Compensating tendencies in penalty kick decisions of referees in professional football: evidence from the German Bundesliga 1963-2006

Using a large representative database (12,902 matches from the top professional football league in Germany), I show that the number (441) of two-penalty matches is larger than expected by chance, and that among these 441 matches there are considerably more matches in which each team is awarded one penalty than would be expected on the basis of independent penalty kick decisions (odds ratio = 11.2, relative risk = 6.34). Additional analyses based on the score in the match before a penalty is awarded and on the timing of penalties, suggest that awarding a first penalty to one team raises the referee's penalty evidence criterion for the same team, and lowers the corresponding criterion for the other team.     

Mapping the core journals of the physical therapy literature

Objectives:

The purpose of this study was to identify (1) core journals in the literature of physical therapy, (2) currency of references cited in that literature, and (3) online databases providing the highest coverage rate of core journals.

Method:

Data for each cited reference in each article of four source journals for three years were recorded, including type of literature, year of publication, and journal title. The journal titles were ranked in descending order according to the frequency of citations and divided into three zones using Bradford''s Law of Scattering. Four databases were analyzed for coverage rates of articles published in the Zone 1 and Zone 2 journals in 2007.

Results:

Journal articles were the most frequently cited type of literature, with sixteen journals supplying one-third of the cited journal references. Physical Therapy was the most commonly cited title. There were more cited articles published from 2000 to 2007 than in any previous full decade. Of the databases analyzed, CINAHL provided the highest coverage rate for Zone 1 2007 publications.

Conclusions:

Results were similar to a previous study, except for changes in the order of Zone 1 journals. Results can help physical therapists and librarians determine important journals in this discipline.

Highlights

• More cited references were published in the last eight years studied than in any previous full decade.
• Physical Therapy, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (APMR), and Spine were the most frequently cited titles. Previous studies found APMR to be the most cited journal.
• CINAHL provided the highest coverage rate for the most commonly cited titles, with MEDLINE and EMBASE providing the best coverage for the next group of titles.

Implications

• Health sciences librarians and clinicians can use these results to identify important journals for developing collections and determining the need for access to back issues of journals.
• Multiple databases are needed for comprehensive coverage of the physical therapy discipline

Implications

• Health sciences librarians and clinicians can use these results to identify important journals for developing collections and determining the need for access to back issues of journals.
• Multiple databases are needed for comprehensive coverage of the physical therapy discipline

     

PISA and its consequences: Shaping education policies through international comparisons

As the field of education has become a highly internationalised policy field in the last decade, international organisations such as the OECD play an ever more decisive role in the dissemination of knowledge, monitoring of outcomes, and research in education policy. Although the OECD lacks any binding governance instruments to put coercion on States or to provide material incentive, it has successively expanded its competences in this field. OECD advanced its status as an expert organisation in the field of education mainly by designing and conducting the international comparative PISA study. With PISA, the OECD was able to greatly influence national education systems. Basically, States were faced with external advice based on sound empirical data that challenged existing domestic policies, politics, and ideas. One prominent case for the impact of PISA is Germany. PISA was a decisive watershed in German education policy‐making. Almost instantly after the PISA results were publicised in late 2001, a comprehensive education reform agenda was put forward in Germany. The experienced reform dynamic was highly surprising because the traditional German education system and politics were characterised by deep‐rooted historical legacies, many involved stakeholders at different levels, and reform‐hampering institutions. Hence, a backlog of grand education reforms have prevailed in Germany since the 1970s. The external pressure exerted by PISA completely changed that situation.     

Defining Differentiation in Cyber Schools: What Online Teachers Say

Online education has grown over the last ten years and with it has been an increase in diverse learners. In an effort to understand how online teachers meet the needs of diverse learners, researchers surveyed teachers in two cyber schools. 118 participants were asked their definition of differentiation and how differentiation is seen in their practice. After the survey was collected, NVivo qualitative software was used to continually reduce the data through constant comparison. The results from the survey data revealed that online teachers defined differentiation from two distinct perspectives: a) why a student needs differentiation, and b) what a student needs differentiated. Online teachers stated learning styles as their primary reason for differentiation. This result was not only different from findings in face-to-face classrooms, but does not support research on what impacts student achievement. Online teachers also cited when they differentiate, they adjust content, product, and process (63% coverage). Finally, noticeably absent from the data were references to using assessments in the classroom to inform differentiation. Future research should consider how online teachers differentiate in their learning environments and how they make day-to-day decisions as they adjust instruction to meet the needs of their learners.     

Relationships between Hong Kong students’ perceptions of the learning environment and their learning patterns in post-secondary education

The present study aims to analyse the complex relationships between the relevant constructs of students’ demographic background, perceptions, learning patterns and (proxy measures of) learning outcomes in order to delineate the possible direct, indirect, or spurious effects among them. The analytical methodology is substantively framed against the studies of Richardson (British Journal of Educational Psychology 76:867–893, 2006, Higher Education 54:385–416, 2007) that utilised a regression-based methodology to infer the possible causal relationships among the relevant learning constructs. A composite research instrument, written in Chinese and derived from the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS) and the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), was used to collect students’ feedback on their perceptions of the learning environment and their learning patterns. Valid responses were obtained from 1,572 students studying at six institutions in the post-secondary education sector in Hong Kong, a new response-context for both the CEQ and the ILS. In adapting the research instruments to a new Chinese response-context, the findings are generally consistent with those reported in other published works (e.g. no relationship between students’ demographic background and their satisfaction with the programme, and a significant relationship between students’ exhibition of undirected learning patterns and low expected performance), but there are also some noteworthy discrepancies. The findings therefore buttress the confidence with which an ILS-based General Theoretical Model of student learning, adapted from Richardson (British Journal of Educational Psychology 76:867–893, 2006, Higher Education 54:385–416, 2007), may be used to conceptualise and interpret the dynamics of variation across different cultural response-contexts. While the CEQ provides some valuable complementary insights, it is an instrument that requires further development in the response-context of the present study.     

Strategic leadership of Teaching and Learning Centres: from reality to ideal

This paper reports on the third phase of a study of Australian Teaching and Learning Centres to identify factors that contribute to the effective strategic leadership of Centres. Focus groups at 10 Australian universities included 66 respondents, providing a diverse range of perspectives, from students to members of the university executive. Analysis of participant contributions extended findings from prior project phases and the wider literature. They also contributed to the final construction of the strategic leadership Teaching and Learning Centre maturity framework presented here. Centres remain in a state of flux, enduring regular reconfiguration. For most Centres, their level of interaction with students is low and increased engagement with students would be of benefit. Perceptions of Centres vary widely, reinforcing the importance of a strategic partnership between the University's Senior Executive, the Centre and faculties as a prerequisite for implementing identified high-impact strategies for improvement in teaching and learning.     

An Investigation of the Language Demands in Content Assessments for English Language Learners

The purpose of the present study is to examine the language characteristics of a few states' large-scale assessments of mathematics and science and investigate whether the language demands of the items are associated with the degree of differential item functioning (DIF) for English language learner (ELL) students. A total of 542 items from 11 assessments at Grades 4, 5, 7, and 8 from three states were rated for the linguistic complexity based on a developed linguistic coding scheme. The linguistic ratings were compared to each item's DIF statistics. The results yielded a stronger association between the linguistic rating and DIF statistics for ELL students in the “relatively easy” items than in the “not easy” items. Particularly, general academic vocabulary and the amount of language in an item were found to have the strongest association with the degrees of DIF, particularly for ELL students with low English language proficiency. Furthermore, the items were grouped into four bundles to closely look at the relationship between the varying degrees of language demands and ELL students' performance. Differential bundling functioning (DBF) results indicated that the exhibited DBF was more substantial as the language demands increased. By disentangling linguistic difficulty from content difficulty, the results of the study provide strong evidence of the impact of linguistic complexity on ELL students' performance on tests. The study discusses the implications for the validation of the tests and instructions for ELL students.