by the conceptual framework of conflict in sport relationships (Wachsmuth, Jowett, & Harwood, 2017). Data were divided into five main categories: Conflict characteristics and conflict topics, as well as conflict cognitions, emotions, and behaviours. Findings highlighted the variety of ways in which participants understood and interpreted interpersonal conflict and how their impressions of conflict influenced its evolving process. Considering the participants’ cognitive, emotional and behavioural expressions of conflict, it became apparent that conflict can be described through uncertain, escalating and problem-orientated responses. Practical applications concerning (mal-) adaptive responses to conflict are discussed. (199/200)     

Why current IR engines fail

Observations from a unique investigation of failure analysis of Information Retrieval research engines held in 2003 are presented. The Reliable Information Access Workshop invited seven leading IR research groups to supply both their systems and their experts to an effort to analyze why their systems fail on some topics and whether the failures are due to system flaws, approach flaws, or the topic itself. There were surprising results from this cross-system failure analysis. One is that despite systems retrieving very different documents, the major cause of failure for any particular topic was almost always the same across all systems. Another is that relationships between aspects of a topic are not especially important for state-of-the-art systems; the systems are failing at a much more basic level where the top-retrieved documents are not reflecting some aspect at all. The investigatory framework and the lessons learned can serve as a model for needed future research in this area.