Physics students' understanding of relative speed: A phenomenographic study

It is important that students of physics develop both quantitative and qualitative understanding of physical concepts and principles. Although accuracy and reliability in solving quantitative problems is necessary, a qualitative understanding is required in applying concepts and principles to new problems and in real-life situations. If students are not able to understand what underlies quantitative problem-solving procedures nor interpret the solution in physical terms, it is questionable whether they have developed an adequate understanding of physics. The research reported here is part of a larger phenomenographic study that is concerned with the assessment of physics students' understanding of some basic concepts and principles in kinematics. In this article students' understanding of the concept of relative speed is described. A variety of ways of understanding relative speed and of viewing a problem that dealt with this concept were uncovered. The results are used to suggest ways for teachers to proceed in assisting students to enhance their understanding of this concept. The teaching principles outlined concern both teaching relative speed, in particular, and teaching scientific concepts and principles, more generally.     

Pattern recall,decision making and talent identification in rugby union

The ability to make fast, accurate decisions is an essential skill for all who play sport. However, measuring this ability has proved difficult for coaches and talent identification practitioners. Pattern recognition (a key factor in decision making) has commonly been measured using pattern recall tasks. This study aimed to understand whether accuracy when recalling rugby union patterns is a valid measure of on-field decision making performance. In Study 1, professional players recalled structured patterns of players from still images (N?=?20) viewed for 5?s. On-field decision-making markers, including coaches’ rankings of decision-making ability, playing position, number of years playing professionally and total number of years playing rugby union, were used as predictor variables of recall accuracy. Results showed that only total number of years playing rugby union was correlated with recall accuracy, suggesting that caution is necessary when adopting these tasks for talent identification purposes. The structured stimuli used in Study 1 were not representative of a true rugby union game, so Study 2 tested novice and expert players on a pattern recall task that included structured, semi-structured and unstructured rugby union patterns. Experts were significantly more accurate than novices when recalling structured and semi-structured patterns; however, there were no differences when recalling unstructured patterns. It was concluded that structured and semi-structured patterns should be used in future studies to test whether pattern recall tasks can be used for talent identification in rugby union.     

Analogy motor learning by young children: a study of rope skipping

Research in psychology suggests that provision of an instruction by analogy can enhance acquisition and understanding of knowledge. Limited research has been conducted to test this proposition in motor learning by children. The purpose of the present study was to examine the feasibility of analogy instructions in motor skill acquisition by children. Thirty-two children were randomly assigned to one of the two instruction protocols: analogy and explicit instruction protocols for a two-week rope skipping training. Each participant completed a pretest (Lesson 1), three practice sessions (Lesson 2–4), a posttest and a secondary task test (Lesson 5). Children in the analogy protocol displayed better rope skip performance than those in the explicit instruction protocol (p?<?.001). Moreover, a cognitive secondary task test indicated that children in the analogy protocol performed more effectively, whereas children in the explicit protocol displayed decrements in performance. Analogy learning may aid children to acquire complex motor skills, and have potential benefits related to reduced cognitive processing requirements.     

Māori feminism and sport leadership: Exploring Māori women's experiences

This paper utilizes Māori Feminism from an Indigenous, intersectionality perspective in order to give four Māori women sport leaders an opportunity to voice their experiences, especially with regards to ethnocultural and gendered identities. In particular, this paper explores pathways for these Māori women into and within sport leadership. It identifies barriers they experienced and strategies used to negotiate them; it analyses the affect of various identities during their experiences of sport leadership; and it critically analyses the impact that socio-cultural and structural factors have had on the well-being of these Māori women, and their effectiveness within the sport organizations they worked. The findings suggest the participants had a strong passion for sport, experienced mana (status and prestige) due to their sporting experiences and were motivated to take on leadership roles in order to give back (mahi aroha) to sport and/or their Māori communities. Barriers they faced included being whakaiti (modest and humble) in a male-dominated, highly competitive setting, institutional racism, sexism, marginalization due to their ethnocultural and gendered identities, as well as limited resources and lack of support from governing bodies. These barriers were negotiated by having suitable mentors, utilising their sporting and community networks, by brokering relationships with members of the governing body, adopting a partnership approach, and challenging ethnocultural and gendered expectations. All of the participants incorporated aspects of Māori culture and values such as whanaungatanga (kinship), manaakitanga (support) and aroha (compassion) into their leadership style and organizational culture with mainly positive outcomes. Catering to the quadruple bottom line (economic, environmental, social and cultural measures of business success) and adhering to culturally preferred ways of communicating and consulting did, however, place additional strain on these women. The participants reflected a hybrid style of leadership that integrated values and behaviours associated with their sporting, gendered and ethnocultural identities. Further studies on indigenous women in sport leadership need to take place in order to bring to the fore socio-cultural and structural issues that arise due to the intersecting of Indigeneity and gender. In addition, the combined impact that diversity management and gender equity policies have on Indigenous women needs investigating in order to progress the ‘managing diversity’ discussion in sport.     

Interaction between motor ability and skill learning in children: Application of implicit and explicit approaches

The benefits of implicit and explicit motor learning approaches in young adults have been studied extensively, but much less in children. This study investigated the relationship between fundamental motor ability and implicit/explicit learning in children using the errorless learning paradigm. First, the motor ability of 261 children (142 boys, 119 girls) aged 9–12 years (M?=?9.74, SD?=?0.67) was measured. Second, children with motor ability scores in the upper and lower quartile learned a golf-putting skill in either an errorless (implicit) or errorful (explicit) learning condition. Four groups were formed: Errorless High-Ability (n?=?13), Errorless Low-Ability (n?=?11), Errorful High-Ability (n?=?10), and Errorful Low-Ability (n?=?11). Learning consisted of 300 practice trials, while testing included a 50-trial retention test, followed by a 50-trial secondary task transfer test, and another 50-trial retention test. The results showed that for high- and low-ability errorless learners, motor performance was unaffected by the secondary task, as was the case for high-ability errorful learners. Low-ability errorful learners performed worse with a secondary task and were significantly poorer than the corresponding high-ability group. These results suggest that implicit motor learning (errorless) may be beneficial for children with low motor ability. The findings also show a trend that children of high motor ability might benefit from learning explicitly (errorful). Further research is recommended to examine the compatibility of implicit and explicit approaches for children of different abilities.     

‘Snapchat’, youth subjectivities and sexuality: disappearing media and the discourse of youth innocence

Research on youth subjectivities and disappearing media is still in its infancy. Ephemeral technologies such as Snapchat, Frankly and Wickr offer young people opportunities for discursive agency, harnessing teenage discourses of social positioning. These media facilitate social mobility in teen peer contexts by providing a medium for dynamic and shifting relationships. The transmission of digital images can enable a social flexibility that has a significant impact on youth subjectivities where discursively constructed relational identities are brokered through cyber technologies. We tackle the question ‘what discourses are evoked and produced in the discussion of disappearing social media?’ by exploring two parents’ accounts of their children’s use of this media. We also examine a discourse of innocence that surrounds teens’ use of social media and, in particular, ephemeral applications, by sexting and cyberbullying. We engage in the debate on the use of ephemeral social media to consider the discourses influencing youth subjectivities and the nature of networked publics.     

The development of children's strategies for the social control of emotion

It has been shown that young children can recognize emotional states in their peers, that they understand many of the antecedents of emotion, and they are motivated to change negative emotional states in others. The present study examined children's ability to nominate strategic social action that would alter the ongoing emotional state of a peer. Children of 3 ages--5, 8, and 12 years of age--viewed a picture of a young child actually experiencing happiness, sadness, anger, or in a neutral state. In a portion of instances, information was also provided about the social or nonsocial experience that led to the target child's state. The strategies children nominated fell into a small set of agonistic (nurturant) and antagonistic (aggressive) behaviors intended to change positive or negative states. With increasing age, children tended to nominate a greater proportion of verbal strategies, social strategies (with the exception of strategies nominated to change anger), and strategies that directly addressed the cause of another's emotional state.     

Modifying Equipment in Early Skill Development: A Tennis Perspective

Purpose: The International Tennis Federation recently launched a worldwide campaign advocating the use of equipment scaling for children learning to play tennis. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence that varying racquet sizes and ball compressions had on children's ability to play a forehand groundstroke. Method: This was a quantitative repeated-measures design experiment. Children were required to perform a forehand hitting task using each of 9 combinations of tennis racquets and balls (i.e., 3 racquet sizes × 3 ball compressions). Children's hitting performance was measured using a points system. The aim for the children was to score as many points as possible. Hitting technique was measured via video replay. Results: Hitting performance was best when the smallest racquet combined with the ball with the least compression was used. The ball with the least compression also promoted 2 technique benefits: swinging the racquet from low to high and striking the ball in front and to the side of the body. Conclusions: This study demonstrated the benefits for young children playing with scaled racquets and low-compression balls. The findings are discussed with regards to their relevance to theories of skill acquisition.