Optimal Convert Strategies in Football

Abstract

A frequently occurring situation in college and professional football is that of a team catching up through two touchdowns after trailing by 14 points, with the game outcome being determined by the extra-point plays. For leagues allowing two-point converts, an optimal point-after strategy exists under quite reasonable assumptions, and depends upon the relative utility to the team of a win, tie, or loss and the probability of success with a (one-point) kick as opposed to a (two-point) run/pass. We illustrate with reference to the January 1984 Orange Bowl game, where the favored team followed a possibly suboptimal strategy, losing the game and the national championship.     

Inhalte und Strukturen prototypischer Merkmale in Fußballmannschaften

Members of a social group possess a shared social identity, which is individually represented as the group prototype. The prototype is the individual cognitive representation of all attributes, which best describes the group from the group members’ point of view. The aim of the study was to gather those attributes provided by group members of a soccer team and subsequently to describe and categorize them by means of a content analysis. Using one single open question, a total of 1581 attributes were assessed through n?=?278 soccer players (67?% male; M?=?23.5 years, SD?=?5.0 years) from 20 soccer teams. The data analysis was based on the qualitative content analysis described by Mayring (2010). Results show that the attributes mentioned by the team members can be divided into four distinct categories (social, psychological, sport specific, ecological). These categories result from intragroup synchronisations. Future research should examine which categories and subcategories seem to best represent the prototype in soccer teams.     

On the potential for using immersive virtual environments to support laboratory experiment contextualisation

This paper explores the hypothesis that embedding a laboratory activity into a virtual environment can provide a richer experimental context and hence improve the understanding of the relationship between a theoretical model and the real world, particularly in terms of the model's strengths and weaknesses. While an identified learning objective of laboratories is to support the understanding of the relationship between models and reality, the paper illustrates that this understanding is hindered by inherently limited experiments and that there is scope for improvement. Despite the contextualisation of learning activities having been shown to support learning objectives in many fields, there is traditionally little contextual information presented during laboratory experimentation. The paper argues that the enhancing laboratory activity with contextual information affords an opportunity to improve students’ understanding of the relationship between the theoretical model and the experiment (which is effectively a proxy for the complex real world), thereby improving their understanding of the relationship between the model and reality. The authors propose that these improvements can be achieved by setting remote laboratories within context-rich virtual worlds.     

Political Journalists’ Interaction Networks

This article examines with whom political journalists interact on Twitter and what information they share. These relations are explored by combining a content analysis and a network analysis of interaction patterns. The activities published on journalists’ personal accounts are studied. Prior research has shown that elite journalists, in particular, mainly seek to remain gatekeepers and tend to normalize emerging communication spaces. Only one-quarter of the parliamentary correspondents in the German Federal Press Conference had an individual Twitter profile as of February 2014. The content analysis of all tweets published during a week in March 2014 (N?=?2210) reveals that German political journalists clearly normalize Twitter to fit existing practices: the journalists mostly tweeted about publicly relevant communication and reported in an information-oriented style. Transparency was limited on their topics of interest, and they did not provide direct opportunities for the audience to become more active in the news-creation process. The network analysis shows that the correspondents especially incorporated politicians into their regular circle of contacts. Nevertheless, the interaction networks were clearly dominated by exchanges between journalists. In this way, journalists’ tweets allow us to observe expert talks rather than encouraging users to participate in a discussion.     

From plans to actions: A process model for why feedback features influence feedback implementation

Implementing peer feedback in revisions is a complex process involving first planning to fix problems and then actual implementing feedback through revisions. Both phases are influenced by features of the peer feedback itself, but potentially in different ways, and yet prior research has not examined their separate role in planning or the mediating role of planning in the relationship of feedback features and implementation. We build on a process model to investigate whether feedback features had differing relationships to plans to ignore or act on feedback versus actual implementation of feedback in the revision, and whether planning mediated the relationship of feedback features and actual implementation. Source data consisted of peer feedback comments received, revision plans made, and revisions implemented by 125 US high school students given a shared writing assignment. Comments were coded for feedback features and implementation in the revision. Multiple regression analyses revealed that having a comment containing a specific solution or a general suggestion predicted revision plans whereas having a comment containing an explanation predicted actual implementation. Planning mediated the relationship to actual implementation for the two feedback features predicting plans, suggestion and solution. Implications for practice are discussed.

     

Die Öffnung des Schulsystems: Fakt oder Fiktion?

Opening up educational paths and especially decoupling educational courses and final school qualifications are seen as important aspects of the modernization of Swiss education. The study presented here investigates to what extent this de-linking actually took place in the case of the Swiss canton Freiburg. 525 pupils from German-speaking schools were observed in their progress from the end of primary school (year 6) to the transfer into the upper secondary level Gymnasium (year 10) or into alternative educational routes. Indeed, almost half of the young people, who went to the Gymnasium, previously studied at a middle-level general secondary school and not the preparatory Progymnasium; a strong indication of decoupling. Furthermore, the study shows that entry into the upper secondary level Gymnasium is still possible for pupils despite weak performance at primary level. Irrespective of the evidence for an opening of the education system, the findings also show that attending a Progymnasium has a significant effect on school biographies. The chance of transferring into the upper secondary level Gymnasium is twice as high for graduates, who attended a Progymnasium, as for comparative pupils, who did not. Additionally, a privileged social background correlates with a high chance of entry into the upper secondary level Gymnasium.     

Die FHStG-Novelle BGBl I 2007/89 – Fachhochschul-Recht aus trüber Quelle?

Die Novelle BGBl I 2007/89 des FHStG führte zu einigen wesentlichen ?nderungen im Fachhochschul-Studienrecht. Sie brachte einerseits die Etablierung einer Studierendenvertretung im Fachhochschul-Bereich sowie andererseits Vorgaben für die (arbeitsrechtliche) Stellung von Lehrbeauftragten. Im folgenden Beitrag werden diese beiden Neuerungen dargestellt und einer kritischen Betrachtung unterzogen, wobei sich – dies sei vorweggenommen – einige Punkte als durchaus problematisch und daher verbesserungswürdig erweisen.     

Effects of biology teachers’ professional knowledge and cognitive activation on students’ achievement

This study examined the effects of teachers’ biology-specific dimensions of professional knowledge – pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and content knowledge (CK) – and cognitively activating biology instruction, as a feature of instructional quality, on students’ learning. The sample comprised 39 German secondary school teachers whose lessons on the topic neurobiology were videotaped twice. Teachers’ instruction was coded with regard to cognitive activation using a rating manual. Multilevel path analysis results showed a positive significant effect of cognitive activation on students’ learning and an indirect effect of teachers’ PCK on students’ learning mediated through cognitive activation. These findings highlight the importance of PCK in preservice biology teachers’ education. Items of the rating manual may be used to provide exemplars of concrete teaching situations during university seminars for preservice teacher education or professional development initiatives for in-service teachers.     

Evaluation of patterning instruction for kindergartners

Abstract

To determine whether patterning instruction was as useful or more useful than other forms of instruction, kindergarten children (age five) were taught either patterning or early literacy or mathematics or social studies in matched sessions. Instruction was conducted in 15-minute sessions from November through mid-April. Posttests on patterning, mathematics, early literacy, and three executive functions showed that the children taught patterning became significantly better at patterning than those in the other instructional conditions. No differences were found between the children taught mathematics, early literacy, or social studies. Correlational analyses indicated that the relations of patterning ability, working memory, and inhibitory control to mathematics achievement were similar. Cognitive flexibility was not very strongly related to any other measure and the executive functions were relatively independent of each other for the children who were age five.