Book Reviews

The increase in litigation by students who are dissatisfied with their assessment, and to a lesser extent the time and monetary costs of student appeals makes it imperative that institutions adopt a robust assessment strategy. The concern of consumers with respect to professional services offered by students after graduation is also an issue. This paper examines issues round the ‘borderline method’ of standard setting, using regression analysis. The paper will present data from two cohorts of students, and will examine the benefits and problems associated with this method. Increasingly academic institutions are being required to improve the validity of assessment processes; often this is at the expense of reliability. The new assessment procedures often have different assessors, have practical aspects which cannot be replicated across the cohort, and therefore raise issues with respect to the robustness of the comparative student grading mechanism. This issue has been particularly important in the field of medical education for a number of years; with medical students in the latter stages of their courses being required to demonstrate competence in a variety of different simulated clinical activities with different patients, in front of different assessors in different hospitals and on different days. This poses serious questions in the robustness of setting the pass–fail boundary and to a lesser extent the honours boundaries.     

Commercial innovation from university faculty

Study of a sample of faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) has determined that many academic scientists and engineers have commercially-oriented ideas. “Idea-havers” scored high on creativity measurement instruments and participated in more diverse work environment. Academic “idea-exploiters” are marked by personal background characteristic of family, religion and parental occupation that have been identified in earlier research as characteristics of new technical company enterpreneurs. Other indicators reflecting high need for achievement were also observed in the idea-exploiting group. Policy implications for universities and countries interested in technology-oriented development are described.     

Factors associated with physical activity referral uptake and participation

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine participant and scheme characteristics in relation to access, uptake, and participation in a physical activity referral scheme (PARS) using a prospective population-based longitudinal design. Participants (n = 3762) were recruited over a 3-year period. Logistic regression analyses identified the factors associated with the outcomes of referral uptake, participation, and completion (≥80% attendance). Participant's age, sex, referral reason, referring health professional, and type of leisure provider were the independent variables. Based on binary logistic regression analysis (n = 2631), only primary referral reason was associated with the PARS coordinator making contact with the participants. In addition to the influence of referral reason, females were also more likely (odds ratio 1.250, 95% confidence interval 1.003 – 1.559, P = 0.047) to agree to be assigned to a leisure provider. Referral reason and referring health professional were associated with taking up a referral opportunity. Older participants (1.016, 1.010 – 1.023, P < 0.001) and males were more likely to complete the referral. In conclusion, the PARS format may be less appropriate for those more constrained by time (women, young adults) and those with certain referral reasons (overweight/obesity, mental health conditions). More appropriate targeting at the point of referral could improve participation rates by revealing or addressing barriers that might later result in dropout.     

Biomechanical analysis of the change in pistol shooting format in modern pentathlon

Abstract

Despite the importance of the Combined Event to the modern pentathlon competition, little is known about performance in the event. This study aimed to (i) identify the key variables affecting Combined Event shooting performance, and the extent to which these corresponded with those identified for precision shooting and (ii) investigate the impact of changing shooting format, and whether more successful precision shooters were also more successful in the Combined Event. Seven modern pentathletes and three pistol shooters completed precision and Combined Event trials. An opto-electronic shooting system recorded score and pistol movements, whilst force platforms recorded centre of pressure movements 1 s prior to every shot. Intra-individual analysis revealed that the extent of associations between variables was participant-specific, highlighting the need for individual analysis of performance. No participants displayed matching associations between variables for precision and Combined Event shooting, emphasising the difference between performances in the two events. Both groups experienced significantly reduced scores, and increased pistol and body movements for Combined Event shooting (P < 0.05). Despite the pistol shooters’ greater precision shooting ability, no significant differences were evident between the groups’ Combined Event performances (P > 0.05). This implies that experience in one event does not guarantee success in the other, indicating the importance of event specific training.     

Checking In

Despite the growing popularity of women's ice hockey in North America, players continue to face limitations because of the prohibition of body checking. In this paper, we argue from a liberal feminist philosophical perspective that this prohibition reinforces existing traditional stereotypes of female athletes. Because the women's game does not incorporate checking, female ice hockey players are not afforded the same opportunity to flourish as men and experience bodily agency, which results in continued male domination of the game, therefore, indirectly reinforcing a gender hierarchy in hockey and society.     

Scientific evidence as content knowledge: a replication study with English and Turkish pre-service primary teachers

Pre-service teachers around the world need to develop their content knowledge of scientific evidence to meet the requirements of recent school curriculum developments which prepare pupils to be scientifically literate. This research reports a replication study in Turkey of an intervention originally carried out with pre-service primary teachers in England. The cohorts had different characteristics; in particular, their overall ability, their confidence in science and how they had been taught science at school were different. Despite these differences the explicit teaching of the ‘concepts of evidence’, which is described, proved to be a targeted and efficient intervention in both cohorts. Following teaching both cohorts had increased their understanding of scientific evidence, improved their ability to conduct an open-ended investigation and they were able to ask questions about the evidence for claims made in a socio-scientific issue.     

The affective assemblage of internationalisation in Japanese higher education

Higher Education - Positive attributes stick to higher education internationalisation, and it is a policy paradigm with performative effects. Internationalisation draws on imagined virtuous flows...     

Enhancing the early student experience

This paper is concerned with identifying how the early student experience can be enhanced in order to improve levels of student retention and achievement. The early student experience is the focus of this project as the literature has consistently declared the first year to be the most critical in shaping persistence decisions. Programme managers of courses with high and low retention rates have been interviewed to identify activities that appear to be associated with good retention rates. The results show that there are similarities in the way programmes with high retention are run, with these features not being prevalent on programmes with low retention. Recommendations of activities that appear likely to enhance the early student experience are provided.