Mandating data archiving: experiences from the frontline

There is a strong drive for greater openness in scientific publishing. The British Ecological Society (BES) introduced a mandatory data archiving policy for its journals at the beginning of 2014 to increase accessibility and improve preservation. This article presents some preliminary results on the impact of that policy. Submissions to BES journals have risen 6.7% since the introduction of the policy and early indications are that Dryad is the most popular repository. The reaction of the ecological community to mandatory archiving is also discussed.     

Physical Education's Role in Public Health: Responses

In this study, we used the trans-contextual model of motivation (TCM) to examine the effect of Sport Education (SE) on students' participation in a voluntary lunch recess sport club. A total of 192 participants (ages 9-14 years) completed measures of the TCM constructs before and after a 12-week SE intervention period. Participants had the opportunity to participate in weekly, voluntary lunch recess sport club sessions during the intervention period. SE elicited a moderate increase in autonomous motives in physical education. The TCM accounted for a significant proportion of the explained variance in lunch recess sport club intention and participation. Autonomy-supportive curricular models, such as SE, may have the potential to facilitate transfer of motivation and participation in physical activity from a physical education to an extracurricular context.     

Peer Assessment of Group Projects in Civil Engineering

This article traces one university's approaches of peer assessment to develop fair and reliable systems of mark distribution resulting from group projects and to adapt one model to the specific requirements of civil engineering. It is the result of a two and a half years' experience with peer assessment in classes of different combinations of size, entry qualifications and experience. Initially, the methods devised by Goldfinch & Raeside (1990) were used; the relevance and drawbacks of this two‐part method of assessment in the field of civil engineering are discussed and new ideas are proposed. That article had suggested that the model is transferable. It has proved to be the case and in this discipline, that project diaries which the tutor uses to allocate individuals a mark, offer a unique alternative to Part 1 of the assessment process.     

Continuity and Discontinuity Between Training and School Experience: Follow-up Studies of Former Students of the Institute of Education

The present report is based on three pilot projects that aimed to explore and describe teachers' perceptions of their training and the transition experience of teachers in the shift from being a student on a teacher training programme to being a full-fledged teacher in the primary or secondary school. The three studies were prompted by the concern for a possible lack of fit, even under the best circumstances, between pre-service training and the work of a full-time teacher in a typical school. In the main, then, this report focuses on the continuity between campus-based training and teaching practice and full-time teaching experience.     

Conceptualisations of literacy and literacy practices for children with severe learning difficulties

Literacy is traditionally narrowly conceptualised as a set of skills related to accessing and generating written or printed text. For children designated as having severe learning difficulties (SLD), who are unlikely to develop these ‘conventional’ literacy skills, such a conception implies their semi‐literacy or nonliteracy. Although conceptions of multimodal literacy and multiliteracies have rarely been applied to this group, broader understandings of literacy that include a range of activities, modes and media provide greater opportunities for including these learners in literacy practices. Drawing upon our research with teachers of this group of children and young people, we illustrate these literacy practices. We note, however, that such practices are often haphazard, not coherently thought through, and that there is much confusion regarding any distinction between communication and literacy. We argue for literacy as a specific form of communication, but conclude that broader models of literacies should be utilised to guide and support practitioners in developing interactive practice and in making reasoned and principled approaches and decisions about literacy practices, routes and progression for children with SLD.     

The trans-contextual model: perceived learning and performance motivational climates as analogues of perceived autonomy support

The trans-contextual model of motivation (TCM) proposes that perceived autonomy support in physical education (PE) predicts autonomous motivation within this context, which, in turn, is related to autonomous motivation and physical activity in leisure-time. According to achievement goal theory perceptions of learning and performance, motivational climate in PE can also affect autonomous motivation in PE. The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of an integrated approach of perceptions of motivational climate in PE by incorporating aspects of perceptions of motivational climate from achievement goal frameworks on autonomous motivation in PE within the TCM. High school students (N?=?274) completed self-report measures of perceived autonomy support, perceived learning, and performance motivational climate and autonomous motivation in PE. Follow-up measures of autonomous motivation in a leisure-time context were taken along with measures of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and intentions from the theory of planned behaviour 1 week later. Self-reported physical activity behaviour was measured 5 weeks later. The results of the path analyses indicated that perceived learning climate was the strongest predictor of autonomous motivation in PE and leisure-time contexts and mediated the effect of perceived autonomy support on autonomous motivation in PE. Perceived performance climate showed no significant effect on autonomous motivation in PE and leisure-time. Results also confirmed the premises of TCM regarding the effect of autonomous motivation in leisure-time on leisure-time physical activity and the mediating role of the planned behaviour theory variables.     

Promoting Reflective Practitioners in Nursing: a review of theoretical models and research into the use of diaries and journals to facilitate reflection

Abstract

A review of the literature showed that the most popular techniques used for promoting reflection in nursing seem to be diaries and journals. However, the amount of research which actually evaluates the effectiveness of such techniques is minimal. The research which has been done tends to rely on self reports rather than investigating either the outcome of reflection or the techniques by which reflective practice may be facilitated. The research methods used do not usually use designs or outcome measures which allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of such techniques. Where there has been an attempt to investigate the processes and outcomes of techniques to promote learning through reflection, the research itself seems to be rather inconclusive or offers very partial explanations as to why an approach was either successful or unsuccessful. It is also contended that the use of diaries and journals is unlikely to take students beyond the first stage of the reflective learning cycle and that more research is needed into how learning in the later stages of the cycle can be promoted.