Targeting associated mechanisms of anterior cruciate ligament injury in female community-level athletes

This study aims to determine if biomechanically informed injury prevention training can reduce associated factors of anterior cruciate ligament injury risk among a general female athletic population. Female community-level team sport athletes, split into intervention (n = 8) and comparison groups (n = 10), completed a sidestepping movement assessment prior to and following a 9-week training period, in which kinetic, kinematic and neuromuscular data were collected. The intervention group completed a biomechanically informed training protocol, consisting of plyometric, resistance and balance exercises, adjunct to normal training, for 15–20 min twice a week. Following the 9-week intervention, total activation of the muscles crossing the knee (n = 7) decreased for both the training (? ?15.02%, d = 0.45) and comparison (? ?9.68%, d = 0.47) groups. This decrease was accompanied by elevated peak knee valgus (? +27.78%, d = ?0.36) and internal rotation moments (? +37.50%, d = ?0.56) in the comparison group, suggesting that female community athletes are at an increased risk of injury after a season of play. Peak knee valgus and internal rotation knee moments among athletes who participated in training intervention did not change over the intervention period. Results suggest participation in a biomechanically informed training intervention may mitigate the apparent deleterious effects of community-level sport participation.     

Action learning: cultural differences

The article describes the experience of forming a set in a higher education institution and offers some observations and insights gained from the perspectives of the role of the set adviser, cultural differences and the challenges of attempting to align theory, practice and experience.     

Do managers and students share the same perceptions of societal culture?

This article explores the notions of convergence and divergence in respect of societal cultural practices and values within and across Austria and the Republic of Ireland, by comparing samples of middle managers and students on nine dimensions of culture. In the context of globalization, we consider whether there is evidence of cultural convergence across the Austrian and Irish samples or if the data of the two countries remain distinct (country effect). We also ask whether differences between managers and students can be attributed to cohort/age effects. Our findings suggest that there is some convergence, but also that the country effect is more dominant than the cohort/age effect for both practices and values. High within-country consistency exists in respect of practices between Irish students and managers and between Austrian students and managers. For values, there is evidence of convergence across all four sub-samples on four cultural dimensions, namely Power Distance, Gender Egalitarianism, Collectivism I and Future Orientation. We discuss whether the dynamics underlying such convergence can be attributed to cultural change, generational differences and/or an idealized worldview held by the younger generation.     

Where Britain Meets ‘the Continent’: Language and Cultural Exchange in Children's Fiction

Children's perceptions of other cultures are formed, at least in part, by the books they read; yet the potential of children's literature in the UK as a site for international cultural exchange is limited by a lack of translations and a historical resistance in Britain toward the languages of the European continent. The Year of European Languages is an opportune moment to explore the reflection of this uneasy linguistic relationship in children's texts and to compare selected instances of the role of European languages in British children's fiction from the mid-twentieth century to the present day.     

Growing a garden without water: Graduate teaching assistants in introductory science laboratories at a doctoral/research university

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in the sciences are a common feature of U.S. universities that have a prominent mission of research. During the past 2 decades, increased attention has been paid to the professional development of GTAs as instructors. As a result, universities have created training programs to assist GTAs in selecting instructional methods, curricular formats, and assessments when they serve as laboratory, lecture, or discussion group instructors. Unfortunately, few studies explore the educational and instructional environment of GTAs in these reformed settings. This study was conducted to address this specific need. As a constructivist inquiry, qualitative methods were used to collect and analyze the data to elucidate the educational and instructional environment of science GTAs at a doctoral/research university in which various training programs existed. We found that GTAs worked autonomously, that traditional practices and curricula existed in laboratories, and that instructors frequently held limited views of undergraduates' abilities and motivation. Findings in this initial study about GTAs suggest that developers of GTA training programs draw on the literature regarding science teacher education, and that reward systems be instituted that recognize faculty and staff for their participation in GTA training programs. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 211–233, 2004     

Tertiary students' knowledge of their own learning and a SOLO Taxonomy

This paper is a report of the analysis of statements by 869 students and their 21 lecturers in 12 courses in 5 Faculties in the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The students and lecturers were asked to write a page about learning. The objectives were to collect data to devise a taxonomy of levels of knowledge of learning held by tertiary students and lecturers and to use this to describe student knowledge to lecturers as a basis for planning for teaching. The statements were categorised, using the SOLO Taxonomy as a model (c.f., Biggs and Collis 1982, 1989), by two trained researchers and checked by the author and a consultant. The majority of responses for both students and lecturers were multistructural. A MANOVA for SOLO levels by deep, surface and achieving motives and strategies showed that as SOLO levels increased surface motives declined and deep motives and strategies assumed more importance. The key concepts in learning identified by a random sample of 100 students were further analysed and described for each SOLO level. A SOLO type model of levels of knowledge of learning is proposed, based on the structure of the responses.     

Education and Domesticity

This paper explores the relationship between education and domesticity within two different contexts. The first is the theoretical literature about the reproduction of domesticity within the education system — which in various ways suggests that the education of girls and women leads them towards domestic roles and low paid work. The second context is a study of mature women students, in which respondents saw education as leading them away from the traditional versions of domestic roles and into more rewarding paid employment. The paper concludes that the reproduction of social roles is contested and that the extension of education for women has real potential for destabilising traditional notions of femininity.     

Undergraduate Students’ Conceptions of Mathematics: An International Study

In this paper, we report on an international study of undergraduate mathematics students’ conceptions of mathematics. Almost 1,200 students in five countries completed a short survey including three open-ended questions asking about their views of mathematics and its role in their future studies and planned professions. Responses were analysed starting from a previously-developed phenomenographic framework (Reid et al., 2003) which required only minor modification. Students’ conceptions of mathematics ranged from the narrowest view as a focus on calculations with numbers, through a notion of mathematics as a focus on models or abstract structures, to the broadest view of mathematics as an approach to life and a way of thinking. Broader conceptions of mathematics were more likely to be found in later-year students (p<0.001) and there were significant differences between universities (p<0.001). The information obtained from the study not only confirms previous research, but also provides a basis for future development of a monitoring questionnaire.