Strategies for using feedback students bring to higher education

This article explores strategies for acting on feedback that students bring to their higher education, by exploring student perceptions on the guidance they received from their teachers in school or college. Whilst assessment issues have been the subject of a range of research studies, it is the contention of this article that little research has been undertaken to identify the strategies that students possess for ‘using’ feedback. This small‐scale research study was stimulated by M.R. Weaver’s 2006 Weaver, M.R. 2006. Do students value feedback? Student perceptions of tutors’ written response. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(3): 379–394. [Taylor & Francis Online] [Google Scholar] finding that only a quarter of students had received guidance on how to use feedback prior to university. This exploration identifies the guidance for using feedback that 350 students in Humanities brought to their degree course. Analysis of responses revealed the strategies that students had been introduced to, identifying nine indigenous categories. Whilst almost 40% of these students indicated they had received guidance for using feedback, scrutiny of responses showed that many of these students confused ‘actual feedback’ with ‘guidance on how to use’ feedback. The implications of such starting positions for students and staff are considered: questioning the adequacy of such a foundation for students to be able to make effective use of the feedback they will receive in their degree course, and finally suggesting initiatives by which staff could enable students to get more out of feedback.     

What Happens Next? Follow-Up From the Children's Toddler School Program

This study was a follow-up of a group of 29 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders at age 2 who attended an inclusive toddler program until age 3. Children ranged in age from 4 to 12 years at the time of the parent survey and follow-up testing. The majority of children were placed in a special education (noninclusive) preschool class, but among the children who were in elementary school at the time of follow-up, 63% were in general education classroom placement. Diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders remained stable, socialization skills remained a weakness, and child-related parental stress remained high despite average cognitive and language skills in the majority of children. Social skill development and support remained a service need.     

Dietary nitrate supplementation does not improve cycling time-trial performance in the heat

This investigation examined the effect of beetroot juice (BR) supplementation, a source of dietary nitrate (NO₃^?), on cycling time-trial (TT) performance and thermoregulation in the heat. In a double-blind, repeated-measures design, 12 male cyclists (age 26.6 ± 4.4 years, VO_2peak 65.8 ± 5.5 mL.kg^?1.min^?1) completed four cycling TTs (14 kJ.kg^?1) in hot (35°C, 48% relative humidity) and euthermic (21°C, 52%) conditions, following 3 days supplementation with BR (6.5 mmol NO₃^? for 2 days and 13 mmol NO₃^? on the final day), or NO₃^–depleted placebo (PLA). Salivary NO₃^? and nitrite, core (T_c) and mean skin temperature (T_sk) were measured. Salivary NO₃^? and nitrite increased significantly post-BR supplementation (p < 0.001). Average TT completion time (mm:ss) in hot conditions was 56:50 ± 05:08 with BR, compared with 58:30 ± 04:48 with PLA (p = 0.178). In euthermic conditions, average completion time was 53:09 ± 04:35 with BR, compared with 54:01 ± 04:05 with PLA (p = 0.380). The TT performance decreased (p < 0.001), and T_c (p < 0.001) and T_sk (p < 0.001) were higher in hot compared with euthermic conditions. In summary, BR supplementation has no significant effect on cycling TT performance in the heat.     

“I Could Not Believe That Would Happen”: Challenges and Opportunities in a Critical,Project-Based Clinical Experience

As part of a youth summer program—a partnership between a large Southeastern university and the local school district—middle-school-aged youth, preservice teachers, and doctoral candidates interested in arts-based literacy practices spent their mornings in June 2016 engaging in activities that both explored and expanded thinking around their communities, schools, and families. Whereas the youth were enrolled in a monthlong creative arts and tentative unschooling experiment that ran roughly the length of a typical school day, university faculty and graduate students were engaged in a course on the application of youth participatory action research (YPAR). This article is an examination of the experience of preservice teachers, through an analysis of their reflections on events within the course, to suggest ways forward through the promises and perils of project-based, clinical preservice teaching experiences. In our exploration of the experiences of focal preservice teachers when engaged with youth coresearchers in a monthlong YPAR project, we found the work to have been filled with contradictions, unexpected shifts, and moments of great understanding, community affiliation, and suffering.     

Programming Time as a Function of Movement Constraint

Abstract

Although the benefits of exercise are well documented, an international problem of physical inactivity exists. More research, especially theory based, has been recommended. One promising approach for studying exercise behavior is that proposed in the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behavior change. This model, however, has received minimal cross-cultural attention and, relative to the current study, measurement instruments have only recently been translated into the Finnish language. The purpose of this study was to assess American and Finnish college students' exercise behaviors on the basis of TTM. Participants were American (n = 169) and Finnish (n = 168) college students who completed language-specific measures of exercise behavior, stage of change, processes of change, decisional balance, self-efficacy, and temptation. The only cultural difference observed was that the American participants rated themselves higher on barrier self-efficacy relative to the Finnish participants. Regardless of nationality or gender, participants classified by their stage of change differed on all the core constructs assessed. These results generally support the utility of TTM for understanding American and Finnish college students' exercise behavior.     

Attention Demands of Precision Pistol-Shooting as a Function of Skill Level

This study provided initial validity evidence for multidimensional measures of coaching competency derived from the Coaching Competency Scale (CCS). Data were collected from intercollegiate men's (n = 8) and women's (n = 13) soccer and women's ice hockey teams (n = 11). The total number of athletes was 585. Within teams, a multidimensional internal model was retained in which motivation, game strategy, technique, and character building comprised the dimensions of coaching competency. Some redundancy among the dimensions was observed. Internal reliabilities ranged from very good to excellent. Practical recommendations for the CCS are given in the Discussion section.     

A Test of Schmidt's Schema Theory of Discrete Motor Skill Learning

Abstract

Schmidt's (1975) schema theory was tested with subjects who had to emit a rapid aiming response while wearing prism glasses. The glasses enabled them to view the target, but not their responding limb or the outcome of the movement. The problem was to determine the effect of (a) training with variable target practice, and (b) experiencing visual displacement information of the target, prior to training, on performance in transfer to a novel target distance. A 2 × 2 (type of practice × displacement information) factorial design was used, in which four groups of 15 male college subjects performed 60 training trials with verbal knowledge of results. The groups with variable target practice had less error on initial transfer to the novel target and throughout transfer than the groups with nonvariable target practice. No evidence was found to indicate that rate of learning for a novel target distance during transfer in the absence of KR is a positive function of the variability of target practice in training. Nor was any effect found for experiencing visual displacement information on performance in transfer.     

Premotor and Motor Reaction Time As a Function of Response Complexity

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to identify the response elements responsible for the complexity effect found by Henry and Rogers (1960). An attempt was made to determine if these elements were affecting the premotor time component of simple reaction time (SRT). If they were, a strong case could be made for the argument that neuromotor programming time was affected because premotor time is a more exact estimate of it than SRT. The results revealed that premotor time was unaffected by a forward change in movement direction, but increased as the number of movement parts increased from one to two and as the demand for movement accuracy increased. Thus, increasing the (1) number of parts and (2) accuracy demands were identified as elements of response complexity which increase programming time and support Henry and Rogers (1960) hypothesis that the time to initiate a response becomes longer as the programming process become more complex.