Remembering places: Student reliance on place in timed essays

This is the story of a research journey that follows the trail of a novel evaluand—place. I examine place as mentioned by rising juniors in timed exams. Using a hybridized methodology—the qualitative approach of a hermeneutic dialectic process as described by Guba and Lincoln (1989), and the quantitative evidence of place mention—I query student writing to uncover motivations for reliance on place-based experience despite the absence of an explicit mention of place in the writing prompt. Finally, I consider implications for using generative prompts to elicit evidence of student learning.     

Enhancing the Development of Low-Birthweight, Premature Infants: Changes in Cognition and Behavior over the First Three Years

The Infant Health and Development Program is a randomized clinical trial to test the efficacy of educational and family support services and pediatric follow-up offered in the first 3 years of life on reducing the incidence of developmental delay in low-birthweight (LBW), preterm infants in 8 clinical sites ( N = 985). Effects of the intervention on cognitive and behavior problem scores over the 3 years are examined. Significant intervention effects were seen on cognitive scores at 24 and 36 but not 12 months of age; effect sizes were similar at both ages. These effects persist when controlling for earlier cognitive scores. At 24 and 36 months, behavior problem scores for the intervention group were significantly lower than for the follow-up group; the intervention was more efficacious for children with higher initial behavior problem scores. Results are discussed in terms of timing and targeting of services for LBW and disadvantaged children.     

Introduction: Reflexions on Interdisciplinarity in Adapted Physical Activity

ABSTRACT

The articles included in this special issue of Quest emerged from a research workshop entitled Thinking About Our Thinking in Adapted Physical Activity, held at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, from June 18–19, 2013. The aim of the workshop was to examine different worldviews that contribute to the adapted physical activity research literature, to identify key disciplinary assumptions, and to outline their consequences for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the field. A lack of understanding of the basic assumptions held by researchers often impedes communication between the disciplines. Hence, a sub-theme of this special issue is communication across disciplines. These conversations are, of course, essential to interdisciplinary inquiry.     

Impact of the Friendly Schools whole-school intervention on transition to secondary school and adolescent bullying behaviour

Peer bullying increases in times of school transition, influenced by changing peer and friendship groups, new schooling environments and greater stress. Covert forms of bullying, including cyberbullying, become more common in secondary school and cause considerable distress and long-term harm. The period of transition to secondary school is therefore a critical window for intervening to manage and prevent bullying. A three-year cluster randomised control trial was conducted to develop, implement and evaluate the Friendly Schools Project intervention which aimed to reduce bullying and aggression among more than 3,000 students who had recently transitioned to secondary school. Intervention schools were provided with individualised training and resources to support students’ transition and reduce bullying using a multi-level comprehensive intervention addressing classroom curriculum, school policies and procedures, the social and physical environment, pastoral care approaches and school-home-community links. Although the observed effect sizes were small, the intervention had a consistently significant positive effect across a range of outcomes, including bullying perpetration, victimisation, depression, anxiety, stress, feelings of loneliness and perceptions of school safety at the end of the students’ first year in secondary school. However, none of these differences were sustained into the students’ second year of secondary school. These findings demonstrate the immediate value of whole-school interventions to reduce bullying behaviour and associated harms among students who have recently transitioned to secondary school, as well as the need to provide strategies that continue to support students as they progress through school, to sustain these effects.     

The infant as onlooker: learning from emotional reactions observed in a television scenario

Two studies investigated whether 10- and 12-month-olds can use televised emotional reactions to guide their behavior. Infants watched an actress orient toward 1 of 2 novel objects and react with neutral affect during baseline and with positive or negative affect during test. Infants then had 30 s to interact with the objects. In Study 1, 12-month-olds (N = 32) avoided the target object and showed increases in negative affect after observing the negative-emotion scenario. Twelve-month-olds' responses to positive vs. neutral signals did not differ significantly. In Study 2, 10-month-olds (N = 32) attended to the televised presentations but showed no consistent changes in their object interactions or affect. Thus, 12-month-olds used social information presented on television and associated emotional signals with the intended target.